Hello fellow runners. It's time to take those shoes off, rub some life back into your toes and give them a good soak. How have things been going in your running journey?
linda9389 has asked me to mind the fort this week.
My news is that this weekend I've been away from home for the long weekend.
I did a few things out of the ordinary this weekend: a barefoot parkrun (with PB) and my slowest ever Half Marathon distance.
Even though I'd planned the route for the HM run long in advance, I had trouble with the actual execution.
I'd expected some of the public footpaths to be a little overgrown and indistinct. I had maps. What I hadn't expected was getting my ear bent by a guy who came out of his house as I ran down the wide drive that was marked with a green dashed line on the OS map. There were no signs at the end where I'd entered it. What I hadn't expected was him ranting for twenty plus minutes at me. It's obvious if lots of people are going the wrong way there's a problem with the signage.
Anyway, once I'd got about a mile away, I walked for a bit on the riverbank footpath (well marked) and reported the signage problem to the county council via their website.
The morning got hotter than I'd hoped. I had to do run/walk intervals to stop getting too tired. Running along the busy A10 was rather exciting. Then finding the waymarked path on the wrong side of a crash barrier was confusing. The group of cows/bullocks blocking my way at a gate was also exciting. And then going past the local gun club's shooting range was deafening.
I had just enough fluids in my pack to finish (I ran out about 500m from the end). The long soak in the bath afterwards was most welcome. My lower legs were still tingling from the various nettle stings I'd received well into the evening.
Do others do such mad exploratory runs? Do you have tales to tell of unexpected twists that have happened when you have been out on a long run? Or do you play it safe?
However you do it, have a great week of running (or not) and let us know your news.
On behalf of the Marathon Team…
~~~~~
⭐️ If you have a race coming up in September and would like a pompom cheer from your VRBs then head here:
I used to take the borrowed hound dog on exploratory recce’s. I always felt comfortable when out with him anywhere🏃♀️🐕
I run anywhere now on my own with no qualms. I’ve only had the jitters once, running through an apparently abandoned farmyard when I spotted a top of the range car. It tittered nervously at myself as it reminded me of Scooby Doo. I ran into a world if trouble shortly afterwards when I found myself in deep brambles ☹️
I think we’re more at risk from traffic than anything else, which us why I prefer off-road 🙂
As both my tumbles have been off road, I think I gravitate to roads with pavements, or at least relatively smooth compacted earth/gravel surfaces. Our local lanes are lovely but the traffic is nothing short of terrifying!!!
I never successfully ran with our dog ... she was a total trip hazard 🤩It will be a lucky dog indeed though, to get to run with you along that beautiful coast 😊 Metric marathon badge waiting ...
I looked at getting either a Kelpie or a Vizsla before we got our Cocker spaniel & discounted both as I didn’t think I would give them the exercise they needed. Now I’ve got two dogs that won’t run long distance 🙄
Nawh what little cuties! Oh, vizslas are beautiful, so like my old pointer. I probabky won't get another dog ... but if I did it would have to be a pointer, a vizsla or ... funnily enough ... a spaniel! Now we're retired, we're loving the freedom of being dogless, but never say never!
I’m not getting involved in a dog again if I can help it. Once the hound has gone to doggy heaven I’m retiring from dog sitting. I’ve told the owners! 😀
We often don’t get the dogs we’d like. I never expected to run with a French basset but I did. He ran like a train but zig-zagged which was a bit weird. I stopped when he did as he was stronger than me 😁
So do I! I greet owners and dogs Owners love it when you acknowledge their pets 🙂. We all share our great outdoors so it pays to get along 👍
Yup, fave Basset of Bretagne. Awesome dogs. Lovely movers 😀. Bit feral in behaviour mind you, The call of the wild being strong in them. My borrowed one loved rough, stormy weather. It whipped lots of scents for him to chase down. Sheesh 🐕💨😁
I like dogs and will usually greet them separately if they're apart from their owners. Some want to say hello and some are not interested. I've never encountered any unfriendly ones.
The biggest danger I find is from long leads being trip hazards.
