More miles (with sheep)

Sunday 12th May

Today was just about clocking as many miles as I could in one run. Set off through town and up the Cheltenham Road as far as Hinton. I was going to turn right towards Elmley Castle but at the last minute decided to go left towards Childswickham. I have done this run a few times before and was sure it was around 9.5 miles so I would just need a short detour it when I got back to town to make it up to 10 miles. From Childswickham you head for Wickhamford, and this is where I met a sheep stood in the middle of the road. It stood it's ground until I got quite close but then realised I was a hard looking bastard with a skinhead and legged it. I had a bit of a panic as we weren't far from the main road but fortunately it found a gap in the hedge and disappeared into a field.

It was also around this point that I started to figure my memory of the distance involved was a bit off. I was going to reach 10 miles somewhere around the top of Port Street leaving me another mile to go so a total of 11. Oh well, never mind just plough on. I made the full 11 in 1 hour 34 minutes so well inside the target pace for next week's half marathon. I did have to walk a few times but only when I hit an uphill stretch and still managed to keep them to 1 minute at a time.

The legs have felt a little heavy this afternoon, especially after sitting down for a while, but that is only to be expected.

The rest of the day was filled with a shopping trip to Stratford for Mand to get some clothes, although I did join in the buying from Fat Face as they had a sale on. Well it would have been rude not to.

I said from the start of this blog that I would take it through to the race in Tewkesbury which is next Sunday. The final post will probably be a day or two later as race day will be really busy as we are having a bit of a party afterwards. It will be really strange not to be doing it every day, maybe I will start a diary instead. I think I will reread some of the early posts and reminisce during this week before a bit of a summing up at the end. I know Mand would like to do one too.

Cheers

Tim