Red Lion, Bradenham - 8th April 2009

Run Report by Amanda

There was a reasonable turn out last night in the car park at the Red Lion in Bradenham : me, Jules, Chris, Susie, Steve S, Steve T, John, Kate, Baz (with Stella) and Presso. Jules and Chris ran there in about 21 minutes from Radnage - in fact I think Susie and I took longer to get there in the car. Weather was perfect and must have been warmer than last week as John was not wearing his new black gloves.

The run started off well with us all heading off into the woods behind the church - a steady hill for the first 1/2 mile. I was nearly wiped out by a cyclist who I did not hear approaching as I pulled on to the road before crossing - I really must polish up on my Highway Code. Still no damage done and the cyclist politely checked that we were all ok before zooming off.

In the woods the pace was steady with quite a lot of stops. Susie was in top form as she did her very best to keep up with the front two. I am sure that she must have taken some illegal substances to improve her speed as she was not nearly that quick last week. It became clear to me very quickly that I would not be able to catch her this week and I was desperate to avoid the humiliation of coming in near the back (remember no David, Brett or Selwyn running) so I decided that the only thing that I could do was to pretend to feel ill. The question was what illness could I come up with - I was mulling over dehydration when Baz came to my rescue and he told me that he was (also) suffering from hayfever and was having trouble breathing so I was saved - thanks Baz. From now on I intend to run with a mask and carry some piriton with me - funny how the hayfever is much much worse when hills are imminent.

Presso ran very well and I persuaded him not to take a short route back - if he had been allowed to leave us then I would certainly have had to pretend to pass out as I would then have been ranked in last position. As we came out of the woods I saw another hill and was about to do my fainting impression but luckily quite a few of the others (including John who is normally up for the fittie route but he said that he had run earlier in the day in Hughenden - I think his hands might have got cold without his gloves) said that they wanted to take the more direct route back. So I had managed to escape from being seen to be acres behind Susie on the closing stretch home and with that pressure lifted, I felt like a new person and sprinted back in record time (well it was a record for me). The fitties got back a few minutes after us - I ran 4.65 miles and the fitties ran just over 5 miles.

Pub was fine but quite quiet. Quite a lot of discussion centred around a "girl power" theme. From last week's report we were all very impressed to hear that Presso had dared to be late to collect Jo 20 minutes late from the station but the reality was that he had stay up till 1am to collect her as she was so drunk that she had missed her train. The "Which Dudley is running on a Wednesday?" debate is still ongoing and we shall wait to see who comes out on top there. Steve T also told us about his "gentleman's run" - involved lots of drinking in various pubs and some running. We also had a very bizarre discussion about running socks and the contenders for best socks were narrowed done to Thorlo (Chris and I like them but Susie and Jules don't as they are too thick), Falke (goes without saying must be superior as they are manufactured in ze Fatherland) and Decathlon (manufactured in land of the garlic munching surrender monkeys - say no more ).

Next weeks run will be from The Gate with a slightly later start time of 7pm.

Have a good Easter