Sometimes I really wish the filter between my brain and mouth was a little more effective. Before I had really thought through the implications of my thoughts I had said them out loud: ‘should we try a completely different route today and go up?’ What an idiot! Should we go up!?! Go up! Seriously! Up as in uphill. You stupid girl.

So there you have it – we went up, we left our house and turned right rather than left at the end of our road. What an outrageous idea. It is seriously up. Not massively steep but relentlessly, steadily up – even when you are going down a little slope you are actually still going up. Why oh why can’t I keep my mouth shut. We walked up the first stretch and then we set off. As well as going uphill we also extended the running section of our run/walk routine to 2 minutes 30 seconds, what an utterly brilliant idea, yeah really. By the time we got to the end of the second run my thighs were actually burning. We kept going – slowly, in some sections probably running slower than we could have walked, but we kept running until the watch beeped and told us to walk. It was an utterly outrageous thing to do. I huff and puff enough on the flat and too much going up the little slopes that our ‘going past the sheep’ route has. Stupid.

But sometimes outrageous ideas are the best. The uphill route is an utterly stunning road to run along. There is virutally no traffic – it is a dead end for traffic and eventually turns into a track which is unsuitable for cars  – we didn’t get that far though. That would be another level of up at the end. Not quite ready for that. If you keep going you get to Ilkley across the moors. (It’s about 5 miles I think). As we set off there was a curlew on a drystone wall watching us as if it was waving us off. We saw cows and sheep and lots of birds, curlews mostly but also lots of smaller ones. There was lots to see and that kept me going for a bit as well as the fact that running uphill had been my idea so I couldn’t very well complain now.

As we got about half way through run number 7 we were heading up a steepish bit  and I felt my right calf muscle twinge a little bit. I was also completely puffed so I’m actually not quite sure whether my calf twinge was just an excuse to stop. We stopped and walked the rest of that run interval and the 30 second walk break and turned round.

Now we were essentially heading downhill all the way and even when we were going up little slopes we were still essentially going down. I got my breath back and settled in. The views are spectacular. We were minutes from our house really and in breathtaking scenery. Obviously I know it is there but most of the time I take it completely for granted and don’t stop to look. While running I was enjoying looking. I took the next walk break out and then the next and the next. I was looking around and taking in the view. Then we caught up with a dog walker who turned out to be someone we know  – she was walking really fast so we slowed our jog and had a  chat with her for a couple of minutes – but kept on running. Then we carried on and I was still running. It was odd, it was fun. We ran all the way home. We finished a little early but it seemed silly to run round in circles round our street for the sake of it. It made sense to just stop when we got home. So, we ran about 41 minutes and just over 3 miles with a pace of just over 13 minutes per mile.

We’ve been home about 2 and a half hours – we’ve had breaded cod pieces and sweet potato oven chips with a yoghurt dip for tea and I am about to jump in the bath – if I can move that is. My legs have had to do all sorts of new things today – go uphill far more than ever before, go downhill far more than ever before and keep going for far longer than ever before without a walk break – no wonder they are protesting a little!