Yesterday the main roads and their pavements were mostly snow-free. ‘Brilliant’, I thought, ‘late shift at work, long run in the morning, job done’. I woke up to this:
So I went out and ran in it.
For three miles.
It was rather good fun.
Especially running across fresh unsullied snow.
Well I only went and faced my fears didn’t I? Skating across the car park made me realise that an off-road run was a good idea, so what the heck I might as well join the beginners trail running group I had seen on facebook. It was being run by a well-known running shop who are based at a posh gym a few miles away. I say gym, when I was shown around it, I was told repeatedly that “it’s not a gym, it’s a lifestyle centre…for people like you…”. Clearly the man had been misinformed about what I am like and certainly hadn’t seen my car outside (whenever I visit, I am acutely aware of the risk of it being towed away as an abandoned vehicle).
The group was led by the same woman who ran the beginners group (via the now defunct Women’s Running Network) that got me started all those years ago. I have long since abandoned running a group as I seem to prefer to get on with ploughing my own furrow and this is one reason why I was nervous about going along, what if I looked as if I haven’t run in the two years since I turned up last?
I went. I didn’t embarrass myself, I didn’t fall over (despite continually over-estimating the length of my legs whenever I went over stiles) and I didn’t injure myself. I did see people I knew from the old club and it was nice to say hello, I did enjoy myself and I did enjoy the biscuit at the end.
I’m not sure what it is about my pace, but I always seem to end up between 2 groups of runners – Not fast enough to be with the long-legged gazelles at the front, slightly faster than the group at the back. Even if I hang around the middle, I find myself on my own. Oh. Wait a minute… Anyway, regardless of the reason for this, it always makes me think I may as well be out on my own, however reading about other people’s club running has made me aware that I would benefit from sessions for speed and hills (which I will not do on my own).
If I remain brave, I suspect that this will end up being painful…
After complaining that it hadn’t snowed and with the Met Office forecast being ‘cloudy’, it only went and flipping snowed yesterday. I was very relieved to have got my Athoning out of the way in the morning.
Today I procrastinated by building a snowpenguin…
And when I did put my running kit on, I realised I was rocking a very stylish look of black trail shoes, white socks and knee-length tights…
Feeling like a dodgy bloke on the pull in an 80s nitespot, I took myself down to the valley for a play in the snow. I used to run down here with my old running buddy and it’s where I ran the Badger 10k last Juneathon, but as a rule it feels a bit too lonely to do on my own.
There was nothing to worry about today as it was packed with excitable sledge-towing children and hundreds of dog-walkers…
There were some nattily dressed hounds, including a black labrador wearing a jaunty red scarf knotted around his neck and a quartet of greyhounds in matching jackets…
Passing all these people made me realise that running in the snow wearing knee-length tights generates several types of response. 1) I will not make eye contact with you – If I look at you, you will infect me with your madness 2) I will look at you but disapprovingly – You are clearly a mad woman and we should not encourage this sort of behaviour 3) I will look at you and beam at you with delight – You are clearly mad but it looks bloody brilliant. Number three was rare but lovely when it happened.
After misjudging a path I went bounding off into the undergrowth and was crossing my fingers that I would be able to cross the river without having to do an embarrassing U-turn… When I did reach a crossing point, my heart sank to see stepping-stones. Those of you who know me will now that this was a potentially cold and wet disaster in the making.
Luckily, I scampered across like an agile mountain goat and was able to get back to the path I know before looping back to the car park to make it three miles.
I’m faced with the opportunity to go on a group trail run in the morning, but am a little afeared of this. We shall see…
This morning I was been expecting to get up and venture out into a still and silent village hidden under a blanket of snow. Mentally, the blog was written – I would battle valiently against the elements to keep my Janathon honour in tact, ploughing out a token mile, I would return, heroic and be rewarded with a lovely pot of tea.
What I woke up to was a sparce covering of snow in the car park, a wet but snow-free main road and a wind-chill factor of -6oC Pfffffffff. This was a bitterly cold three-miler on weary legs. Looking on the brightside though:
I was going to take a photo of an un-snowy road, but that would have been, well, just a road. However, as I was running back up the hill, my path was crossed by a splendid fox and this gives me an excuse to include this chap from the woolly archives.
From Lauren O’Farrell’s Stitch London
It’s been one eye on the Met Office and the other on my Janathon ‘plan’ this week. On the proviso that the threatened snow wasn’t going to set in until Friday morning, I opted for a longish after-work pootle this evening and an early one for Friday morning.
Judging by some of the overheard conversations in our office, you would have thought that there is some kind of terrible apocalypse on the horizon rather than a brief flurry of the white stuff, but there we go. It had started as I set off from work and I used the drive home to consider my running kit of choice for the evening. I spotted four runners, two in long long tights and two in shorts. I decided to compromise on my knee-length tights (this was not the time to dust off my only-worn-once-in-Kent-where-I-am-a-stranger shorts), but also knew that unless I applied JogBlog’s 3G technique, I would never leave the sofa. Despite a brief threat of faffage, I was out of the door by six (with the grim realisation that I would be doing it all over again in twelve hours).
I left the house with a strange spring in my step. The strange strange spring wore off after about a mile, I started to question my sanity and I ditched the plan of a long out and back. The falling snow was small and pointy as I started, but became fatter and more feathery around the two mile mark. I started to feel ok again and fell for the old chestnut of “ooh it’s not that windy” while the wind was behind me. This lasted until I turned around, started running into the wind and learned that even fat, feathery snow is bloody painful when it gets in your eye. Being lulled into a false sense of security put me three miles away from home, making a nice loop of six miles.
From the old days when I spent my working day photoshopping accessories onto animals instead of having a proper job
Travelling Hopefully 