Week 5 – no golf but plenty of ice

My cold has finally snuffled off and the toothache that followed it is under control so I am running again on a frozen Christmas Eve. Unsure how it will be underfoot, I take my gym membership card with me in case I have to abort the mission and use the treadmill instead.
As I leave the jurisdiction of Coventry freezing fog closes in, but fortunately does not last. This morning the spokesperson from Living Streets (which I am a supporter of) was complaining on the radio that pavements never get gritted. Sure enough, up and down Common Lane and Knowle Hill I have to take to the road as the pavements are too dangerous.

The route sends you down the narrow footpath next to Frythe Close. There is only room to proceed single file and at times even that is challenging with holly pushes hemming you in against the back fence of the adjoining gardens. It might have been more sensible for the footpath to be incorporated into Frythe Close when it was built, but the periphery of Kenilworth is the land of the cul-de-sac where nothing connects. Further along an ivy-clad tree has toppled across the path causing you to duck.
The temperature is 1°C and as I start to breath deeply it feels like my lungs are freezing up. I have a pain in the chest and breathing is difficult. Hence there is a lot of walking on this ‘run’ as I struggle to catch my breath.
I am not a fan of golf or golf courses, the latter take swathes of perfectly good countryside and turn it into telly-tubbyland. But crossing Kenilworth Golf Club’s course makes a change from lanes and fields. There are lots of warnings in the book and on signs around the golf course about the dangers of flying golf balls, but today there are no golfers as it is too cold.

After the golf course I cross fields which are in the state where you cannot tell whether it there is a heavy frost or light snow. As I approach Kingswood Farm there is a pen of hens and a dog nearby. Is he guarding them? Will he take me for someone intent on rustling his Christmas dinner? He bounds up to me and another smaller dog follows, but they are friendly and the only danger is that they might knock me over in their enthusiasm. As I hack out across the next field they join me, but soon I hear a whistle behind as they are summoned home.

In the drive of the next house is a Thelwell-like Shetland pony and in the next field a full-size horse bounds over to me.  I fear that it might display the same enthusiasm as the dog, but it stops a few meters short; curious rather than friendly.

The noise of the A46 grows and in the final field is a herd of sheep, including a starer. I conclude that all herds of sheep must elect one of their number to stare at runners and walkers. Perhaps they have a rota. 
I trot up the steps to Stoneleigh Road, take a look and trot down again.  As I am driving myself this is an out-and-back run, so I return past staring sheep, curious horse, short-legged pony, enthusiastic dogs, golfless course, too narrow path, ‘ouch!’ fallen tree, Kenilworth lanes with icy footways and back to my nice warm car.
This week Map 4 more or less completed 6.57k there and back at a miserable pace of 8:16.
So far 4 maps completed: 16.9k

Week 3 - No running but an answer

Microscopic entities were conspiring against me this week.  I did manage an 8k road run on Monday but by Friday a cold in the head had set in ruling out any further exploration of A Coventry Way this weekend. 

However, a reply came from Teresa Llewellyn at Warwickshire County Council  to my query about the Berkswell end of the old Berkswell-Kenilworth railway.  She wrote;

“Works are planned along that muddy section for this winter.  It is our intention to do the whole of the remaining length up to Berkswell.

“Initially, we have to get our Forestry Section in to clear the 'track bed' of any self set trees/vegetation. "Then we take a 'machine scraper' along the track bed which will remove all the mud and detritus down to the original hard surface.

"We do not know at the moment when any actual surfacing works will be done, but the above work will significantly improve the path surface.”

So by April 18^th we should have a significant improvement if not the full impacted-stone treatment.

