Right, we're finally getting somewhere and despite things still being manic at least I'm back to blogging on the right week and things will hopefully stay that way for a while. If they don't it's going to be new job time, I've got better things to be doing than working my bit's off. Don't they know there's adventures to be had? After last weeks dismal efforts I thought I'd better try and make amends. Having sweltered through another stifling week with not a breath of wind I filled “The Emma” in on my weekend plans on Thursday night, only to be greeted with a quizzical look and some mutterings about the weather forecast. Oh well, prepare to get wet again! If I only went out when it wasn't raining I'd never go out. So, van packed ready for a quick getaway after work and a pootle up to Watlington for the night on Friday night, ready for some hilly bike fun on Saturday. Saturday morning didn't look too bad when I peeked out early door's and if I'm going to stay dry there's no point in laying in bed, so best get up, grab some breakfast and get out early. There's nothing like a bit of forecast rain to make you get a shift on! The Chiltern Hills are a bit like the Surrey Hills where I had some hilly fun the other weekend, in that there hilly with lots of nice quiet county roads that are ideal for cycling and running. That's about where the similarities end though, the climbs are steeper but shorter and the road surfaces worse in the Chiltern's, making then more of a challenge to me. The big positive though, is that the roads are a lot quieter. The problem with the Surrey hills is it seems like a bit of a cycling Mecca for the London crowd and as such seems to get a bit manic at times. The Chiltern's though, despite being the same distance away are totally deserted. Just how I like it. 60 odd hilly miles before lunch was more than enough for my old legs and handily saw me back at the van just as the forecast rain started. Now that's more like it, far better than getting unnecessarily wet and gave me the ideal opportunity to spend the afternoon chilling in the van, watching the rain run down the windows and bounce off the roof. The rain even managed to ease off enough late afternoon for me to venture from my hidey hole down into town to grab a few bits for tea before returning to my lair for the night. After an early night and another great nights sleep I awoke to the sun streaming through the skylight and the sounds of the birds singing in a new day. What's not to like about that? and after spending Saturday afternoon cooped up I couldn't wait to get out amongst it. Running shoes on then and an easy downhill mile (not so easy on the way back) put me onto the Ridgeway Path and my gateway to a brilliant couple of hours plodding slowly along in the early morning peace and quiet.
I've run this stretch a few times now, mainly as it's convenient for parking and seems to be in the vicinity of other things and whilst I can't speak for the rest of the path it seems like quite a varied route, crossing mixed farmland, small villages and taking in the odd high point along the way. Further investigation is defiantly on my to do list. The mornings efforts saw another 16 miles added to the years total, well before the sensible people were even up and about and leaving plenty of time for a bit of gentle pottering and a few hours on the allotment in the afternoon, followed by a couple of beers and a curry with the lovely Emma in celebration of my getting another year older, but certainly not another year wiser!
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After another stupidly busy week at work, coupled with the now seemingly traditional sunshine all week, followed by rain all weekend and feeling, somewhat lacking on the motivation front, an easy weekend was on the cards for the 18th & 19th. I had a bit of a mixed day on the Saturday, being up early for a quick 20 mile blast on the bike before coming home for second breakfast with “The Emma” and then getting my running shoes on for a cheeky 10 mile plod around the local countryside. I'd normally see this approach as the worst of both worlds, if your going out on the bike you might as well make it worthwhile and 20 miles certainly isn't particularly worthwhile in my book. 20 miles is a distance you run, not a distance that's worth putting the Lycra and special shoes on for! But, needs must when the Devil drives and all that. Having said that, it actually made an enjoyable change, mixing things up, and my legs seemed quite happy with the transition. Don't worry though, there's no way I'm starting that triathlon business, that's just not normal! “The Emma” however was less impressed with the idea of my managing to make 2 sets of sports kit dirty in one day. You'd think from the way she goes on that she had to wash it by hand in unicorn tears. Unicorn tears, that she'd had to milk herself, after catching and hand rearing a flock of unicorns. Not just put it away after I'd washed it and hung it out to dry; and she only has to do that because I don't do it right! Never mind though, washing sorted and onto something different. The soft fruit on the allotment has been really good this year. I'm not sure if the weathers been better than normal with the warm dry spell early on followed by plenty of rain, or, and more likely, the winter net project has seen an end to the Pigeon problem so I'm actually getting more than my fair share of the pickings. Having had my fill of Strawberries, Loganberries, Blackcurrants and Gooseberries, this week was the turn of the Redcurrants and I easily picked a couple of pounds from my single bush. Redcurrants are a bit too sharp for my sweet tooth to be just eating raw, but they do make an amazing jelly that goes so well with Roast Pork so that's where these ended up. Bring them to the boil with a dash of water and an apple or two for the pectin and allow to simmer for a few minutes before draining overnight to collect the juice. Then it's a simple matter of adding the same quantity of sugar to the juice you've collected and bring back to the boil until setting point is reached, then pot the resulting goo up into sterilised jars. An easy hours pottering around in the kitchen and something to look forward to after a chilly winters day out. Yummy! Sunday started with rain that looked set to continue all day, so I stuck on my brave legs and got the bike out. Despite the rain it was still far too warm for waterproofs so getting wet was the order of the day. Luckily it only rained for the first couple of hours I was out, then the sun came out and it turned into a nice day. I suppose that will teach me for being up and out early. What is it about the early bird caching the worm? That's because the worms have been washed out of their hiding places by the rain. Stupid weather!
