Long and undulating

Dave and Ronnie joined me for today's long run.

Louise was working during the day and Gill helped out by looking after Kane whilst we ran. Gill arrived with Kane and I after doing an early morning run herself. Dave arrived soon after and all five of us piled into Gill's car and we drove over to Boxhill where Gill dropped us off by Juniper Hall at the bottom of Box Hill.

We then meandered back to Sutton avoiding roads wherever possible. It was a route that I'd worked out earlier in the week and was about eighty percent cross country running. I had written out detailed directional instructions - I left these at home, but by hook and by crook we pretty much ran as intended.

The run was very scenic, through various stretches of countryside. The run was also very hilly with four major hills and plenty of other undulations.

We started off nice and slow, with Ronnie chasing everywhere and barking at everything. But I think we inadvertantly picked up our pace during the middle section which I think Dave paid for later. As we came into Kingswood, we climbed over a style and Dave's leg cramped up. This was a bit worrying as we still had five or six miles to go. It meant we had to drop our pace and Dave struggled on, although he continued to intermittently get cramp in both that leg and his other leg as we ran home. Dave was definitely regretting the ninety minutes of football he had played on the previous day. Ronnie was also puffed out and he was reduced to trotting behind us with his tongue lolling out.

The end result was quite a slow paced run, but we shouldn't read too much into this as the marathon will be a great deal flatter and will be on tarmac.

Run stats: 161:15 minutes, 17.58 miles - 9:10 minutes per mile