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.
Written by
Gthants
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I don't know what to say, that's probably one of the most terrifying runs I've read about. 'I nearly laughed til I cried' but I have a bit of a rule not to cry first thing in the morning and I didn't wake early. I almost spit my tea out though and just love the photo, if I came face to face with one of those I would have got a PB for sure (in the opposite direction) oh no I wouldn't! Come to think of it I'd have had to stroke it to see if it was as soft as it looked.
What an adventure and thanks for starting my day off happy (it's not really like me to be happy about others misfortunes but...)
Velociraptors don't have wings. They are cunning, clever and very, very fast. These days they can only be found on Isla Nebula (and in Northamptonshire).
I felt nervous just reading about the cows in the field-look at the size of those horns! Eek.
Congratulations on surviving your run! Hopefully the next one will be less eventful. Those scary ones can be great….when you’re home with a cup of tea in safety!
One of my mottos for life is “a short cut is never a short cut”!
I don’t know Northampton or Kettering but I hope they stay there and don’t venture any further north! Although I’ve heard we do often have zombies here by the seaside..
OMG after my encounter with cows surrounded us would have died if I’d saw this velociraptor. He looks like he can’t see with his fringe but a bet he can. He looks like a Highland Coo. I bet this was one walk or run you would rather forget about. 🙂
Him and his friends were so beautiful, but just a ton of muscle on the hoof. Not worth arguing with! (Though it was a very strange place to see Highland Cattle!)
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