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