This was a repeat of the 6 December run. Just me and Anthony, 0645 start, howling wind and rain.
We went up to Peters Green, the long climb was hard but Anthony was running so well he chatted the whole way. Then we went over to Barleybean Farm and down to Kimpton. The wind was in our faces and the rain was constant. I was soaked through but feeling ok. Anthony was on form and could've gone faster.
From Kimpton it was the steep climb up to Gustard Wood. A couple of cyclists shouted at us "Are you mad?" That was classic, you could see they were complete psychos.
On the way down to Wheathampstead we see another runner coming our way. He says in a posh English accent "the road is water logged ahead, there's a 100 yard puddle blocking the way". Anthony shouts "no worries we've got our bouyancy aids". When we reached the "puddle" it was pretty bad. But we're from up North, so we just went straight through. About half way along I realised that my feet had frozen and by the end I was losing feeling above my ankles! It was very cold and deep water. Worthy of the photo.
From Wheathampstead we went along the road and then along the Lea Valley to finish with a run up Crabtree Lane. This was back into the wind but who cares by that stage. We were soaked, freezing and heading for home!
Anthony was in awesome form. he even managed to take over from Paul and do a bit of form work on the hills. He also maintained a sub 9 min pace all the way while chatting. Good man.
In the end it was 14miles in just under 2 hours. That's 8.30 pace, faster than the December 8.41 pace. Nice effort but everything is soaked and I'm not sure the trainers will recover.
It had stopped raining by 4pm :)
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