Muddy Run

Apologies, I meant to post this a week ago but I saved it as a draft and forgot to come back and post it.

I did a run across a number of fields towards Halvergate and the took a different route, mainly on road, back home - total of 6 miles done.

With the recent rain, the ground was soft and muddy but not waterlogged.

A view of Wickhampton Church

The only waterlogged section of my run - interestingly the width of the route is half what it was last year, so whilst still a permissive route it has been reduced, and quite a bit in some places.

One of windmills in the distances on the marshes.

A mystery route from the field that takes you to......

A small water/sewerage plant but a dead end as there is no gate, so I went back.

A crossing from one field to the next.

Houses in Halvergate.

The Red Lion in Halvergate.

Chapel in Halvergate, for sale.

Halvergate Hall.

Halvergate Playing field.

Technically not meant to run here but it was only a short section.

Although I think I paid the price for it......

First "long" run of April

I did a 6 mile run this morning but I managed to add extra pressure because I did not get up to go out until 8am when my plan was for 7am - this did leave me short of time on my return home to get organised before we all headed to the in-laws for a very nice dinner of roast pork with plenty of veg.
The time to do it was unimportant especially as I was taking some photos along the way.

I took this photo because the farmer has ploughed over the permissive pathways that been in place for a few years and last year the grassed pathways of this field was a central point to my trail running.
I suspect that DEFRA has cut back on funding for these to continue as the funding is typically for 10yrs - the reason I suspect this is because as a crude guess I reckon locally three of the six fields that had permissive pathways, no longer do so.

Cantley Sugar Factory in the distance.

Private sign on this field - to be honest I was never sure it was a permissive pathway last year so I haven't calculated it as one of the six fields.

Another field with a "conservation" sign - effectively keep out to general public.

A derelict church in Southwood being maintained by Blofield & District Conservation Group,

There is a public footpath behind it that crosses two fields.

Wanna go fishing?  This is Limpenhoe.

Limpenhoe Church

Nice Limpenhoe sign.

Round and square bales are on the same field - never understood what the benefit of both shapes for bales but it's rare to see both on the field as farmers tend to prefer one over the other.

April Forward Planning to be ready for my first race of 2016

My first race will be late June when I will walk all of two minutes to turn up at the Humpty Dumpty 10k - always good to have one race that you do not need to travel for.

Now it is my intent to not only run that 10k but also get a big improvement on my 10k PB which is 59 minutes something from about three years ago.  My target will be 55 minutes or less.

My plan for April is to not focus on times but get the base mileage in, particularly on Sundays when I do my longer runs.
The aim is for all the April long-runs to range from 6 miles to 10 miles, most likely 6, 8, 10, and 8.
Mid-week runs (hopefully at least two per week) will ideally be 2 to 4 miles each depending on available time.

Now more importantly I will be upping my game in respect of eating better, especially as I have just purchased myself a spiralizer machine which I hope will result in more veg being eaten not just by me but the rest of the family - I have always eaten a decent amount of fruit on a daily basis but veg outside of roasts or having it with a pie has been more tricky.
I am meat-eater and will remain to be one but I would like to eat more veg irrespective of whether a meal with veg ends up being vegan, vegetarian, or carnivore.

You Are Not Prepared!

Recently a woman had to rescued from Ben Nevis having decided on the spur of the moment to climb it in her summer clothes and a selfie stick (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/31/woman-sorry-ben-nevis-rescue-selfie-stick) - given it was late March, it is not surprisingly for the weather to be very cold and indeed a blizzard struck on her ill-thought out journey.

Anyhow, on a much more manageable scale I was also ill-prepared this morning when at 6.45am I discovered my planned run would be in sub-zero temperatures and I was not wearing a thermal top, a hat or gloves - see the frost on my car below.

As I was only running 3 miles, my thumbs in particular got very cold and I never really warmed up but it was a good run.

I should also mention that it was my third run in the last seven days.

It was also very foggy as you can see.

Nice shot of the sun burning up the fog with a church in the background.

Easter Saturday 3.5miler out in the Marshes and the dreaded half-day of clothes shopping with a teenager

Got up at 7am and unlike yesterday I managed to get out of bed and go for a run - couldn't find my trail shoes so it was a road run today.

Before I got to Wickhampton, a horse and rider passed me but by the time I worked out where my daughter had hidden the camera option on "my" Ipad, they were almost out of sight - if you look closely you can see them at the end of the road.

When I got to Wickhampton I decided I would head past the church and go into the marshes as the early stages are on hard concrete rather than earth.

Freethorpe decided not to keep their red phone box but Wickhampton has one.

Out in the marshes.

Windmill in the distance.

Eventually you get to the public bridleway but......

Without trail shoes, I wouldn't recommend this route - had I worn them I would have been tempted given my Only The Brave through mud and water last week.

On the way back the sun disappeared and the winds whipped up very quickly - the corner flag of the football pitch has the Freethorpe Football team's colours on it.

So having done my run, I was then off to Norwich to take my daughter shopping for clothes - she shopped till we dropped and put a dent in my wallet but as at 8pm, I am just shy of 16,000 steps for the day.

I did managed to sneak into Sports Direct to get some Karrimor Marathon Socks as my stock of running socks was running low - I have stacks of other running gear but I struggled to find socks last night.

Dodgy photos from Only The Brave

Only The Brave or in my case Only The Stupid

I work in a finance team who quite unusually are highly active in their personal lives, with a high proportion doing some form of regular running, football, squash or workout.
In December there was a bit of banter about doing an event a bit like Tough Mudder but more local and created to support the very worthwhile East Anglian Children's Hospices (EACH) - there was two options - 5miles and 15 obstacles or 10miles and 30 obstacles - and with lots of bravado, comments of "Blakey has 100km so 10miles is a walk in a park", and "I wouldn't get out of bed for less than 10miles" and so on, so we chose 10miles......

Well as you might gather from the limited number of posts in the last few months, I didn't do a great deal of training, running or strength related, so today I found myself using every bit of mental fortitude to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep clambering over obstacles, through very muddy tunnels, knee water and mud etc whereas my eight colleagues managed it with more ease having trained properly for it.....


Above is the pre-race photo - nice and clean with our Aviva t-shirts.


And here is the post-race photos.

It was very tough for me, some of which was of my own making, and some due to the nature of the course - the second half had few obstacles which meant you were running for longer.

I have decided that I whilst I should have trained for this, I am going to use to train from i.e. as a launchpad to regular running through spring and summer, especially as I have signed up to do the Thetford Marathon, which is off-road along an old 110 mile Roman route.

If you are interested about EACH, there website is  https://www.each.org.uk/.

We raised about £500 (it shows £350 but we have some cash donations to add) but if you wish to contribute, the link is https://www.justgiving.com/ClaimsFinance?utm_source=facebook