This was an interesting one. I decided to take some fruity squash drinks with me today on account of the increasing mileage. This meant taking my belt, which meant I could also take my phone. On a whim I also decided to take my earphones (I rarely do) since I would have my phone, and well, sometimes you just need two hours of Meat Loaf.
The belt didn’t irritate me too much and I quite enjoyed stopping for photos. This did nothing for my time, but is something I will continue to do now which will hopefully also help bring these little blog posts to life!
I retraced the starting steps of a run I did a few weeks ago in Storm Ciara, although this time actually did make it all the way through some lovely river paths and through to the Tyburn Road.
Still, I managed to regain my bearings and after dodging the smashed up bus-stop I headed back up the Lichfield Road and through Erdington and Wylde Green.
Then mild panic set-in. I needed the toilet. These are supposed to be informative blog posts so I’m sorry to go into these details, but all longer-distance runners will empathise! Runners-trots are a real thing and must be planned for and, despite my best planning, I found myself in a spot of bother. If you do long distances and don’t get them, lucky you, but I do and they are (quite literally) a pain in the arse. Read more about it here – it could be the best thing you ever did. Thankfully, the shopkeeper of GTS Select N Save between Wylde Green and Sutton Coldfield saw the panicky look in my eyes and allowed me to use the staff toilet. Phew! And on we go.
I was conscious of my mileage being a bit skewed on account of the new route I had inadvertently created, so was doing run-maths in my head to work out where I needed to go to hit my 15. This involved me doing a circuitous route around the Sutton Coldfield main road, and then down past the tip and up to the junction by the Co-Op and one of our favourite restaurants, Pesto, on Hollyfield Road. From there I ran, increasingly slowly at this point, back towards my house taking a few more minor impromptu diversions to ensure I got the required mileage in.
I jogged across the green near my house to finish the run in 2:08:21 at 8:33 minutes per mile – an improvement on last week. I can only put this down to having put in a few longer training runs recently and having an earlier night than last Saturday. I tend not to dwell on the timings for longer runs unless they’re massively out; getting in the miles is the achievement.
Until next time 🙂
RR
#keeprunning