Juneathon Day 11 – Further Up The Greensand Way

Something I could have mentioned in yesterday’s 5 Ways To Make The Most Of Juneathon post, that fits nicely in point no. 5, is Juneathon is a good excuse to go exploring and check out new areas.

Which is what I did today.

The Greensand Way is a 108 mile path, stretching from Haslemere in Surrey to Hamstreet in Kent (four miles down the road from here). Because it passes the house, I’ve walked up the nearest bit that heads towards Surrey (if I go towards Hamstreet it involves going through a farm and I’m too shy to walk through someone’s farm; I feel like I’m trespassing) but haven’t got any further than about two and a half miles before turning round and walking back again. Today though, I cycled up to the Environment Centre and joined the Greensand Way there and walked as far as Hothfield. I would have gone further had I not taken a wrong turning somewhere and ended up going round in a circle. Duh.

Still, I saw part of the Greensand Way I hadn’t seen before so it’s all good. Next time I’ll take an Ordnance Survey map with me although I can barely read a London A-Z, let alone a map that seems to consist solely of lines and squiggles, so I’m not sure it’ll stop me getting lost.

I’ll post the photos of my walk tomorrow but in the meantime, here’s a photo of some calves I saw.

Calves on the Greensand Way

Stats

Cycling: 3.57 miles
Walking: 6.11 miles
Juneathons completed: 9/30

Juneathon Day 4 – Lots of photos

Another sleepless night but I told myself I’d go to the gym this morning – after all, it wouldn’t actually kill me, would it? Probably not, but then I looked out the window and there was BRIGHT SUNSHINE, WAHOO, so I thought I’d be better off going outside and getting a heavy dose of vitamin D instead.

I took my usual route up the Greensand Way and although I didn’t take my camera with me, here are some photos I took a few weeks ago. Just imagine them with bluer skies. You might as well also imagine them covered in houses, as that’s what it’ll look like in a few years.

path daisy flowers forest trees field2 field road cat dandelion butterfly sign road2 trees2

I felt energised after my walk in the sun, so hopefully I’ll sleep better tonight and maybe even attempt a run tomorrow. Don’t hold me to that though, eh?

Stats

Walk:
Distance: 4.1 miles
Time: 1:14:57

Juneathon 2014 – Days 13 –17 – Including A Run With Other People

I haven’t slacked as much as you might think, so there. On the 13th (last Friday) I went for a run/walk along the Greensand Way. It would have been more run than walk but the second field had hip-high grass and even a walk was difficult.

The next day I redeemed myself by going to the local parkrun. Despite going along on my own as usual, Helen said she was going to hers and also on her own and she was sure she was going to be really shit as she’s still getting her fitness back after having a baby. So, we decided to telepathically encourage each other round the course. It worked, too, as we both ran it a lot faster than we thought we would. Virtual high-fives all round, yay.

Sunday I walked to Tesco and back. IT COUNTS.

Monday I did some kettlebells and on Tuesday I decided to go out with the local running group (not to be confused with this local running group who were horrific and quite literally pushed me out the door when I said I didn’t know they were running so far and I’d come back another time) and join them for their speedwork/laps session. What they failed to mention on their schedule is that sometimes these laps are HILLS. I hate hills. We slowly ran up to the bottom of the hill and were told to do as many laps as we could in 30 minutes. I tagged along with a couple of the others who have just finished their beginners schedule and after three laps (half the lap is the hill, the second half is a lovely downhill) we decided we’d had enough, but then one of the other girls came along and said ‘come on, you can do one more’ so we gave another lap a go and ran some of the hill and I was pleased with my three and a bit laps as usually when I see a hill, I don’t even attempt it, I just stop and walk up it.

Today, so far I have done 30 minutes of body pump and I’m going to the gym later and then to a spin class.

See, told you I haven’t been slacking. Just slacking on the blogging.

Cows, calves and cats up trees

Yesterday’s bike ride wore me out so much, I fell asleep last night before I could get drunk. So today’s hangover, on a scale of 0-10 of Sunday hangovers, was only about 2, so I went to the gym this morning.

greensand-way-sign

Then iliketocount and I went for a bike ride to explore the next bit of the Greensand Way that we hadn’t seen yet (well, I say ‘we’, I mean ‘me’, as he’d gone and explored it without me a few weeks ago).

greensand-way

I saw a cat up a tree

cat-up-tree

and a cow with a big spiky metal thing in its nose (anyone know what it’s for?)

cow-with-nosering

and a baby cow

baby-cow

and some cows roaming free on the footpath that I was too scared of to go anywhere near.

cows-on-path

And then we went to the pub for a pint and cycled back.

That’s enough greenery for one weekend, I’m going to go and look at a picture of Canary Wharf or something.

Stats
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Cross-trainer: 20 minutes
Cycling: 6 miles
Walking: 1.5 miles
Cats in trees: 1
Cows with bit metal spiky things in its nose: 1
Baby cows: lots
Pints: 1

Smiley faces and white dog poo

I went for a five mile walk yesterday. I usually hate walking for more than, say, a mile, but I wanted to investigate the next bit of the Greensand Way and I can only run about a mile at the mo.

