I’m English so lets complain about the weather….

“It’s too hot”…I’m sure almost every runner out there have usesd this line at least once in their lifetime, alongside “it was rainy/windy/icy etc”. It seems like a bloody good excuse and once you get this excuse into your brain whilst out it’s a challenge to get it out – this weekend I failed!

Having faffed a little and had a relatively long lie in (for me) I didn’t manage to get out the door until about 11am. At this point the demons were already telling me not to bother but fortunately I had the willpower to ignore those ones. Having barely made it to the bottom of the road I knew instantly today was going to be hot (well hot for England anyway) and stuffy and at this point I was trying to work out how I could cut my run short thinking things like “maybe I’ll just do 5km – it doesn’t really matter how far I go anyway, I’m not really working towards anything”.

The route I chose was the much flatter Longfield track along 1 road and then turning back on myself. I ran it once during my marathon training and remember thinking it was a little dull and not quite as flat as you would expect it to be. However, it was this or the hill route of last week an for some reason that route really wasn’t appealing to me that morning.

I got to 4km a couple of km’s short of where I turned on my last attempt and decided that that would be a good turning point. I could add a km at the other end easily taking the run up to a currently respectable 9km and what’s one km between friends anyway! Turning back on myself I reran exactly the same path (Ive never been a fan of tracking back on yourself I’d much rather a loop…) that said it has a little scenery including a few fields with horses, there was also a mirror on the route which provided a rather amusing annecdote but I don’t think I can do the story (or my stupidity) any justice on this blog…



There were a few runners out that morning (hopefully all thinking it was too hot!) including one chap from the ‘Dartford Road Runners’ who overtook me when I least expected it, made me think I should contact the running club in Woodford. I have always been a bit apprehensive as I don’t feel good enough to be a runner in a club but maybe they have a few slower people like yours truely that I maybe able to go out on runs with every so often?

Back at Lauras it was immediately obvious I was hot, it took me absolutely ages to cool down, not even the shower seemed to help. Have a 10km in a few weeks time, 930am start but no doubt the sun will be out, Bluewater was also v hot, blue skies no clouds and I made it round there, hopefully if I can get a bit of liquid in me and down my back to cool I should be able to charge round…