Today’s plan was designed to fit in around Ginge having his hair cut and take in a sneaky bit of canal. By rights, this section was supposed to be done as part of the the very last run when I will join up the East and West sides. We parked up in town and I hoofed it down the road, up a never before run (by me anyway) hill and down the other side to the canal. For those of you that think I only run in lush green places, I have to confess to a little bit of editing on this run. Only about a quarter of it was on the towpath, so things I didn’t take pictures of included:
- The town’s bypass
- B&Q
- The chap drinking cans of Stella whilst sitting beside the bypass near B&Q at 9 o’clock in the morning
I did take a photo of a demonlition site, but the sign that remains seemed appropriate for Juneathon.
On the way to the towpath, I accidentally went through some private property – my only defence for tresspassing is that I didn’t notice the slope to the canal because my attention was caught by the brightly coloured tape, smashed up pick-up and fluorescent signs. They brought it on themselves.
Down to the canal at bridge 78a and up past the U-Boat. Yes. The U-Boat. This first appeared last year, soon caught the media’s attention (it even trended on Twitter) and is now open to the public with a full multimedia experience thrown in.
Sadly, it was too early for me to have a look on board, so I plodded on.
I’d mapped the route last night and had got it into my head that it was about 3 miles. As I reached the end of the canal section I realised that I’d misjudged that slightly and the only way that it could possibly be that distance was if I ran up the hard shoulder of the motorway (am I the only one who frequently thinks that motorways would be ace to run on?). 4.75 miles later I found Ginge in the car park and that was that.
More proper canal running is planned for tomorrow – I’ve decided to make Monday the last chance to name my Garmin (I love the ideas so far) and we’ve a crowbar on standby so that the tin of Uncle Joe’s can be prised from my grasp.
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Miles run = 4.75 Canal miles completed = 1 Total canal miles = 63.6/127* Bridges = 78A-80 U-boats = 1 |