It's Pancake Day... I'll Be Back....

....don't worry, the ominous sounding nature of this title will all become clear in due course.

First of all, pancake day, just before Valentines Day! How flippin awesome! Pancake day always crepes up on me; I spend a whole day each year exclaiming how much I love pancakes and eating far too many, and then don't touch another one for a whole year before the same realisation dawns on the next Pancake Day. So this year, what batter way to express the Valentine's Day love than in the form of a pancake! 

Ahem. Let us toss aside these silly jokes, before they fall flat, and focus. After a short rest period, where I will recover from the pancake extravaganza, we shall move on to the next topic.....

....I'll Be Back....

A couple of weeks ago I did the Pic N Mix Sci-Fi marathon. Well, it sounded sweet, so I had to do it. And it had an intriguing name, which on closer examination turned out to mean it was a 'space versus time' themed run. Oooh. Does that mean I'll do a PB? All these years of running, and all I really needed was to crack time travel and I'd easily knock an hour or so off my marathon time, leaving more time for cake stops. In fact, cake and tea stops could potentially be unlimited, if you could traverse the boundaries of time.

Anyway, all that thought and no actual breakthrough in the time travel part, means I've just wasted a lot of everyone's time with this drivel. Let us return to the scene of the crime. Essex, no less. And the Whoosh Canoe Club in Sawbridgeworth to be accurate. What a name! We will whoosh our way around the course!

Or not, as I realised a quarter of the way through the first lap, once two things became clear. One, there were a lot of laps, and two, half of each lap was a mud-fest. I admit to having approached this marathon with a rather gung-ho attitude. After the Winter Tanners bog fest I had become rather deconditioned to normal mud, feeling that everything was really quite tame in comparison. So when I read the race description that it was along a tow path and river path which 'could be muddy at times' I dismissed this with barely a thought, laced up my road shoes, and set forth.

To be fair, the first 1/2 mile was lovely along a well formed and mud free path. What a treat, after all this winter mud! But treats only come in moderation, and soon enough, as we crossed over the river to run back along the other side, the path disappeared into a sea of mud. Only ankle-deep this time, I'll admit, but mud none the less. This lasted for the whole of that side of the lap (about a mile and a half), before crossing back over the river to the nice path again, back to the tuck-shop (AKA checkpoint) to complete one 5 km lap, pick up a cheeky jelly bean or two, and head back out to complete as many laps as you liked. Maybe 'liked' is the wrong word, as after lap one it started to rain, perhaps 'chose' is a better choice. I chose 8, to hit a marathon distance bang on the head. The laps passed quite quickly to be honest, and it was good fun despite the rubbish and uninspiring day. I always enjoy the Phoenix events - friendly, a good laugh, chance to have a good chat to people, and of course a nice tuck-shop. And 5km laps are my favourite distance for a lap - long enough so there aren't too many, but short enough so you can bang one out relatively quick. There was a brief anxious moment where I lost one of my hairbands (you collect one after each lap, to keep count) when I took off my gloves carelessly and threw them into the kit tent, accidentally pinging off a hairband without noticing. But it was soon rectified and the panic I had at having to do an extra lap subsided. Phew.

Well, I suppose you must still be wondering, as after all that I still haven't got to the point, why is it called the Pic N Mix Sci-Fi marathon? And what's "I'll Be Back" all about? Well! Phoenix Running have many events every year, all with a theme, with fancy dress encouraged (hurrah!) - several of the events are of a sci-fi nature like the "Timelord on the Thames" run, and the "I'll Be Back" run...hence the "Sci-Fi" part. They also have awesome medals. An accumulation of said awesome medals have built up and needed to be used, and so upon finishing your chosen distance, you picked a card out of a hat (the Pic N Mix part), which had a name on...and that was the medal you got! I got the I'll Be Back medal, which I've taken as a sign that my running form will return, at around the same that maybe some spring weather and some firm running ground will also back. Triple hurrah!

On that note, Happy Pancake Day one and all, and may the pancakes be back before this time next year....

