The day started with an absolute pea souper as the alarm went off at 5.30am for a planned thirty mile training run. I was very tired last night and managed to get to bed early, which was just as well to give me such much needed beauty sleep. And yes, I know I need lots more. Be that as it may, a very slow drive to the meeting point in Hexton with full fog lamps on meant I was 10 minutes late. The wise choice of lack of speed proved to be a good one, as I went past a lorry that had driven straight over a roundabout and into a verge. The boys in blue were on the scene so I carried on. Rather strangely, as I pulled into the meeting point the fog cleared for the first time. Richard was standing there in short sleeve t-shirt, so I abandoned my plan to run in a jacket and just went with a long sleeve. He told me five minutes into the run that it wasn't by choice, as he had forgotten his top. As we left the village, the fog returned and the hands got colder. We decided to climb straight to the top of Barton Hill and as we did, we rose above the fog and found the sun. We looped around the top of the hill and came back down again via Barton Church, finding the fog and a drop in temperature.
Mmm., peer pressure! And I'm 44!
After around 5 1/2 miles, we returned to the cars to find the second wave who had decided to have a lay in and turn up at 7.30am, which is the normal start time. We were in fact a lot lighter in number today, due to various races being run by the crew today and on Sunday.
James, Richard and I intended to run the full 30, Mark was going to be around the 20 odd mark, Katie started off with the same sort of distance in mind and the rest were keeping it to around 12 miles due to pending races. I had suggested that we run part of the John Bunyan trail from Hexton through to Shefford and then possibly part of the next section. At the end of May, the three of us and two other lads from the club are going to attempt to run the entire 78 odd miles and today was mostly about checking a section that we didn't really know. If my timings are right, we will go through this section at around 1am -3am and rather than risk a wrong turn in the dark, with no race marshals or course directions to follow, we thought we would check it out. We also hope to have lots of other pals from the club joining us along the route, but ultimately we are in charge of the route planning. As it turned out, the route was quite straight forward.
As we entered Shefford, the SMC split and we headed over to the high street. John Bunyan was a famous preacher who walked all over Bedfordshire donkeys years ago. It was not that surprising therefore that the route took us part loads of churches including the main one in Shefford high street. These are very handy on long runs as most will have an outside tap, albeit Shefford didn't and we had to wait for satnav to try to find one. I did take the chance to down a peanut butter sarnie and a few jelly babies for dessert.
Having left Shefford, we went cross country to the Greyhound pub at Haines, finding on the way the one of only two signs for the JB trail all morning. We knew there was a tap there, which is good news for the JB proper as it will certainly be dark o'clock at that point.
I took the chance to drop the backpack for a brief rest as it had finally warmed up. Katie was running very well and was knocking the miles off quite comfortably. She has come a very long way since starting with the SMC in early January, when she struggled to get to nine miles and looked as though she could have stopped at six. She has put in the miles and has blossomed in terms of her stamina and endurance in the last few months.
Leaving Haines, we stepped off the JB trail as that was going to Bedford and we had to start making our way back. The first part of the run had a bit too much road running for me and it was good to get back on mostly trails heading into Clophill, where we would eventually drop Mark off.
Dropping down for Haines, we joined a well known section and enjoyed the increasingly warm weather.
At Clophill, we stopped again for the second part of my peanut butter sarnie and a drink. Satnav found what must have been the 8th church on route and popped in for a bit of water. I think he must have had a bit of the holy water as he came out raring to go, despite having covered 22 odd miles by that point.
Taking the hill into Upper Gravenhurst meant a walk, a further drink and check of the map. We were slowing down a little, except Katie who seemed to pick it up each time we were on the flat. I didn't manage to take many photos after this point, as we were down to just four of us and we ploughed on. In addition, in order to take the photos, I normally have to sprint on ahead, whip out the camera, take the snap, zip it up and then catch up. At 26 cross country miles, it became too hard to do and instead I concentrated on just getting home. On the way, we returned to the cars for a second time in order to drop Katie off. She did around a 21 and 1/2 miles and despite doing so well, I didn't think it was fair to take her to 25 mile odd miles which is what we would have had to do if we had carried on with her to 30. Having dropped her, we then had to loop another 3 1/2 odd miles. I don't like looping at the best of times and certainly not at the car. Still, no choice as come what may it was 30 miles.
And, we got there. Great training run and a massive congrats to James who ran the furthest he has ever run.. by about 300 metres as his watch said 30.3 miles. Right, I'll take that!
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