Kidderminster! (Or: The Agony and The Ecstacy)

Originally used as the "posh person's term for 'toilet'" in a Bottom sketch, Kidderminster is actually a town in the vague vicinity of Halesowen. Sort of.

It was also the destination of my long run this week.

My original plan was to run down the A456 to Hagley, then branch off down the A450 (Worcester Rd) to Stone, cut along the A448 on the outskirts of Kiddy, then run all the way back down the A456 back home.

It was a lovely afternoon for a run. I loaded up the Camelbak, stuffed a few gels into my belt, and plodded out into the sunshine.

I can tell you, you don't half feel a complete tool running through a residential area with a Camelbak on. Thankfully, though, within about half a mile of our house you get into the kind of area where it doesn't seem quite so odd. And anyway, after a few miles you really do stop caring what you look like....

I got to Hackman's Gate, not too far short of Barnett Hill garden centre on the A450, when the foot way abruptly ended. The verges deteriorated into the kind of terrain that would complement a ploughed field quite nicely. A quick glance over the top of my sunglasses confirmed that there was no further footpath as far as the eye could see.

I had three options: risk turning an ankle on the ploughed-field verge, risk death by running on a national-speed limit road, or turn back. Guess what. I turned back.

I took the road to the left at the crossroads at Hackman's Gate. Thankfully I am blessed with a vaguely good sense of direction, which, combined with a reasonable knowledge of the major routes around our wider area, means I can normally find my way OK using a system of educated guesswork. I headed down Belbroughton Road, which, can I say, has some really rather nice houses on it. I even picked out a couple that I'll go and buy up when I win the lottery. That's the beauty of running - it'll take you past places you'd never normally go, and allow you to take in the detail of those common places you never really noticed before.

Happily, as per my vague internal compass, I came out in Blakedown and set off towards Kiddy on the A456. Nice to see that the good people on Bromsgrove District council value the safety of their pedestrians, having built the crash barrier for this (also national speed limit) dual carriageway on the non-road-side of the pavement. Ha. Got to Brewer's, the lovely wallpaper place where we got out bedroom wallpaper from. I'd done 9 miles at this point, and I had a bit of a stretch. For the last few miles, I had started to feel incredibly bloated and a wee bit sickly, and the thought of taking on more fluid or gels was a bit of an anathema, despite the warm weather. This probably contributed to my later fatigue, but at least it's a lesson learnt before the marathon and not during it. The last few miles were a real struggle, but I still managed to get back home to complete 17 miles in 3 hours 32 mins. Interestingly, my half marathon time was probably about 2 hours 30. That's the difference racing makes (and possibly not having done another half just four days before...!). My average HR for the entire run was 155bpm, with most of my miles being 11-12 mins - gradually getting slower as I toiled up the Hagley mile on my way home! Man, was I hurting by this point. The sides of my knees and hips were quite painful, with the only positive point being that it actually hurt more to stop than it did to keep going. What a motivator, eh?!

Got back and ran the bath. Ahhhhh, sheer bliss. A nice hot bath after a long run is like Lemsip for a cold. Very soothing and with some added therapeutic benefit. Once the ibuprofen starts kicking in, it's like heaven. Next week, I'm going to try taking some ibuprofen with my pre-long-run meal, to see if that helps stop the onset of joint-grot in the later miles.