# 63 - The Winter Tanners 30 miles, 21.01.18

"Lie-ins are so over-rated" was a thought I didn't think as my alarm went off at 4.30 am on the morning of the Winter Tanners. Due to a last moment change of circumstance, I had decided to catch public transport to the start of the event in Leatherhead, which looking at a map, didn't really look that far away. But the golden age of the British railways passed many moons ago, and at this time on a Sunday morning, one bus, two trains, a rail replacement bus and two hours and 20 minutes of precious (lie-in) time, was the best National Rail could offer me. I briefly toyed with the idea of walking, it was only 21 miles away and quite frankly sounded like a lot less faff, but then I remembered once I got there that I was supposed to run 40 miles, so changed my mind back. 

The first bus turned up, which I took as a sure sign the rest of the day was going to be just grand. I made it to Waterloo, found the only place open serving some form of coffee at that time was McDonalds, but felt a bit self-consciously sober and really quite old, queued up next to all the young people coming back from Saturday night. Although most of them looked quite rough, which cheered me up a bit. I hopped on the train, which sat there, and then sat there a bit longer. Then the guard announced he was sorry for the delay, but the driver hadn't turned up yet. So we waited a bit longer, during which time I obsessively checked Google maps every 20 seconds to check I was still going to make my next connection. A while later, the driver decided that now was a good time to turn up, and we set off. I got off at Wimbledon, crossed to the platform for the next train, and then noticed the small fact that the train that I was supposed to catch wasn't showing on any of the departure screens. A few minutes of frantic searching, and it turned out the train didn't exist. Who knows why, or where it had gone. It's a mystery. Anyway, I was now going to miss everything else, and the small niggling feeling which I had so far managed to suppress, the one about missing the start, was now a full blown panic. Still, panic was no use here, and I took a few deep (and cold) breaths, and devised a plan B. I would get there a lot later than I had planned, wouldn't be able to run with my running buddy Tara, and I would have to drop down from 40 miles to the 30 route so I would finish in daylight if running by myself, which were all a bit rubbish. But on the plus side, I would still just about make the start and hopefully the cut off time for checkpoint 1, and I would still get an ultra distance run in. I got on the next train feeling a bit better. I hopped off at Effingham Junction, in order to catch the rail replacement bus.....

...and as I stood in the cold, and now the rain which had just started, I thought what an apt name this was for a station. The bus arrived. I jumped off it at Leatherhead, sprinted down the road, spent a few minutes walking around a business park looking for the registration building, found this helpful sign...

...and then the start. I registered, threw my bag into the baggage room, and then myself across the start line at 8.48 am. 12 minutes to spare - heaps of time!

The rain, which was by now quite heavy, turned into snow. Apart from the obvious point that snow is cold, I realised it is really quite a bit drier than rain, and very much more pretty. There were some quite lovely views to be had over the countryside, sprinkled in an other-worldly, powdery dust. After a few hours, it turned back to rain again, but you must make the most of these magical moments whilst they last.

There will be four main things I will remember about this race. One, the terrible weather (see above). Two, the mud. THE MUD! My word, I have never seen mud like it. I believe I may have said that the Gatliff was the muddiest run I've ever done and could possibly ever do, but that was nothing, NOTHING compared to this! The most impressive thing about it, was not how deep it was (although, I went in up to my knees in the Surrey Slurry more than once), but how consistent it was. In 30 miles, there was barely a break in it, only varying degrees of how far you would sink. Even concrete roads were covered, and barely discernible from the fields. I had a moment, where knee deep in slurry, I tried to lift my leg up, only to find that it wouldn't budge, but instead started sinking deeper. I had a panic where I wondered, "is slurry like quicksand?" and started thrashing around in panic, now submerging both hands and my route description in the mud bath as well. With superhuman force, I yanked my leg upwards, only to feel my shoe come away from my foot, and my shoe fill with the horrid, freezing sludge. YIKES!!!! If I loose my shoe....how am I going to  finish the run! I pushed my foot back down, feeling the cold, wet mud make horrible squishing noises. I instructed myself to calm down, and using my map case as leverage, eventually managed to pull myself out of the slurry. I continued up the field, repeating a roughly similar routine every few steps, until I made it to the top of the field, sat on the stile for a moment to recover, and looked over at the next field, which looked suspiciously similar.....

