Category Archives: Friends

Goodbye 2017

Lambfair Green Puddle Ride

Lambfair Green Puddle Ride

Its been a disappointing December for bike mileage due to the bad weather and Icy conditions but today to end the year perfectly we clocked up a good 70 miles on the bike, many of the roads were flooded after the heavy rain but luckily no ice today.

Although that has been the only disappointment this year, everything else has gone to plan and I have enjoyed many happy adventures with my friends and Geoff.

The highlights had to be The Lap Of Anglia and cycling from my house to Edinburgh with Geoff,as well as running two fab half marathons.

2018 is promising to be just as exciting with many events already booked up, in fact, my diary seems busy right up until August which is rather exciting.

2017 finished with a ride so 2018 must start with a Run, the Wymondham 10k with friends the object now is not to drink too much tonight !!!!!

Fenland 10 and St Neots Half…..

This year I had a plan, I love plans especially when they work and today all those laid out plans came to an end.

The plan was 2 half marathons, one at the beginning of the year and one at the end of the year, in between run a few 10k events while concentrating on my biking through the summer.Untitled

I did throw in one extra run and that was the Fenland 10, an excellent event ran in perfect conditions and used as a training run for the St Neots half.The course is described as flat and fast great for getting a P/B time. The only disappointment was No Medal or T-shirt but I did get a P/B time so the disappointment was short lived !!

I really enjoy winter running especially on cold sunny days so I was really looking forward to meeting up with Gina for the St Neots half, I had been dodging coughs and colds all week so just hoped all would be ok on the day. Our other running friends Linda and Jayne came to cheer us on, it’s always lovely to see a familiar face when doing these events.

Untitled My Race was almost over before it began as when walking to the start and chatting away to Gina I tripped on a loose drain cover coming down hard on my knee and wrist, I felt quite sick for a while with the shock but was just grateful it was not worse,my new 2XU tights could have been torn !!!

After I stopped worrying about my knee we had a  great run on an undulating route, the scenery was lovely in today’s winter sunshine, very different to the 40mph windy gusts in 2015. The supporters, marshalls and organisation made it a great day and we really enjoyed the downhill finish, which made our 13th mile our fastest.

To top it all off we received a smashing bit of bling and a long-sleeved T-shirt

Now I am busy planning for next year, which starts with the Wymondham 10k on New years day which Gina Jayne Linda and I will run together and the idea of running a 15mile event just won’t go away !!!

Run/Walking along the Fen Rivers Way

After all the rain yesterday the weather today was just perfect for the run/walk I had planned with Gina

Untitled We caught the train to Downham market then came back along the Fen Rivers way, walking a mile, running a mile.

It was an excellent route, the grass only too long for running in one small part, and thankfully not as wet as expected after a days rain.

After about 8 miles we stopped at the Crown and Anchor for a pint before continuing on our way to the quay side in Kings Lynn.where we enjoyed fish and chips at Marriott’s warehouse.

A total of 12 miles covered in 3 hours 3 mins at an avg pace of 14.42.

An excellent day, we both found it much easier than just walking 12 miles, and I can see us doing some more run/walking in the future.

Happy to say my Deuter Speedlite 5 pack was perfect for the job !!

Cambridge Autumnal 100k Audax

The  Cambridge Autumnal 100k Audax was my 5th Audax ride this year, I so love these rides as they are far more relaxed than sportives, cost a lot less to enter and it feels like a real day out rather than a race to finish as quickly as possible and get home. The food is usually pretty good too !!

I was doing this Audax with 2 girlfriends, Jo and Gina,in fact it was Jo’s first Audax and the first one where i was in charge of the navigating, which did make me a little nervous, Unlike when walking I confess to not being able to follow the written route sheets on my bike so have to totally rely on my Garmin 1000.

The start was from Girton and a nice breakfast had been laid on for us so after booking in we enjoyed tea and toast before setting off , the organiser assured me the garmin route would be excellent but was happy to see that i also had a written route sheet just in case ,not that it would have helped me at all !!

img_4021The route was going to be  slightly undulating and take us through cambridgeshire suffolk and essex , with controls at Great Thurlow, Thaxted and Saffron waldron, then an information control at Balsham, the amazing thing is the TCX file was so good it told me at intervals how many km to control points and also told me when we had reached them and was always spot on .

It was a little hairy coming back through central Cambridge at 3pm but we made it without running over any suicidal shoppers who just walked straight out in front of you without even looking !!!

On our return we had a slap up meal consisting of vegetable chilli, cheese/ham rolls, lemon/toffee cake plus tea/coffee which we totally enjoyed while having a good  girlie chat

Next year I hope to move on to do some 200k Audaxes which I am sure Geoff will enjoy if he can stay in the country long enough !!

The Flower Of Suffolk

Its been a while since I did some real walking, I am usually put off due to the amount of travelling and cost, but yesterday I dusted off my walking boots, made the effort and was not disappointed.img_4002

The day started with a 2 hour drive to walberswick ,in pouring rain with Jo,where we met up with Gina and Jayne to walk The LDWA challenge walk ,the Flower of Suffolk, in the past Gina and I have walked the Daffodil Dawdle 26 miles and Jayne well she has now done 13 of the 100 mile events, while this was going to be the first taste of a challenge walk for Jo.

Luckily by the time we had met up,picked up our route sheet had a quick chat and coffee the rain had stopped and the sky was brightening up.

Although I can follow these walking routes, as we are chatting a lot !! it’s easy to lose your place so I decided to put the route on my garmin 1000 as a back up. Happy to say it worked very well fullsizerender-15especially as when we set off  Jayne just presumed we were doing the 26 miles…..

Once back on the 18 mile route the sun had decided to come out and greet us,and much fun was had as we found our way from check point to check point.

Walking through the heath at this time of year with the heathers, grasses and boardwalks is really beautiful, the route ended with a stretch along the beach too, shame my battery died on my camera.

The Marshalls at the checkpoints were all friendly and it was nice to see people I knew, the other fab thing about these LDWA challenge walks is the food, great food at every check point, then a bean and veg stew followed by crumble and custard when you finish.

A really great day out with great company lots of chat and giggles…….. and I must make more of an effort to do more walking, next year we will try to do all 3 challenge walks, The Daffodil Dawdle, The Poppy line and The Flower of Suffolk.

Freethorpe 10 miler

Freethorpe 10 was my first event of 2016 and I was using it as a training run for the Cambridge half in February.

imageAs usual I was meeting up with my Norwich running friends which always makes these events great fun,this time Linda was marshalling and Jayne was able to join us too, Was also great to have Geoff along to support us and take photo’s.

The weather was cold and drizzly perfect for running not so nice for marshalling but at least the strong winds had died down.

Gina and I decided to run together, although she is usually a faster runner than me her knee had been playing up and she wanted to take it easy !

I am used to running these events now and don’t get as nervous as I used too although I was slightly worried about this one as I had not been feeling my best, so having Gina to run with was good for me.image

The route was more undulating than I am used too but I enjoyed the run and all the marshals did a great job of encouraging us along.

I ran better than I expected too finishing in 1.42 and loved the first bling of 2016.

After the run we enjoyed lunch at the Rampant horse just across the road from the village hall and then had fun trying to get our cars out the car park , a turnip field that had turned to mud after having 700 cars parked on it.