Good to see you hosting the weekly chat nowster. I always read it but rarely say anything. When my sister used to visit she went for a 10k run every morning, she crossed the A27 and looped up around a big hill on the South Downs, one day in June this year I decided to do the same. Well I haven't a clue where she went, I followed the road I knew she went on and got totally lost, eventually after going up and up I spotted a clump of trees that I thought I recognised in the distance and headed that way, back to familiar territory I headed for the seafront and home. It may have been the route she did, I'd covered 13k by the time I got home, sisters 10k took an hour, my 13k took at least double that but thinking of the time i was running in road Im not sure her 10k was quite as long as most peoples. She guessed it 🤣🤣🤣 ran for an hour and called it 10k
Haha, If I guessed my distances I suspect I would be way off ... I'd probably be doubling the reality if I really had no clue 😍Good on you for sticking with that run though, especially if it ended up longer than expected.
Please do speak on these weekly chat threads more often ... all contributions are welcome and are what makes it such a varied read - for everyone 😊
Thank you Linda. My sister was running a lot during the years I was bringing up a family and building a career,I envied that she had the time to train for and run Marathons, and entered many races, but I do wonder if she ran as far as she thought sometimes.
Morning nowster! Thanks for holding the fort and well done, not only with your PB but running barefoot!
I’m currently enjoying a lovely BH lie in post Severn Bridge HM with added 3 miles and contemplating writing a post and then doing some yoga or something, so I won’t say too much.
I’m not overly keen on trails so don’t tend to go off the beaten track much. As much for experiences like you’ve just had with your lovely landowner - that would freak me out if I was on my own. Shame really as it shouldn’t be like this. I’ll stick to roads.
Week 10 of marathon training starts today. Thankfully a bit of a cutback week but it still ends with another HM. Getting quite into the swing of them again now as that’ll be the 4th in four weeks 😳
I got hassled by a white van man once. He was irate with me as I wouldn’t let him use his van to force me into deep mud on the side of a bend in the road. He was using the CLOSED road as a rat run and was well miffed with me for shaving seconds off his day 😁. The road was too narrow for his large van and he knew he shouldn’t have been there. Undaunted I ignored him for a bit til he started swearing at me. I let him know what I thought if him and ran on. I felt like telling him to “have a nice day” but resisted the urge 😁
It’s best not to engage with people though if they’re angry. Let them get hot and bothered, we’ve got work to do 😁
I'm like you TC - stick with routes with less unpredictability. Hmmm, that pretty much sums up my life choices 😍. I don't think that's something for me to be proud of though 🙈🙈🙈. I sometimes pick a more gnarly route if I want to slow myself down; that way I have no comparison to make and feel less (self imposed) pressure to pick up speed. Hope you're enjoying the cutback week 😊
I’m always veering off hither and thither to see where I end up. It piques the interest and keeps me on my toes and from getting bored. I like knowing as many paths as poss as it’s generally just helpful info. Knowing one’s manor sorta thing. My husband dreads the words, “I know a short cut” ☺️
Morning all 👋. I’m just off for a ten miler. Ta ta
Have a fabulous bank holiday everyone
PS. I had to turn down an offer of swanky lunch and football! ⚽️ I nearly lost my resolve 🫣. Roast beef dinner too 🙄
Oooh, your resolve is amazing. I think I'd have at least tried to work the run and the lunch in, even if I'd have had to forfeit the football! hope it was a grand 10 miles 😊
I stick to a few trails which I know really well; I guess that focussing on navigation on top of pace, time etc is too much for my old brain. Another factor is that the other trails involve a lot of climbing; maybe 30 years ago, but not now. It has never been an issue yet, but I suppose that I have to think about rescue routes as I get older….I am pretty good at staggering home dragging one leg or the other (hasn’t been both at the same time yet!🤞).
My adventurous streak comes to the fore with my occasional night trail runs. I love running along with a head torch to light the way, listening to foxes and owls, and watching bats flit across in front of me. I am not remotely afraid of anything up there; I know that I won’t meet anyone or anything more crazy than me!
I am pretty good at staggering home dragging one leg or the other (hasn’t been both at the same time yet! Love it! That conjures a great image of you emerging from the trees, manhandling one leg then the other to maintain a forward trajectory 😍 You're very brave with the night runs though ... would Mrs BC come and rescue you if you tripped in the dark?
Hi Linda. I think that Mrs BC, armed with flash light and Molly, would come to my rescue. She did have to take me to A&E a few years ago after Molly ran into my knee, up in the woods, and I just couldn’t walk! It wasn’t dark though. I ended up on crutches just before we were due to fly to Ontario. We ended up canoeing, so legs not really needed.👍
I'm not sure which I would like least ... that gritty path in bare feet or the angry landowner! Surely that can't be the first time he's had people trotting down his drive?