Third memory: a lovely route and a genuinely fabulous route description. I imagine in the summer, minus all the mud and rain (so, on those few summer days when conditions are favourable), this would be a splendidly picturesque route, all rolling countryside and rivers and big country houses. Plenty of stops for a picnic with a view. As I trotted along, thinking about things, I ran through a gate, called 'Alan's Gate' and I suddenly wondered, was this Alan Blatchford's gate? Some history....

The Tanners Marathon (originally held in the summer) is a cornerstone of LDWA folklore. It was the first proper 'challenge' event (it was open to anyone, had a pre-designed route, a time limit, checkpoints etc), and first held in July 1960. Around this time long distance walking was really kicking off in a big way in the UK, thanks to a bit of a character called Dr Barbara Moore, who walked from John O'Groats to Lands End, and caused quite a stir whilst doing it, because people didn't really do things like that then. Anyway, the Epsom and Ewell YHA group at Tanners Hatch Youth Hostel realised that a long distance walk was something a lot of people would like to have a go at, so they organised and put on 'The Marathon Walk' (actually 30 miles) in Surrey, which was supposed to be a one-off, but proved so popular that it ran every year (renamed The Tanners Marathon in 1964), until 2010, it's 50th anniversary, which was it's last. Alan Blatchford was one of the founding members of the event, and indeed the LDWA itself (he met Chris Steer, another founding member of the LDWA, on the Tanners Marathon in 1968), and is a true LDWA legend. He sadly died in 1980, so I wondered if maybe this was his gate. Since 1976 there has also been a Winters Tanners, which started as a warm up for the summer one, and the route of which is different each year and designed by John Westcott, who took over organising it after Alan Blatchford died. There have been 3 years when the Winter Tanners hasn't run for various reasons, and so 2018 is the 40th event. I must to sing the praises of the route description loudly (this year designed by John Westcott and written by Mary Dee) - it was spot on. I only got lost one (which was my mistake), such was it's attention to detail and accuracy. Every few sentences there was a description thrown in, which was remarkably similar to some of the thoughts which I have when doing long runs, some of my favourite quotes including:

"Continue ahead, determinedly, ignoring all turns, to go through car park.  (2.9M)"

"Keep on relentlessly, ignoring all turns, to bear right & cross tarmac track."

"Cross field (210º) & foot bridge, round forlorn field gate & through hook gate."

And my absolute favourite part of any route description ever:

"Keep unwaveringly on & on.  At last, a track joins from right & 100Y later turn left on concrete track."

And so at last, my fourth memory, as so often at these events, were the fabulous people there. Including the lovely Kasia who I ran about the last 10 miles with, amongst other chat swapping stories about marathons, what we were both going to have for tea afterwards, and what on earth we were going to do to save our shoes and clothes which had been marinated in the Surrey Slurry all day. I was in the process of "continuing determinedly and unwavering on and on and on along the side of 7 fields" (seven!!) when I literally ran into her and was feeling a bit forlorn, so thank you for cheering me up, and for saving me from sliding all of the way down Box Hill. 

Also thank to all the other great troopers out there who I was lucky enough to talk to/ run/ walk with, and all the lovely marshals. It was a pretty tough challenge out there, but you all made the Winter Tanners truely terrific!

Here is a link to the official race report - Happy 40th Winter Tanners (thank you for the birthday paperweight)!

A New Year...Another Medal on the Wall

There comes a time, about one week into the new year, when you sit down and stare your new year's resolution right in the eye, and have a frank discussion about how you came to be acquainted. And whether or not either you or it have got what it takes to stick out a whole year together. 

My new years resolution this year I think would technically be disqualified from counting as a new years resolution. It is: to stop procrastinating and crack on with working towards 100 marathons, which as I'm some way to doing already, has nothing really new about it at all.