When I got to what I thought was the next bit of the Greensand Way though, the sign said ‘bridleway’ and not ‘footpath’ and so it confused me and I didn’t want to walk up there just to turn round and walk back if it didn’t go anywhere especially as there was a man in a hi-vis vest on the corner of the gypsy house and I didn’t want him to think I was a weirdo going into fields for two minutes then coming back out of them so I carried on up the road until I saw a sign that said ‘footpath’ and investigated up there but the path only went about two feet parallel to the road and then back on to the road and so I went back the way I came and wanted to go up where it said bridleway but the hi-vis vest man was still there and he probably already thought I was a weirdo for walking up the road and back and so I went into the woods opposite instead and saw this

walk 004

and then walked back along the roads instead of the fields and I saw a smiley face on a door

walk 006

and even more exciting than the smiley face on the door was the 70s style white dog poo. Yay.

walk 007

Slightly less exciting than the smiley face on the door and the 70s style white dog poo was this snail.

walk 008

Next time, I won’t worry about people thinking I’m a weirdo and I will investigate the bridleway.

Stats (walking)

Distance: 5.11 miles
Time: 1:33:34
Pace: 18:18
Calories: 373
Bridleways: 1
Bridleways I walked up: 0
Men in hi-vis vests: 1
Smiley faces on doors: 1
White dog poos: 1
Snails: 1

The Grim Greensand Beast

Because I’m off to London tonight to meet my friends with the impeccable taste in music (i.e. the Cardiacs chatlist people), I decided to save my energy and not do Grim: Beast in the East with Shaun, Grant and Tom, but to do my own cross-country 10k here instead, taking in some of the Greensand Way.

Although Shaun kept waking me up while he was getting ready to go by coming back upstairs to inform me that a) the cat had done a poo; b) it was really smelly; c) it was also quite runny; and d) he’d covered it over with litter (you will note he hadn’t cleaned it up. When it comes to litter-tray incidents, that’s when the cat becomes *my* cat), then back upstairs again to tell me that a) he hadn’t gone yet; and b) he’d made me a cup of tea, I had a decent night’s sleep and got up reasonably early and I’d said to Shaun that I would set off for my run at 10:30, the same time Grim started but that meant I had two hours to wait and so I decided that because they’d probably finish about an hour before me, that I should get a headstart anyway and so at 9am, I decided I’d get changed and head off for my run.

At 10am, I’m still sitting in front of my computer and hadn’t even changed into my running gear and so I decided I might as well head off the same time as Grim and so I got changed and went downstairs and put on my clown shoes and went outside and waited for it to be 10:30. (Why is it when you’re sitting in front of your computer dicking around on Facebook and Twitter, time whizzes past, but when you’re looking at your watch (or in my case the clock on my ipod), waiting for three minutes to go by, it seems like it takes for ever?)

The clock eventually ticked over to 10:30 and I set off on my cross-country 10k. All was well until I got to about the fifth field and at the end of the field were some horses and I didn’t want to run towards the horses in case they got scared and gallopped towards me and trampled me to death and I was scared enough being in a field with the horses in the first place as I used to think horses were friendly until someone on Twitter said her son’s girlfriend got attacked by one and had to go to hospital and so I walked slowly past the horses with what I hoped was my I’m-friendly-and-while-I-don’t-have-any-sugar-lumps-for-you-I-mean-you-no-harm face and the horses stared at me but didn’t look particularly interested in attacking me and then I got to the next field and at the end of the field was a toilet with a wooden seat and a basin and I wondered who dumped their bathroom in this field and then I wondered if I was near the gypsies house and then I was on the road and further along there was indeed the gypsies house with their lovely classy stone lions and stuff and all their gates were open and I was scared of their dog coming out and barking at me and chasing me down the road like it did to Shaun but no dog came out and a bit further up are some woods and I got to the woods and I went round the woods which didn’t take very long and then I had to decide which way to go as I’d only done about 2.75 miles and going back the way I had came wouldn’t have got me up to 6.2 miles but I decided to go back the way I had come and try and loop some more miles in and so I went back through the bathroom field but instead of walking past the horses again I went through a different field and up through another foresty bit and then I got to the road and I wondered if going on the road when I was supposed to be doing cross-country was cheating and I decided it was and so I turned right and went over what must have been the twentieth stile so far today and back through the fields I first went through and then I went down the cycle path as, even though it’s not really cross-country, it does feel like you’re in the countryside if you look to the fields to the right and not at the housing estate on the left and then I was back on the road and I decided to go through the park to finish up as there’s water there and Grim involves water and so although I wasn’t going to jump in it, I could at least incorporate some water in my run and so I went through the park and past the pond and I got out of the park and I did 6.2 miles in a very slow time but in my defence there were about sixty stiles to go over and a field of horses to walk through.

Stats
Distance: 6.2 miles
Time: a long time
Pace: slow
Calories: 531
Grims wimped out of: 1
Cats doing smelly, runny poos: 1
Boyfriends cleaning out litter trays: 0
Hours wasted until leaving the house: 2
Stiles climbed over: about sixty
Fields of horses walked through: 1
Fields with bathrooms in: 1
Forests: 2
Ponds: 1
Music
Toyah