Mid week.

Well, that's a first for a very long time...

I'm away for work staying in sunny Solihull. In a very nice hotel with one flaw, more on that later.

So I packed the running kit almost believing that was enough to get me out on the pavements at some point in the 2 days I'm here. And what should I see in reception but a plinth sort of thing with a local map with 3 routes marked out, a number of apples and take-away leaflets printed with the routes. Amazing, right - never seen that kind of thing before (and this isn't some 5-star wonder, it's a Crowne Plaza)
So I had a look at the leaflet and couldn't make head or tail of the directions. I thought the medium length route - about 3.5 miles - looked nice, taking in a park and a pond as it did. But the instructions made no sense. I've figured out since that the colour of the route, the length and the directions are all arse about face. Mildly annoying but also quite funny.

So I looked up a suggested route on mapmyrun and set off. Didn't stick to it. The area's a bit like Sneyd Park - poshish houses and old trees and so on. And I did find the park which had a pond - lovely. I hanker after such a thing in Bristol, but the closest one is probably Eastville and that's a drive away.

But head-wise - I think I really enjoyed it. I felt stronger - not lighter physically, but perhaps a little lighter psychologically - and it was helped enormously by having an unfamiliar place to find my way around. I had to put music on rather than a play cos it was hard to concentrate on a plot as well as making sure I didn't get hopelessly lost. As I got closer to the hotel on the way back I began having these odd thoughts, that I would like to keep going further - a lot further... It was odd, but with a distant familiarity... Why didn't I keep going? I think due to aching Achilles and knowing that overdoing it is never a good idea - the best way is to build up slowly.
2 questions arise:  1. how slowly  2. build up to what?

3.49 miles
35m 56s
10m 16 average
- fastest was 9m 59 - first sub-10 mile in a long long while