But anyway, disqualified or not, it was still a resolution. One which at 5.30 am on a dark cold Sunday morning at the beginning January (the morning of Another Medal on the Wall), as I sipped a strong coffee and nibbled thoughtfully on a piece of toast, caused a few doubts to creep to the front of my mind.

But I quickly pushed them back. The main reason being that Another Medal on the Wall is a 6 hour timed event around a 1.88 mile lap in the Hillingdon Cycle Circuit in Minet Country Park in Hayes. Therefore, a nimble bit of maths later, and it became apparent that to do a marathon, you would need to do at least 14 laps. Or, if you look at it another way, there are at least 14 opportunities to stop. And that is not the sort of race where there is any room at all to have any doubts floating around in your head, or I would be back in the club house with a hot cup of tea, feet up in a comfortable chair and snuggled by a radiator after 1.88 miles. And listening to some tunes, because Hayes is famous (well, it is to me now, since I read about it in the race instructions) for it's former record factory, which makes the name of the race make more sense. 

I tried to calm my doubts by reminding myself that my first trail half marathon training run in the Surrey hills the day before had gone well, and I had also done a bit extra by running to the train station, so 18 miles in all. I'd felt strong, and this morning I felt well recovered and even a bit confident in my ability. Ha! The thought immediately made me anxious; confidence is not my natural state, and whenever I feel confident something usually goes wrong, which makes me anxious about feeling confident, which defeats the object of being confident, I think. Anyway, other than making me feel very twitchy, writing confident so many times in one sentence has revealed that spell check changes confident to condiment, which is something that I am much more comfortable with talking about. "Don't wait, I'll ketchup with you soon!" or,  "let me mustard up the strength to climb this hill " or, "we must relish this good section of path before the bog, where we'll find ourselves in a right pickle".

Etc....

Anyway, my confidence in condiments buoyed significantly, I headed purposefully from Southall train station in the early morning gloom through an industrial estate peppered with patches of ice towards the Cycle Circuit. As I walked further, it quickly became obvious that my confident interpretation of the weather forecast as it being a warm sunny day had been an optimistic way of looking at things (point proved). By the time I made it to the registration  building, I was as chilli as a frozen margarita with extra ice and more ice on top. I pulled on the extra clothes I had brought to change into afterwards, ignored that fact that that meant that afterwards I was going to be even chilli-er (what a jam I would be in then, but it's no big dill really), had a hot cup of coffee, and it was thyme to head for the start line. 

And what a grate event it turned out to be. Ahem. We must put oil these puns behind us now, and lettuce focus on the task at hand.  

Until I got to half way I refused to think about how many laps had happened, and I found I was enjoying it enough not to be thinking about it anyway. I've had a long break from these type of events since last May, and I have missed the camaraderie about them, so it was great to see some familiar faces and make new friends, like back being a part of the big running family. The laps were out and back, so all of the time you pass people going the other way, exchange smiles and nods and banter about the course/ state of each other, so although the scenery may not be that interesting, I love these type of runs. There was an excellent checkpoint each lap, where your bar-code got scanned, one of the race directors shouted your lap number and something encouraging at you, you could grab a quick drink (alas, no margaritas), and a snack (see, ample opportunity for puns here, but I've restrained), and it was off for the next lap. 

Soon after the 7 lap point, my dodgy hip started playing up, which gave me something to think about for the next couple of laps, but after a few miles it settled down again. After lap 9 it was feeling fine and I felt good, so reached 14 laps with no problems. I was planning on going for the full 6 hours at that point, and was having a great time chatting to others about races etc, before a headache which had been brewing finally exploded and so I stopped at 5.33 hours, 33.7 miles and called it a day. I was pretty pleased with it, I enjoyed it, felt good (apart from my head) and it was even a slightly faster pace than I used to run before I started having problems last year, which is a combination of words that I haven't been able to say together in a long time. Hurrah! 

All in all, it's just another medal on the wall. But it's a good one, and from a great event. I hope to be back to some more of Running Miles events in the future.

And on that note, mayo you all have a wonderful day!

Happy New Year Folks!

It's slightly late, but have just about pulled myself of the December bogs, and defrosted my fingers, in time to pen a quick new year note. 

