Dorking to home

Matt had expressed an interest in joining me on an off road route to test out his mountain bike. We agreed to do it today, and on Friday we devised a route which entailed catching a train to Dorking and run/cycle back to Sutton - the first half of which would be off-road.

We set out of Dorking along the A24 and at Rykers cafe turned off to take the road to Mickleham - from there we joined the old Roman road called Stane Street. This was a straight (as you'd expect from the Romans) pathway that runs all the way into Langley Vale. It is extremely hilly - it goes over the shoulder of Box Hill and up and down through Mickleham Downs - and was very muddy also. It made for very difficult cycling conditions - difficult to get grip whilst climbing and treacherous on the downslopes.

I thoroughly enjoyed it though and will be looking to incorporate Stane Street into future long runs. Once we arrived at the top of Langley Vale it was a pretty straight forward jog back to Sutton, with the high winds on top of Epsom Downs the only point of note.

According to my schedule I was supposed to do 100 to 110 minutes very slow jog. We were out for 98.5 minutes, the pace was slightly slower than last Sunday, but considering the conditions, this was a considerable improvement and I didn't feel as weary at the end.

Run stats: 98:32 minutes, 12.3 miles - 8.01 minutes/miles