Month: May 2015

I didn’t run last week, but this run was the week before (as I write on the 7th June).  I followed the same general route as the previous week with a few tweaks along the way as I discovered more about these new paths.  Aside from Lew’s cows coming over to ‘talk’ to me as I ran past, the highlight of the run was actually stopping to allow someone time to negotiate a stile.

I stopped to chat and it turned out that the man (Peter ‘Percy’ Pettinger) had grown up in the Royal Oak and was just back in the area visiting.

I was captivated as Percy described the area when he was growing up in the ’60’s… for example, the main road had gates across it because common had sheep & cattle grazing on it.  Apparently the local kids would turn these gates into tolls, charging drivers to pass through.  As the road developed so they installed kerbs, but these stopped some distance on either side of the Royal Oak to give people more space to negotiate the sharp corner.  He also described walking past the local labourers working in the fields and hiding, until they walked off home at the end of the day (probably via the Royal Oak), in order to poach a fish from the farm’s pond.

You can see the run on Strava at https://www.strava.com/activities/310967949 – 7.12 miles in 69 minutes (excluding the time spent talking!), average 6.2 mph.

Every so often I have a super-nteresting run and this run (bearing in mind I’m writing this on the 7th June) was one of those.  Where I had been running my normal circuit in an anti-clockwise direction, I simply went the other way.  Bearing in mind that I teach people to look at things from a different perspective, this was a beautiful example of what happens when you do.

A while ago I noticed that the local hospice had created a dog-leg in the path adjacent to their boundary and because I saw no particular reason for it (it could only be about 15 feet long), I had never run around the other side of the bushes.  Coming from the other direction and being in a curious mood, I took the diversion and found that it’s the start of a delightful path that runs along the field edge, parallel to where I normally run.

Needless to say I took this path and was delighted that it led onto a few more new paths.

You can see the run on Strava at https://www.strava.com/activities/306515705 – 7.18 miles in 1 hour 8 minutes, 6.34 mph average.

 

You’ll be pleased to know that, despite the absence (I’m writing this on the 7th June), I have actually been running most weeks… it’s only the writing that had lapsed!  I didn’t make notes after this run, or the next two, so the posts will mainly consist of photos.

You can see the run on Strava at https://www.strava.com/activities/301661469 – 6.06 miles in 57 minutes,, 6.5 mph.