Running in the Cotswolds: Not for the faint-hearted

The whole point of doing two half marathon’s in November was to get myself into some sort of fitness before starting my marathon training. A month’s worth of pre-Christmas boozing in London put paid to that, but I still thought I was in reasonable shape. Reasonable shape that was, until I went out running with my brother on Boxing Day morning.

I should say at this point that when we discussed a possible route on Christmas Day, I was led to believe it would be a leisurely jaunt along the cycle track from Stroud to Nailsworth and back again. That’s about 8 miles, but the cycle track is a disused railway line on the valley floor, so it is pancake flat. To me that sounded like an ideal way to break myself back in gently.

So you can imagine my surprise when, as we were heading out, Dan suggested that he knew another route that was 8 miles. And that it was much better than the boring monotony of the cycle track. I reluctantly agreed to go with it, and for those of you from Gloucestershire, you will feel my pain as I tell you the route we followed. We went straight up Rodborough Hill, over Rodborough Common, up Bear Hill, over to Amberley, down into Nailsworth and then back along the cycle track before finishing off with a little jog up Spillmans Pitch for good measure. I’ll give him one thing, he wasn’t lying - it was 7.99 miles exact. But it was a world apart from what I was expecting.

If you’re not from Gloucestershire, below is the view from the Fort at the top of Rodborough Common. Anyone trying to break into this one back in the day would either have been seen coming a mile off or so knackered from getting up the hill they wouldn’t have put up much of a fight.

The view from Rodborough Common

The reasonably large red-brick buildings on the left are roughly where we started. And you might be able to make out a church spire to the right of centre – that’s a pretty large church, and gives an indication of scale.  To do my bit for tourism in my home town, if you’ve got two minutes have a look at this site. It has some cracking photos of the the common, with free-roaming cattle, a picturesque fort and views out over the Severn. It is hard work getting up the hill, but once you're up top, it’s always worth it.

I thought I’d check my Garmin when I got back home to see how much climbing we’d done. It revealed that over the 8 miles I’d climbed a total of 836 feet. To put that into terms that Londoners will understand, it was the equivalent of running up the side of Centre Point. Twice.

As you can imagine, my calves were in bits. So jumping straight in the car to drive 200 miles to Coventry and back to watch Bristol City get beat in a lacklustre affair, probably didn’t help either.

The next morning I was insistent that I’d only run along the cycle track as previously planned. Dan wanted to run 8 miles, but I dug my heels in and refused to do more than 6. We decided to ‘give it a bit of a blast’ and agreed a goal time per mile. At this point I should say I’m trying not to give too much away about my estimated marathon time for fear of missing it by some distance and looking extremely stupid. So I’m going to refrain from giving timings where-ever possible. But let’s just say it was at the higher end of what I can do.

In the space of a six mile run, the only words I was able to utter to my brother were ‘we’re currently at x pace’ at about half a mile in (which obviously was thirty seconds a mile quicker than we’d agreed), and then ‘you go on and I’ll meet you at the end’ at the half-way point as I was dying. The good news is that I only finished about a minute behind him, and ended up averaging 32 seconds per mile quicker than I wanted. But I had to quickly decamp to the nearest park bench for ten minutes to regain my breath.

With the morning run done, I decided to give my calves even more of a bashing by spending the afternoon introducing my in-laws to Coaley Peak with its terrific views out over the River Severn. And then by dropping the mile down (and back up) the rough woodland track to Woodchester Mansion, a massive stone house that was never finished & now regularly hosts ghost nights (pics below). You might have seen it in the news recently, as apparently there is a dangerous big cat on the loose in there, but I can confirm that we didn't see it if there is!

The view from Coaley Peak

Woodchester Mansion

Or Woodchester Mansion, as pictured by the Stroud News after the wild cat story...

To finish the day in style, we had a lovely night out drinking copious amounts of Oranjeboom with my friends and better halves from back home. And when my brother turned up, he informed me he’d gone back in the afternoon and done the same six mile run again, only this time he’d done it 3 minutes quicker! These are the reasons I’ll never beat him…

I finished the week with two more lovely country runs, but these were flown solo. They involved quite a bit of climbing, but at my own pace as I took in the fields and country lanes around Chalford, Eastcombe, Bussage, France Lynch and Bournes Green. All in all, I had a cracking week in the country with mine and Clare’s families, even if the running nearly killed me. But on the plus side, it has definitely given me the feel that I’m back on track.

And I’m telling you this because…
I’m running the 2012 London Marathon for the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF).

If you feel inclined to sponsor me to help the Hertfordshire Community Foundation continue their great work, you can do so here:  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BenWood2