Week 2 – railways present and past

Just a measly 4.6k run in midweek. Saturday comes and we get up late after a late night carousing in London. Lots of glasses of water and a bowl of porridge soon restore bodily equilibrium. There is a car to be rescued from the station as we were too over-the-limit to drive it home last night, and a house to be readied for the sister-in-law’s visit. So it is about 12.40 by the time Jan drops me in Back Lane at the start of Map 2 with instructions to collect me in Coventry Road, Kenilworth about 70 minutes later.
The first third of Map 2 is now familiar to me so there is less head scratching while gawping at maps and waymarkers. But during the week there has been even more rain, so the mud is worse, at times causing my feet to slide in strange directions. Some fields also hide a couple of inches of water, just below the long grass. To be fair one point on the map is marked ‘Marsh Area’ so I have been warned. At least the Staring Sheep of Hill House is having a morning off.
Map 3 brings interaction with the railway, present and past, as at Reeves Green I cross and briefly run alongside and above the mainline and then join the former Berkswell to Kenilworth Line. This has been annoyingly rebranded the Berkswell – Kenilworth Greenway. Why cannot it just be called the Old Berkswell –Kenilworth Railway and therefore recognise rather than hide its history? I ascend the few steps to the former trackbed full of hope that there will be no more mud, but I am disappointed. There is even more mud. However there are some fine old brick bridges to admire and after a while the mud disappears and there is a new impacted surface which shrugs off the water. I can get into my stride at last.
The new surface comes courtesy of Sustrans as the former railway forms part of its Connect2 network which won heaps of lottery money after a popular vote last year. They are also responsible for what look like wooden Olympic medalists’ plinths at various points along the way. I later find that these structures are to help cyclists mount their vehicles. There are also a number of signs indicating this is a ‘permissive bridleway’. It sounds like something Lord Longford was against in the 60s.

I am not sure why they have not given the Berkswell end of the line the new surfacing treatment; perhaps they have still to get round to it. I have emailed the Connect2 people to ask.
At Kenilworth I descend to Coventry Road and the end of Map 3. There used to be a railway bridge across the road and soon there will be a new foot and cycle bridge courtesy of Sustrans. Unfortunately the people of Kenilworth and Crackley seem to have chosen the most boring of the three designs they were offered. That is often the trouble with that sort of simplistic community consultation (“would you like option A, B or C”) it leads to lowest-common-denominator design.
Thanks to the Sustrans resurfacing my overall speed is much better than last week, even if the backs of my legs are splattered with mud.
This week: Maps 2 & 3 completed, 10k at pace of 6:49
So far: 3 maps completed = 12.7k

Week 1 - Hills, Cows & Mud

During the week I managed to buy the very last Coventry Way book in the old cathedral tourist information shop. I know from the website that a new book is in production and I am promised it will be sent to me in March. I also know that there are some minor variations to the routes, but I hope that using the old book will not send me hopelessly astray. I will photocopy the relevant sections of the book each time I go out, fold them up small to fit in my runner belt, and whip them out when I am bewildered.
Since completing the Toronto Marathon six weeks ago I have only been out running three times and the longest of those runs was 4k. So I have quite a lot of condition to get back into.
I drop Jan, my wife, off at palates (whatever that is) then hack down the A45 to Meriden village hall for the first stage. Fortunately there is nothing happening at the village hall so they will not mind me using their car park. The weather has been rainy, the air is damp. I calculate I only have 50 minutes so the plan is to run for 25 and then turn back.
So its back up the road and right at the kissing gate. I immediately encounter three of the principle hazards of running through rural Warwickshire:

1. Hills: I am used to these as my usual training runs from home, next to Nauls Mill Park, to Coundon, Northbrook, Corley and beyond include plenty of topography.
2. Cows: no trouble in themselves but it is what they deposit in the field that needs careful navigation.
3. Mud: in the corner of the first field the Cows seem to have come together at some point to tread it into a quagmire. I can see dozens of cloven footprints in the mud. Perhaps it is to this corner that the farmer comes with some bovine snack that they all rush for, or perhaps it is the only place in the field where they can get a signal on their mobiles. I pick my way through the swamp.

Through Meriden churchyard; giant tombstones lean precariously over my path. That would be a bizarre death for a runner; crushed under the enormous slab which had been dislodged by the vibrations of my footfall, an epitaph imprinted on my chest.

