Janathon day 6: Pednor Loop, lovely blast!

Written Jan 6, 2013, tagged under post,janathon,Pednor Loop,running

Well, that was fun! At last I managed to do my planned Pednor Loop circuit. The weather wasn't especially encouraging when I set off at about 9am, with fog and a little bit of light drizzle. As it turned out, though, it was perfect: rather spectacular, in a quintessentially English way, and the moisture kept me cool as I ran. I managed to get a few pics on my phone as I ran, to get a sense for how things were looking.

As I've done more running than I'm used to over the last few days, I thought I'd better start off fairly gently - the run is a loop, so having an injury or flaking out half-way round, really wouldn't be very funny. So after about 10 minutes of brisk walking, I started my circuit off at a running pace. The start of the run was rather steep, but since my main concern was just to get round, this was fine, so I just dug in and kept going. As I went around, I saw quite a few familiar faces from our local running club (Chiltern Harriers) who train in the same park as my "wild exercise" group; I was quite surprised how many people I saw, in fact!

What I particularly enjoyed about this run was the way that, even after a few miles, I didn't really feel too exhausted or achy. And as it turned out, with the hills being covered relatively early, the last few miles were SUCH FUN. I hit the classic "runner's high", on the last stretch, and boosted the pace rather: I covered my first mile in 9:36, but completed the final one in 7:30, which I think is a personal record. Yay!

That was a run I'll be doing again. In fact a friend said he might be interested in it next week, so that could be really enjoyable!

Final result: 5 miles, 45 minutes. Pleasure: priceless!