Another milestone

After a couple of hours of strengthening work and a short run on a treadmill at the gym on Saturday, I was ready to give the knees a proper test.  May be it was the country air or the luxury of having a couple of days off to visit family in Cheshire, but it was time for a long run.  Nothing short of the magic "13" would have done the trick.  So after having done a four mile walk over the fields to visit Beeston Castle and back, for over half of which I had to carry my daughter on my shoulders (!), it was trainers on time for a lovely long run along the towpath of the Shropshire Union Canal to visit my brother's family in Waverton...

Most people would have gone by car and thought it was a long way.  As the rain started to come down, the already dim sunlight fading, two wrong turnings before I had even left Bunbury, no phone or money on me and doubts about whether I should have turned "right" at the canal not "left", I was having second thoughts about my 'great idea'...!  Also with all the rain, the clay soil of the towpath was incredibly slippery and a few times I very nearly took an early bath.  Then fifty minutes into the run with no-one around to help, a large thorn became impaled in one of my shoes.  I couldn't pull it out and had to carry on, hoping the thorn would not work its way through the sole into my foot.

Waverton is the first real bit of civilisation that you come across after many many miles along the towpath.  It's a familiar landscape for me from my childhood but I wasn't stopping there -- I had to continue on and go all the way up to Rowton Bridge and then back again in order to make up the distance.  Those last couple of miles, running away from my final destination before heading back (on hard tarmac - eek!), were really tough!

13.6 miles in the wet and mud, with a time of around 1 hour 55 minutes despite getting lost and trying in vain to sort out my 'puncture' -- quite a milestone given my inability to run even half a mile in December!

Today was a short run between the rain showers back in Greenwich Park (around thirty five minutes of running).  My legs lacked energy and ached from the long run on Monday, and I had completely overeaten at lunchtime, but at least the knees felt fine....