I have never had any reason to visit this part of Meriden before so the handsome Moat House Farm, built in 1604, is a nice surprise before I turn into more muddy fields.
I realise later that I am crossing the fields of Berryfields Farm. They have recently opened some huge new farm shop emporium but I have not been there. I am loyal to Phil Tuckey at Berkswell Traditional Meats in Back Lane. We have a mutually beneficial relationship; I help maintain his profits, he helps maintain my girth.
I am soon crossing Back Lane, and also crossing from Map No 1 to Map No 2. More muddy fields; in the first variation from the old map the route takes me diagonally across a field instead of round the edge. It is planted with things that look like they might become cabbages apart from the footpath which is planted with slime and puddles.
I am now in a pleasant pasture with lots of sheep. They all scarper when they see me running towards them, apart from one which wants to show it is not intimidated and fancies a staring match. I have reached Hill House but my 25 minutes are up and I must double back on myself. On the way back it starts to drizzle, but I am quicker as there is less way-finding to be done.
Finding my way has been remarkably easy thanks to all the little circular waymarkers that the Associations volunteers have nailed everywhere. Only once, where I was confused as to which was the clockwise route and which the anticlockwise, did I really need the map. I am grateful for all the volunteers efforts, if they could just get round to laying a tarmac path along the 40 miles, it would be perfect.
3.4k (2.1 miles) of route completed. Running through the countryside is tough.  What with all the stopping for kissing gates and stiles, stopping to find the way and slipping around in mud my time is very slow. Usually on these long runs I aim to do each kilometre in around 6 minutes. Today each K has taken 7 minutes 14 seconds.
1.3 maps
3.4k

I have a plan

Time for my 2009 running shoes to be retired.  They have carried me through the Great North Run and the Toronto Marathon and over 800k of training.  So its off to see the lovely people at Coventry Runner.  I tell them I am thinking of going ‘off-road’.  They advise me that I probably do not need special shoes.  So I stick with what I am used to: another pair of Mizuno Waves, only this year with bright purple trim.

There are two obstacles to overcome before April 18^th.    Firstly, all my running so far (apart from a few shortcuts across Coundon Wedge) has been on roads, pavements and parks.  Footpaths, fields and the like are foreign to me.  So I have to get used to running ‘off-road’.  Secondly, advice on the A Coventry Way website says that challenge entrants should take maps with them.  I really do not want to do that.  By April 18^th I want to know the route. 

So the plan is that my Saturday long runs will all be on sections of A Coventry Way.  Section by section, the route will become familiar to me and my feet and legs will get used to running cross-country. 

Another essential part of the plan is the training schedule.  I look online and nobody seems to produce a ready-made schedule for a 64k (40 mile) run.  But I do discover the dark world of the ‘ultra’.  These websites are not dedicated to Italian football hooligans but people who seem to be equally fanatical.  Technically an ultra is any run longer than the marathon distance of 46k, but these nutters all seem to be talking about 50 or 100 mile runs and feature training schedules which culminate in five hours running on Saturday and another five on Sunday.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) I have a life.  So I simply modify my marathon schedule from earlier this year, just extending my longest training run from 35k to 45k.  Looking forward to that one.

Facing the inevitable

It has been creeping up on me, almost stalking me, until it seems inevitable that I must do it; the A Coventry Way Challenge (strange use of the indefinite article there). 

It is a few years since I first came across A Coventry Way.  The A Coventry Way Association had a stall in the ‘Lives & Times’ tent at the Godiva festival.  I must admit my first reaction was ‘why?’.   Why create a 40 mile long circular footpath route all around Coventry?  Nobody is going to take a holiday to walk the whole thing like they might with the Pennine Way or the Devon Coastal Path; at the same time it is too much to do as a single afternoon walk. 

Of course that initial reaction missed the point.  Not only does the Coventry Way form the basis of whole number of circular walks, which lots of people might want to do, but it is an idea around which a group of enthusiasts can come together to improve footpaths and promote walking, and what can be wrong with that?  And of course some people do complete it as a single walk (or run): the A Coventry Way Challenge.   

Another thing that has been creeping up on me is running.  It has been about six years since I began seriously running, wanting to put some purpose into my workouts at the gym, it seemed best to focus my efforts on an activity that required no skill (as I have none), not much money (as I resent spending money on sporting equipment that could be spent on wine or holidays), and did not involve making arrangements with other people (not because I am anti-social; just because I have a very busy life). 

So now I have completed five Great North Runs and three other half marathons, a couple of 10ks and in October my first marathon in Toronto (see picture - 4 hours 10 minutes since you ask).   What next?   Why not run an absurdly long distance, for almost twice as many hours than I have ever run before, across terrain that I am totally unused to?  It’s a logical step. 

I have submit my online entry.  It asks me how long I expect to take.  I have no idea but, after some back-of-an-envelope calculations, I eventually plump for 7 hours 30 minutes.  I get a nice welcoming email back from Bob Carey.  Now there is no turning back (only some running round in a big circle).