A Day Out At Grafham Water

The marathon training plan that I devised for me and the Sweaty Betties called for a 16 mile run this weekend.  I remembered running around Grafham Water reservoir a few years back and discovering it was 8 miles around the lake.  Therefore, I suggested we made a trip out to Grafham for our weekend's run.

Seven girls wanted to join me for the trip, including two new girls.  These were: Jo, Pia, Rowan, Julie, Sarah and her visiting friend, Izzy, and new girl, Shahla.  Everyone was aiming for slightly different distances.  Myself, Jo, Pia and Izzy were planning on doing the full 16 miles,  Shahla 14 miles, Sarah 13, Julie 10 and Rowan 8 miles.  We mostly ran the first lap together as best we could, but it was quickly clear that Shahla and Sarah weren't quite as fast as the other five.

Julie, Pia, Rowan, Izzy & Jo at the back.

The lead group never got too far ahead of the other girls, and we waited every two miles or so for them to catch up.

The last time we were almost all together: Izzy, Jo, Pia, Julie, Shahla, Rowan
and Sarah at the back in the yellow coat.

It was a particularly foul day today - cold, wet and windy.  When I'd planned the trip to Grafham I had imagined a clear winters day with lovely views across the lake.  When we were marathon training this time last year we did lots of training runs on lovely winter days.  Of course, that was because we were in a drought back then, which ended shortly after London marathon and it seems it has hardly stopped raining since.  We encountered lots of mud and plenty of deep puddles.  I came very close to having my trainers pulled off my feet in one sticky patch of mud.  Fortunately for the girls I was able to advise them to take an alternative route around the mud.  Once we'd completed one lap we ran the next lap in the reverse direction.  I'd managed to forget about the shoe sucking mud in the space of about 3 miles and almost lost my shoes a second time.

As several people were running different mileages we had to say our goodbyes at various different points.  Sarah decided to turn around at the 6.5 mile point on the first lap of the lake.  Everyone else continued to the car park, where we said goodbye to Rowan.  Julie then continued for another mile back on herself and then returned to her car, and Shahla ran back for  about 3 miles and then turned around again.  We waited for Shahla at the point we thought she'd turn around but never saw her again, so I hope she was o.k.

I then continued with the remaining three for the full two laps.  It's possible that I could have planned the route better.  We went clockwise for the first lap, and anti-clockwise for the second lap.  I had forgotten how hilly it is over the first two miles if you run clockwise around the lake.  This wasn't so bad on the first lap with fresh legs, but when we turned around to run the second lap anti-clockwise it meant we'd have to deal with the hills for the last 2 miles of what actually turned out to be a 17.4 mile run.  So I was slightly out with my one lap being 8 miles.  For the second week running I made Jo and myself run about a mile and a half more than the training programme suggested.

It also turned out that I made another organisational error.  There are two main car parks at Grafham Water.  One right by a sailing centre and on the edge of the main village of Perry.  The other is in the middle of nowhere and where there is a cycle hire centre.  I remembered that both had cafes, but I assumed that the cafe next to the sailing centre was the one most likely to be open, but I never thought to check.  As it turned out I was wrong, so we had no chance to get a hot cup of tea at the end of the run.  At least I took cookies to share with everyone.  Maybe I should invest in a large flask.  At the end of the run we had a quick stretch under the canopy of the closed cafe and then piled into my car with our muddy legs for the 40 minute drive back to Cambridge.