I'm pretty conservative when I'm running (I hate stopping to check maps and I'm not keen on nettles either), but when I'm walking I will blindly wander about, taking any turn I fancy; when it feels like time to start heading home I'll get my phone out and let Komoot show me the way home (although I think my watch is probably able to do that too). It's amazing how 'logical' most of the route maps turn out too!
Most of my running is on roads, but I love running by water whenever I have time - usually with a well planned route (Komoot giving me audio directions and a course map on my watch for visual). Having said that, I did once plan a HM route, only to find a key path I'd chosen near Dorney Lake was only open on event days - the alternative I found involved a fair bit of stile hopping, but nothing worse thankfully.
Well done on the PB the HM adventure and hosting the chat. I am a creature of habit and generally stick to the same routes except for occasional detours into the new housing estates which have popped up over the last couple of years -beautiful smooth pavements for running but a tendency to meet dead ends !Running "off piste" tends to be an activity reserved for really hot days when the desire for a shady spot draws me in to explore the public footpaths through some local fields and woods. I have a tendency to turn back anywhere that the footpath rute becomes unclear-I don't do confrontation !
Everything I do this I promise myself to do it again soon but never do-until the next unbearably hot day...
Oh yes, that's one of the few times I head for the trees - when it's really hot. But of course that's how I ended up losing my two front teeth!!! Having said that, I ended up on my knees when I hit a dead end on a new housing development and turned on the spot in what turned out to be a muddy puddle. Maybe I need to stop blaming the environment and focus a bit more on staying upright 😍
Ouch !!!!! I think we all take the occasional tumble-I still have a grey "tattoo " on my hand courtesy of a rolling tumble (style points 10!) during my first half marathon on a flat tarmac path with no trip hazards!-but I still maintain that we blame the environment and not ourselves .Run safe 🏃♀️ 🩹
It wasn't even an event- so not too many witnesses-I was just running around roads in my local town with NRC and Mr Garmin measuring the distance-yes I finished after a very brief stop at home to grab a couple of plasters!! (fortunately not far from the drama ). So no bling but I got my HU HM badge 😃
Thanks for hosting nowster and well done on your PB!
I love going off-piste and exploring but don’t do it very often as it can ramp up the mileage quickly before you know it especially if you get lost!
I had an unexpected hiccup a few weeks ago on a long training run when the road ahead was closed off due to a Tough Mudder event! Then I had to calculate a new route in my head which didn’t work out as I expected (I don’t seem to be able to do maths and run at the same time 😂) and I still had to run to another village to get the mileage in. But hey, it keeps everything interesting.
I’ve faced a pack of hunting hounds in training on an early morning run. Although I know they wouldn’t do me any harm, I still got out of their way and gave them the road 🙀
In the past I’ve come across some unexpected twists like shin-high flooding in the road and slippery, nettle-covered banks with nothing to grip onto
Then there was the sign on the edge of a wood in the Black Forest which I couldn’t understand but I turned around anyway just in case the sign said there were bears about 🙀
And probably my favourite, running on one of the Venice islands and coming to a halt because the land ran out and then there was sea 😮
Ooh, I can't do maths and run either .... I blame it on my legs hijacking all the oxygen with nothing left to supply my brain!!! I think I'd rather a detour that came up short than one that took me miles out of my way 😊 Running out of land and ending up at the sea sounds good to me too 😍
I did read somewhere that after a race we can become a bit “dumb” - something to do with the blood flow in our legs instead of our brains 😂
I can vouch for this because after a race in Bristol once I totally forgot where I arranged to meet my husband and I didn't take my phone with me so couldn't call him. Talk about feeling dim 🙈
I ended up having to borrow a marshal’s phone. Then when my husband told me where we had AGREED to meet up, I remembered, “oh yes” 🙄🤣
Oh nooooo! That's pretty embarrassing 😳 I found that during races I lost the ability to calculate paces and times. I now set the course up on my watch and simply look at the visual to see whether the grey man is in front or the red one. However, I do have to remember whether I'm the red or the grey man 🙈🤷♀️😍
Your HM sounds more like earning an orienteering badge for the scouts than a run 😂😂
I tend to stick to paths and roads and rarely venture into the wild!!
This week I did run around a field whilst away camping as the roads felt too dangerous to run on for long. It, however, reaffirmed for me that I prefer roads and the surety that when I place my foot, it’s unlikely to fall down a hole!
Can’t see me ‘on the trails’ any time soon im afraid!
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Weekly chat June 22-28
Iiiit's weekly chat time! ☕🍪🍪🍪 26th August - 1st September 
