According to my friend D, our run today was super muddy and super slippy

[Maddee_6333]

She was not wrong! Which is why we ended up walking some of it, while trying hard not to stop.

We headed to some woods that we often run with the dogs because it was pouring with rain as we left home and we thought it might be a bit drier overhead, if not underfoot. Neither of us had dogs today because they both had massage therapy yesterday.

We parked in our regular car park - which was pretty full - and set off up our regular 7k route before branching off to go exploring (and add extra distance). Our first exploration took us to a bridge neither of us had ever seen before that alas had a sign beside it that read:

PRIVATE

KEEP OUT

LIVE FIRING

*gulp*

So we turned round and continued on some more familiar paths for a bit till we got to a place where we knew we should head left up a really steep hill and decided to run past it and see where it led. This was actually a pretty good idea as it ultimately brought us round in a really big loop. Not a great idea, you understand as we had to wade up a hill on the loop, and still had to face another muddy uphill after 🤦‍♀️. I did the world’s shortest fartlek on the hill after the loop - maybe 20 metres - with my friend shouting ‘High knees! High knees!’ in the background.

We’d done about 7k by then, thanks to the loop so felt able to stick to our normal route and head back to the car.

We got - lost is too strong a word for it - but definitely off course in the last half kilometre. Luckily we were by the road that leads to the car park by then (which we shouldn’t have been) so if push had come to shove we could have run along that and been fine. As it was we stayed in the wood and could soon see the cars in the car park, which just left us carefully picking our way over to them.

We were both really hungry by the time we’d finished so headed over to a very tiny café that specialises in catering to cyclists, and had THE most amazing bacon and egg rolls and a mug of tea each.

[Langley-Loper Graduate10]

Definitely earnt the refreshments.

[Maddee_6333 Graduate10 in reply to Langley-Loper]

We think so 😀

[pinkaardvark Graduate10]

I love your story of noodling around the muddy woods and all followed by a lovely cuppa If all my runnings could be so cool

[Maddee_6333 Graduate10 in reply to pinkaardvark]

Hahahahah! I don’t know that I’d ever describe them as ‘cool’. Freezing cold and soggy sometimes, yes.

As long as you enjoy yours while your doing them, that’s the main thing. 🙂

[skysue16 Graduate10]

Sounds fun, exploring new routes is great (but not getting 'lost'!). 😊

[Maddee_6333 Graduate10 in reply to skysue16]

Yes. Getting lost is not good. Couldn’t believe that we went off the route when we were somewhere that we actually knew the path at the end 🤦‍♀️