Finally managed to persuade the little sister that getting up and running at 10am is not “unbelievably early” and that crack of dawn happened a few hours ago and she and her husband put on their running gear and trainers and joined me for a run.
The morning was a perfect
Autumn one; misty, cold and bright. I decided that day-glo was the way forward
and had on my hi-viz yellow top, Nike Capri trousers and neon pink compression
socks.
Sister came downstairs and
said “I’m not running with you! Look at what you’re wearing! What if someone
sees us?” The cheek of siblings! SO I retorted “Well, I’m not running with you!
What if you stop and walk! What if someone sees us?” Humph. Nothing wrong with
being seen especially when you have to run on roads part of the way. And it’s
purely by coincidence that I look as though a hi-viz jacket has mated with a
jumble sale rail.
Got going and we dashed down
the main road to St Cuthbert’s Chancel where the footpath starts and across the
mud and under the railway bridge, leaping over the largest puddles.
Little Sis and her Husband. Little Sis demonstrating 'Jazz Hands on the Run'. |
We ran across a few fields
and as the mist hadn’t yet burned off and the grass was all dewy, my trainers
quickly become soaked and waterlogged. Not the nicest feeling early on in a run
before you’ve even hit the 1 mile mark. Bizarrely I only had one wet foot – the
right one. Going across the fields, my footsteps become “Squelch, thud”,
“Squelch, thud”, “Squelch, thud.” I sounded like ET with a wooden leg.
We went past Pinford Farm
and up the footpath leading to the deer park. As we started to climb the hill
we saw a deer with giant antlers just a few metres away, however he was
obviously vegetarian or at least a pacifist as he didn’t seem to want to eat me
or chase me around at all.
Ran through the woods and as
the path was narrow we spread out a little bit. The little Sis was bringing up
the rear and not appreciating this so gave me a heart attack by screaming
“Argh! There’s no “I” in team!!” I felt
the urge to say, “There’s a ME in team” But thought I might end up getting
clobbered so slowed down and kept quiet.
Trail through the woods. |
We all sprinted down the
hill past the shooting lodge. It’s compulsory to run down this hill as fast as
you can. I always feel as though I’m going to slide most of the way on my face
as my feet get overtaken by my body and can’t keep up but I reach the bottom of
the hill just in time.
Passed a lady with quite
possibly the titchiest dog I’d ever seen. It was very cute but it wanted to
chase us and did this by getting under our feet. The owner - instead of calling
it back - said “Don’t worry he won’t hurt you.” I wasn’t worried about that – I
was worried about hurting the dog. I didn’t want to tread on it and squish it.
Woman, call your dog back! I don’t want to be held responsible for the
footprint I’ll leave on its head when I trip over it.
Two deer had just dashed across the path. The deer with enormous antlers is hiding behind the tree on the right. |
Little sis is doing really
well with her running and I can’t quite believe she’s only been running for
about 6 weeks – I’m a very proud older sister. She managed an overall speed of
11 minute/mile which included walking up some of the steepest hills and the
route was very much cross country taking in a lot of grassy fields and mown hay
to run across. She’s already managed a sub 30 minute 5km and is really enjoying
the running club she’s joined. She’s going to start beating me at this running
lark unless I do something about it. I can’t have her doing that so I’m either
going to have to join a club and attend training or sabotage her in some way.
No comments:
Post a Comment