Day 23 - Double Century Up

Mere Golf club

After the 'little' run yesterday I was keen to get a good length run in this morning and move through 200 miles on the clock. I had got my good old fashioned local map out (one of the many pathfinder maps in my possession) and looked at various variations of routes. Without wanting to fire up my laptop and carefully measure out a distance I had a rough plan in mind and decided to settle for that. There had been even more rain overnight but thankfully it was now fairly dry.

The legs were definitely feeling fresher this morning and I headed off at a fairly decent pace. There were a lot of large puddles around so having decided on a road route looked a good idea as the local fields would have been a tad boggy. I passed a fellow 'runner' who was decked out in full rain gear as though it was the middle of winter. It amazes me what some people wear, myself being more than warm enough in shorts and short sleeves! The first three and half miles took me up to the main crossroads on the A556 and past the exclusive Mere Golf Club pictured above.

My original plan was to keep to the smaller roads but having roughly calculated the route it was going to be upwards of 12 miles, where 8 to 10  miles was more the sensible target. With that in mind this meant a slog along the A556 for about a mile where 4 lanes of lorries and cars were already flying along at this early hour and throwing up large volumes of spray! Once off this road it was back to the tranquility of the country lanes and the unusually named Cicely Mill Lane. This took me through a very nice wooded area and into the village of Rothstherne. Now running out of Rothstherne I was up to 6 miles and knew that once I had reached the entrance of Tatton Park it was another 4.5 miles to go.

Tatton Park is a great place to run during the day, it's owned by the National Trust but is operated by East Cheshire Council who have taken it upon themselves to only open at 8am and then close at 7pm, even worse in winter. This meant running the country lanes around the perimeter of the park to get back into Knutsford. So as to stop people parking along the lanes and walking in to the park and therefore avoiding the extortionate fee, there are miles of double yellow lines in all directions. They stop at a point so it makes people think twice and actually drive in to the park. The wet weather made the journey along them a slippery affair.

Slippery lines...

Into the final four miles and a run back along the final lane skirting the Egerton Football Club and then back into Knustford itself. The run felt quick and analysing the times afterwards proved that they were all in the low 7 minute range! The consistent daily mileage seems to be improving my speed on the medium distance runs. With today's mileage that brought up the double century on the Juneathon clock!!

Stats
Distance: 10.67 miles
Time: 1:18:52
Juneathon Total Distance: 201.71 miles