Happy New Year!!! 🎉🎉🎉

It's been nice to come back and see everyone after the Down Under Trip, but I haven't enjoyed the readjustment to the UK weather. Not at all. Although I'll say one thing for a UK winter, as compared to an Australian summer, and that's that there's been no need to wake up at 5am in order to get a run in before it gets too hot. Although, in hindsight, that doesn't seem really like it was actually such a big deal. 

Head out for a run here at 5am, or anytime before mid-day really, in December and you'll be lucky to see anything, such is the gloom of it all. All of my December and January runs have been either a) dark, or (if between the hours of 12-3 pm), b) grey. Take this morning for example. I was in Aberdeen, and thought I would go to the parks to explore. I hadn't even got to the park, but already had slipped on a treacherous corner of ice, dunked my foot in a freezing puddle of water, had buckets of hail dumped over my head, and had almost been engulfed by the greyness of the granite houses against the stormy skies. The parks were a particularly devious mixture of mud and ice, created perfectly to foil progress at every step. Even the trees stared moodily down from the greyness, plopping great drops of icey water down my neck as I ran underneath. And then it hailed again. This isn't a slight on Aberdeen, that's just that's where I happened to be, but pretty much everywhere I've run in the last month has looked remarkably similar. A bit grey. 

The only run I can think of that's been nice and bright was a run around Ord Hill in Inverness just before new year. It was beautiful; soft white snow blanketing the pine trees, while the sun shone on the ice crystals and sent shimmering shards of light sparkling against the clear blue sky. Photos of it would have won prizes if it had been warm enough to take off two pairs of gloves, to find my phone hidden beneath somewhere in a pocket inside my inner jacket, sandwiched between a thermal layer, and a extra warm outer jacket. It was so cold that the icicles shivered, and the snowflakes huddled together for warmth. 

Anyway, that's enough of all that. I could go on, but it's January the 4th, and that is my annual rant about the winter weather and mud out of the way for a whole another year. Well, probably not, but at least for the time being.

And on to more important things! Including.... my Mum, who this time last year was just getting over her breast cancer surgery, has got the all clear at her 12 month check up and is doing great. Thank you to you all for your support this year, both with your generous sponsorship, and kind words of support. It has all been amazing. We even made the news in the Rosemere magazine! 

As soon as all her results came back clear, my Mum pressed 'enter' on her 100 entry form, and along with my Dad will be lining up at the start of this year's 100! I will be trying to do as good a job of supporting them around it as they have for me many a time. 

Meanwhile, the longest run I've done for a few weeks has been an hour or so, so it seemed a good idea to enter a 6 hour event this Sunday, and then agree to do a half marathon training run the day before. So not to worry then, that all sounds fine.....

First marathon back in UK! The Gatliff Marathon 50 km - Number 61

In hindsight, choosing the notorious Gatliff Marathon for my first event back in the UK, while still jet lagged wasn't my greatest idea. But it was an idea, none the less. There are two things of note about its name. Firstly, Gatliff isn't a place, it's a person; Herbert Gatliff, who in 1934 was one of the founding members of the Croydon YHA group (the Gatliff marathon is actually held in Edenbridge). 50 years later in 1984, the Gatliff marathon was held as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, hence the name and distance. Which brings me to the second point, it isn't a marathon, it's 50 km (or the alternative 20 km or 35 km routes, which aren't marathons either). But as we shall see, that wasn't the only point in the route description which could be described as 'misleading'...

I woke at 3.30 am thanks to jet lag, so got up, repacked my bag and faffed for a while, and convinced myself that I did want to go. Really. A walk and a bus journey later I was at Waterloo at 5.45 am, and let me tell you, Waterloo at 5.45 am is quite the place to be if you haven't yet been home from the night before. Three train journeys later, I finally arrived in Edenbridge, where along with two other runners hailing from our fair capitol, we rose to our first navigational challenge of the day - finding the start.

The Gatliff is a self-navigated event, and has somewhat of a reputation for having an 'interesting' route description. The route changes each year, I suppose to prevent people from learning it, and thus taking the fun out of getting lost. I was wise to this, and in an attempt to outwit the Gatliff, had carefully plotted the grid references on some nice newly purchased maps the night before.