Other than that, there's not a great deal to report. I told you a quiet weekend was on the cards. Unfortunately that most terrible of words, work, has managed to get in the way over the past few weeks and I've got a few weeks behind in blog world. So, there's a bit of catch up required, starting with the weekend of 11/12 July and another of my stupid ideas. I've no idea why, but for some inexplicable reason I thought it would be a good idea to take July's “Marathon a Month” effort a bit further away from home, and if I'm going to travel I might as well make it worthwhile, take the van and have some bike fun whilst I'm at it. So, plan hatched, I'll take the van down to Shere in the Surrey hills on Friday night, ride the CTC Tour of the Hills route on Saturday and then on Sunday I'll push off to the And a brilliant plan it was too, wrap up work on the Friday night, out for a quick run followed by Fish and chips for tea and then off down to Shere in time for a quick brew and a good nights sleep. Saturday dawned fine and I was on the road for 07:00, making the most of the cool morning air and lack of traffic. The Tour of the Hills route lives up to its name and takes in all the big climbs in the area, Box hill, Leith Hill, Barhatch Lane and Whitedown Lane amongst others. None of which are particularly challenging on their own (Ok Barhatch is a bit cheeky), but when you put them all together things get a bit more interesting! Thanks to my early start Box hill was dispatched before the mass crowds arrived, I suppose featuring in the 2012 Olympic road race bought it to popular attention but it's probably the easiest climb of the day. It's a steady gradient, on a wide, well surfaced road and certainly not worthy of its reputation in my opinion. Off Box hill, through Dorking and onto Leith Hill, there's a brilliant trail 1/2 marathon up Leith Hilll if your that way inclined, but we will save that for another time, and on towards the next climb. It was at about this point that I realised my first schoolboy error of the weekend. In my haste to get away on Friday, I'd only gone and left the GPS and route for Sundays run at home. Oh well, I still had plenty of time to come up with another plan whilst crawling up the next few hills! Steadily progressing through the mornings efforts I made it back to the van in time for a late lunch with 70 odd miles and 2400m of ascent under my belt, ready for a well deserved easy afternoon sitting enjoying the view and afternoon sunshine outside the van, whilst contemplating my options for tomorrows planned marathon effort. There was no way I was going home, so a bit of Googling and inspection of the maps gave me 2 options for easy to follow routes that I could run as an out and back route. From my position I could pick up either the North Downs Way or Greensand Way, both of which looked pretty hilly and rather inviting. Umming and Ahhing over which way to go I elected to sleep on it and make a decision in the morning, no sod it I'll do the North downs way, or maybe the Greensand Way, oh I don't know! By the time the alarm went of a few seconds later I'd made my mind up. The Greensand Way it was, and what a morning I had for it, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and still being stupidly early on a Sunday morning I had the whole world to myself. The only decision to make now was to turn Left onto the trail or Right. Right it was and as I steadily wound my way through the trees, occasionally catching glimpses of the expansive views out over the Weald towards the South Downs I was in my element. It didn't take long for stupid error number two to raise it's ugly head though, and within the first couple of miles I'd lost the path 2 or 3 times. Not a major problem you would think, a bit of extra distance isn't an issue, just turn back and find the path again and off you go. And yes you would be totally spot on in your assumption. However, I find it incredibly frustrating when I don't know where I'm going, and it really throws your rhythm out when you have to keep stopping, turning around and trying to work out where your going. 26 miles of that was sure to do my head in! Eventually things settled down and the miles started ticking along, 5, 6, 7. Hello what's this? As the path deposited me onto a main road with the signpost pointing along the footpath. Follow the signs then, until, ½ a mile later the footpath abruptly ended with no further signs and no indication of where to go next. Well, that's the end of that then, there's no way I'm running aimlessly along an A road with no idea of where I'm going, best turn round and try the other way. And that's when schoolboy error number 3 decided to raise it's head, the first 7 miles had been steadily down hill, nice easy running to wake the old legs up, when I turned round though! Not so nice. And my legs said “what's this all about, we did 70 hilly miles yesterday, your having a laugh if you think were playing today too” - “Shut up legs and get on with it”! By the time I'd lugged by sorry arse back up to the top of the hill where I started from, run straight past the van, down the other side, got lost again another couple of times and started up the next big climb I was starting to wonder what the hell is was doing!
In fact by the time I'd got fed up of getting lost and having found myself back at the van again at the 20 mile point, my legs were in bits and I'd pretty much decided that enough was enough, this was one stupid idea too many! “But wait” said the little voice inside my head, “If we stop now we'll still have to do the same again next week if we are going to finish the Marathon a Month lark”. “Shut up brain” said the legs “the guys clearly an idiot and we're not playing” I'm not ashamed to admit that those last 6 miles were bloody hard, more from a mental point than a physical one, but slowly tick them off I did. There was no way in the world that I was quitting after 20 miles! 4:32 for the 26 miles then, and whilst a long way off my best times for the distance, its a time I'm more than happy with considering the terrain, the getting lost, the stupidity of running 26 miles off the back of a hilly days cycling the day before and the mental battle to get there! Roll on August, that ones going to take some beating for sheer stupidity! As I mentioned last week I've been off work this week and whilst the weathers not been particularly good (I've got wet more times than I care for) I have been getting out and about. I'm not going to write reams about my weeks activities, instead here's a few things that have caught my eye during my travels. Not a bad week off then despite the weather, 430 miles cycled, 30 odd miles run, 2 nights out bivvying and 4 in the van, a trip down to see the "Old Cheese" for the first time since we were all confined to Barracks, a bit of time spent of the Allotment and a few other odd jobs wrapped up.
Guess I'd better go back to work for a rest! |
Paul PerrattOld enough to know better, young enough to still feel invincible, stupid enough to keep on trying the same thing again and again. Cyclist, Gardener, Runner, Hiker, Cook, Woodworker, Engineer, Jack of all trades and master of none, Anti social old git and all round miserable bugger. Archives
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