Another day and more records...

It's been another happy and record-filled day so far, though as often recently, it's mainly been others setting the records. 


I've spent the afternoon in Market Rasen, with my other half, Sarah, her daughter Georgia, Rob (Georgia's boyfriend) and Sarah's two dogs: Sidney and Oakley. For anyone who's not aware, Market Rasen is a small town in North East Lincolnshire, about 20 minutes drive from Lincoln, just off the A46 - and just over an hour / 50 miles from Nottingham.

Sarah's house is conveniently located right next to a footpath, leading to Willingham Woods, a fairly large Forestry Commission managed woodland, with a network of graveled roads and smaller footpaths. It's just a few minutes walk, or even fewer minutes run to the woods, and so we very often spend lots of time there on Sundays, and did so again today. 

The path to Willingham Wooeds 

First up, after lunch, it was time for a run, and for the first time, it's wasn't just Sarah and I - Georgia and Rob came too. We set off at a pretty gentle pace, with the aim to run 5K, as that's the distance that Georgia had been talked into running at the Sport Relief mile event in March. Rob found the pace very easy and was frequently running off ahead, and I ran with him for a while, past the Racecourse (where I ran my first 10K race in November last year) and a very apposite sign warning cyclists of winds - it was blowing a gale at that point!

It was blowing a gale today!

After about a mile or so, it was clear that Georgia (who was running with Sarah) was struggling, so I dropped back and tried by best coaching techniques to keep her going. It seemed to work and she was running more comfortably by the time we made it to the woods at about half our target distance. 

Willingham Woods - Sarah and Rob in the distance

Willingham Woods is a lovely place to run, walk or bike ride, and the wide open paths are pretty flat, so the rest of Georgia's first 5K was fairly uneventful - with frequent reassurances that it wasn't far to go, she kept going really well and eventually crossed the imaginary finish line in 36:03 (which of course as it was her first 5K, was also a PB!). She was happy to have made it, but determined not to go any further today and so she and Rob (who'd found the whole run an absolute breeze) decided to walk the rest of the way home through the woods. 


Sarah on the other hand was still feeling great, which shows how much progress she's made in just a few weeks - she ran her first 5K a couple of weeks before Christmas and found it really hard, but today was determined to go a lot further. Picking the pace up a bit we carried on through the woods, and then down the path towards Sarah's house. As we approached our destination, my watch was showing about 4.5 miles - equalling Sarah's longest ever run last weekend, and she was still feeling good and wanting to go further, so we did - running past the front door and back to the main road, before finally stopping after 5 miles - a second record for the day!

An interesting sculpture in the woods - and Sidney

We walked the half mile back home, had a cuppa, got our coats on, put the leads on the dogs, and set off again, this time for a walk (we briefly debated whether to go for a bike ride, but decided it was too windy)... A lot of the walk was the same route through the woods as we'd run earlier, but it was still lovely to have a relaxing stroll and to enjoy the scenery and rapidly improving weather - the earlier gales had abated and it was now really still and sunny, perfect bike riding weather in fact!

The "bombing hills" downhill MTB track.

We meandered through the woods, past the downhill mountain bike track (the "bombing hills") and past lots of other walkers, dog walkers, cyclists and horse riders, before heading back home again as the light started to fade. 


By the time we arrived back, we'd clocked up another 5.3 miles towards my target for the year, and more importantly, we'd had a lovely time - plus, when I logged the walk on RunKeeper, it alerted me to another record (although a pretty insignificant one) - I've now walked further this month than ever before!


After a gentle weekend exercise-wise, I'm a bit behind my overall mileage targets for the year, but I'm well ahead on running miles and I'm feeling a lot more refreshed than a couple of days ago, which is a good job, as I'm planning a long run with the boys and running friends in the evening tomorrow!


Here are stats for the year now: 



Running: 137.72 miles
Walking: 19.92 miles
Cycling: 84.12 miles
Swimming: 0 miles
Total: 241.76 miles
Running streak: 61 days (started 23/11/2011)