Today was supposed to be a longer run - in time not distance. I planned to run steadily for 39 (pretty random, huh?) minutes as a stepping stone towards running for an hour. I decided to throw a new location into the mix...
There are lakes next to a nearby shopping centre and I thought a couple of slow laps would take me a good way and then I could add on a twiddly bit along the way. I found a path away from the main drag and followed it. It was bucketing down and the path was narrow. Then very narrow. It went alongside a canal-like waterway and got so narrow that it barely existed and encroached by brambles and nettles which were impossible to avoid - thank goodness for the protection offered by shorts! 😬
I finally came through to a meadow which looked to lead back to the shopping centre. I jogged across this to a gate next to which stood the scariest creature in Northamptonshire ... and his mates. I know velociraptors are rare in the county, but here's photographic proof that they exist! 😱
Naturally I turned back and took what's known in the trade as a "short cut" back to the main path. This turned out to be through an actual, semi-flooded meadow, with random fences, barbed wire, waist-high nettles, head-high brambles, long grass, and anacondas (in retrospect, possibly big twigs - although really scary ones).
After about an hour and a half of desperate, edge-of-the-seat, potential-death-around-every-corner rambling (confirmed by Garmin as four minutes) I managed to hack my way back to civilisation.
After pitting my wits against the very worst that nature could throw at me (on a wet Monday morning, next to a shopping centre in Northamptonshire) I emerged triumphant. There were times I did not think I was going to make it. I am genuinely lucky to be alive! 😇
I then jogged one and a half times around the lake.
46 minutes. 5.75k. 400m of treacherous raptor-infested swamp.
On Wednesday I shall be mainly running around the park.
Went for a little walk yesterday
Walking in the Dark
🍏 A little adventure 