Turns out this was a wholey useless waste of an hour or two, as the 11 page route description focused mostly on things such as gates, 'indistinct tracts', and golf tees, which aren't marked on maps, and may or may not be marked in real life, either. I spent a good proportion of the day standing about in mud, and looking for 'indistinct and unmarked tracks', which were made all the more indistinct and tricky to find due to the fact it was autumn, and a forest full of leaves was now lying upon them. Having become separated from all of my new fellow navigational voyagers, I found myself running alone through another wood along a 'small muddy path that soon bears left to join a wider path, follow this for 500 m until you pass a house'. Having found neither a left bend nor a wider path, after several minutes I was beginning to face up to the fact that I was lost, again. But lo, I smelled woodsmoke! A house, surely! Or another runner, making a small fire, after finally having had enough of the route description? No, it was the house! A thousand hurrahs! I moved on to the next point 'go diagonally left through a parking space, and up a faint track uphill, crossing a further faint path...etc etc....' I returned to my usual state of standing in a wood, looking for a path, but seeing only leaves in all directions. Ignoring the fact the I didn't have a clue to go on, I pushed ahead up the hill, only the become ever more lost and frustrated, finally throwing my new map and myself down in the mud, scowling at the forest, and deciding that that was enough, and that I wanted to go home. A few moments passed in silence. No one appeared to rescue me. I reluctantly realised that in order to get home, I would first have to get myself out of this forest. I stood up, picked up the (now not so new looking) map, and got over myself. Some time later, I finally made it out of the forest (somewhere I hope never to return to again), and made it to the next check point.....     

Still, I knew all this before I got there, and in a quirky kind of way, that's part of what makes the Gatliff I suppose. If you don't get horrendously lost, cold, and very muddy, then I'm afraid that you haven't been fully Gatliff'ed, and it's really rather fun. Getting back before dark fall is basically the common aim of everyone, whichever distance you are doing, or whatever speed you go, and it's fun trying to beat the darkness. Speaking of night fall, I was cutting it rather fine....

I left the last checkpoint at about 3.15 pm and headed out for the last 7 km in the gathering gloom. I was really hoping I wouldn't need my head torch as it was somewhere at the bottom of my bag, and I would have to get everything out and find it, and then put the batteries in it, and then put everything back in again, and quite frankly I could't be bothered with any of that right now. As I was berating myself for ending up in this situation in the first place, I was happy to run into my friend Neil and run the last few miles with him, catching up on several months running news, and running plans for the New Year. Two heads are always better then one when navigating, and we got around the last section largely without any detours, which meant we managed to get back before it got dark.

Hurrah! And now for my favourite part of any race, relaxing at the end. Back in the sports club, in the bright lights and warmth, I quickly forgot about the mud and the maps, and tucked into fish finger sandwiches and home made butternut squash soup, whist catching up with old friends, and new ones made today. I love seeing everyone back at the end! This is what I love most about running, and even despite the shock of coming back to the cold weather, it's good to be back on the UK trails and catching up with old chums. It was a great event, a mostly nice route with parts of the North Downs Way and lots of hills, a friendly crowd. A challenge, but a good one, and I'm pleased to finally have moved on and have done my first event since The NYM 100 back in May, and my 61st official marathon/ultra. Job done.  

75 days of running = the end of my trip!

I hate the saying "all good things must come to an end." Why? But annoyingly I have to admit that on this occassion it is true; as my travelling adventure has come to an end!

It's been an adventure for sure! 77 days ago I left home (what was left of it, amongst all the renovations going on, which are still going on, but that's another story), feeling unsure about a lot of things going on in my life, and not even sure in fact if I should even be going away on a trip this long... surely it was a foolish idea. But I'm so glad I did! I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to go away for this length of time, and to have been able to go to all the places we have. 

The day after we arrived in Sydney, Andrew and I did our first run, and I've run every day since, 75 in all (which pleasingly is by coincidence a nice round number to finish on).

