Heavy legs

So apparently running every hour for 24 hours and clocking 26.2 miles leaves you knackered. Who knew?

To be honest I haven’t felt too awful. Really tired and heavy legs but it certainly could have been a lot worse. Anyway I had already decided to rest my weary legs for a few days after the weekend’s antics anyway but by Thursday I thought I really should try to move a bit.

So after procrastinating as usual. I put on Miriam Margoleyes on desert island discs and away I went. To be fair my pace wasn’t bad. And I actually got negative splits which was nice. But my legs felt like I was dragging them along.

I wasn’t too disappointed. I was asking a lot of my body after the weekend.

Phoenix running were putting on an event for summer solstice to run a mile an hour every hour for 24 hours on Saturday…. what sort of twerp would do that? Lol. So I already knew about this event when I did mine but I wanted to do mine for mk24 on the weekend it should have fallen on so I put this to the back of my mind for mine. But to my delight my lovely friends Pete and Sadie decided to do it! They were kind enough to allow me to run a mile with them on Saturday

Yes. That t shirt is back….. apparently the sun wasn’t quite bright enough! I really enjoyed my mile with Pete and I’m thrilled to say they both completed the challenge! Huzzah!

Around came Sunday and I had been invited by my lovely friend Karen (mk24 7pm mile….😂) to come for a trail run at woburn. This is a route we do every year at club in Xmas outfits along a route that skirts the safari park. I was really looking forward to it but Mr Anxiety who turns up when he is least welcome had other ideas. I got in a right tizz about it. There were a few people going that I didn’t know well and so I got in a wobbly. Karen is lovely and tried to calm me down which really helped.

So there were 7 of us and Bear the lovely doggy at 9am sunday morning. The first part of the course is a lot of up hill. It takes you through part of the woburn estate and there were herds of deer everywhere.

I ran and chatted with different people which was really nice. There was a wide range of speeds too so I could walk the hills. We had a lot of heavy rain so I wore my trail shoes as it can get very muddy there but my legs just aren’t used to them at the moment and my shins really suffered in them.

I think they are being deer but am unsure 😂

As we headed into the safari park area we saw lots of green mesh had been put up at the fences by the animals. This route was always a bit of a runners and walkers secret. Unfortunately people posted about it on local Facebook pages and it’s been packed with family’s getting a free day out. Worse still people were sitting on the path with picnics, scaring the animals and leaving litter everywhere. No wonder they have screened them off. It’s a real shame though as it’s nice to see the animals as you go running by. Today’s spots were zebra, elephant, giraffe and wallaby. All through green mesh so no pictures but it was nice to glimpse them.

After the woods is the long wall home. It’s around 1.5 miles along an old estate wall and a road back to woburn. It’s the worst bit and feels never-ending. But back we got and to our delight the village had a farmer’s market on! So over we went for a mooch. Lots of lovely fruit and veg and bread. I bought some dark chocolate treats and Dan and Karen bought beaver and penguin pies….. neither containing the real deal I don’t think but gave us a good giggle. Wandering about together chatting felt really lovely. One of my favourite parts of Sunday runs is the social in the pub afterwards and this had the same feel to it. I thoroughly enjoyed my Sunday morning. 5.2 miles done o tired legs. I’ll take that.