So my trip finished back in Perth (thanks again Paul, Yan and Hunter for looking after me) with a 13 mile run along the river on day 74 of Run Every Day While Away, and a 10 km along the river on day 75. I love the path by the river here, it's a peaceful place to be...

I will miss running out here, I've certainly run in a lot of fantastic locations! If you are thinking of coming to New Zealand or Australia - I recommend you do it. And come to both! And I wasn't paid by any tourist board to say that, it's true!

It's also been great to catch up with so many friends...I actually hadn't realised until I came out how many of my friends live here!

But, I am looking forward to going home, apart from the weather, obviously. It's 26oC here today, which is 'cool' for Perth in late November. BBC weather reports that London tomorrow will have highs of 12oC. But that terrifying fact aside, I am looking forward to going back and seeing family and friends, and Andrew again (who abandoned me 2 weeks ago), to seeing what's been going on, for Christmas, and to see what things lie ahead...

With running, I'm going to have a couple of days off. I've loved the challenge of running every day, but I feel I need some different challenges now. I'll keep running, (of course!) but I plan to have a couple of run free days each week so I can incorporate other exercises in as well. I've been planning my race calender for December and next year....40 more marathons/ ultras and I'll reach 100, which is my next big target, to be a full member of the 100 Marathon Club. Now I finally feel I'm over the NYM 100 miles, I've decided not to do any more 100 milers next year, but focus instead on marathons to 50 milers, which don't seem to destroy me quite as much. I'll definitely do another 100 miler at some point, but what's the rush?

And on that note, I am off to pack my trainers (which have only got one hole from the trip) ready for the journey back (I wonder if anyone's ever run a marathon on a plane?) and more UK running adventures...

xxx

Amazing Albany!

Day 68

Next we travelled South, 400km South, to visit Paul's Mum - Sue -in Albany. I'm still mystified by how immense Australia is. On a map, Albany looks like it's just a short way frim Perth, down a little road in the bottom left hand corner...but it takes 4 hours to drive between them-  four hours!!!

But wow, what a beautiful corner of the map it is!

On our first evening, a discussion ensued debating a suitable running route. Thanks Sue for the hand drawn map (and for having us to stay!), which clutching tightly the next morning I made my first expliration into the WA Bush. The roads I ran along were awesome, just what I thought of when I thought of Australia before coming here - long red dusty roads stretching into the distance. I spent the first 10 minutes chasing the school bus, which was driving around the block picking up the children from different farms. I was pleased at following a bus. I figured no snake with sense would hang around after the bus had driven past. I did see plenty of other things on the 7km...lizards, black cockatoos, and when I got back, some kangaroos had come into the garden!

Afterwards, we did a trip around some of the wonderful Albany coastline, visiting The Gap...

 The Natural Bridge...

and The Blowholes...

Day 69

 Same run as yesterday, and just as lovely! 

Afterwards we did another trip this tome out towards Denmark, to see the Elephant Rocks...

Green Pool...

And the Valley of the Giants tree top walk...

Day 70

For the first time in ages, it was cool enough to do an afternoon run! In the day we did a walk up Castle Rock...

And in the evening I ran around some parks in Albany and to the famous Dog Rock! 

Day 71

Did my usual loop around the block with an extra bit, to make it 10km. Am tempted to do some shopping on the way back...

Day 72

Paul is teaching Body Pump, so I go into town to and run 8km through the park, through Albany and down to the Anzac Peace Park by the sea, which is beautiful.

Day 73

Back to Perth today, but got in a quick 7km loop before we leave. Paul's nephew Lucas who is 6, noted that I had been gone a long time and therefore that I must have walked. Ahhh, the honesty of small children. On further exploration of this point, it turns out he thought I had run down the garden to the gate and back, and thought I had been gone a long time. A further debate ensued as to why anyone would want to run further than that. If you want to figure out why it is that you run, be questioned by a 6 year old. My answers clearly being unsatisfactory, we moved on to a race around the garden, which Lucas won, but in which some underhand tactics were employeed, involving 'resting for a stitch' and then restarting the race in a most uncontrolled manner. I know, I am a bad looser.