The Grand Old Duke of York …

… you know how it goes, he marched his men up to the top of the hill and marched them down again (you’re humming it now, aren’t you?).

Well, the man himself might as well have been leading tonight’s club run because go up to the top of a hill and back down again was exactly what we did.

In this case, the ‘hill’ was from our usual starting point at the Leisure Centre out to the Doctors Road, a route I’d never taken before so it was a definite journey into the unknown.

I went with the 45s again, thankfully numbers were much bigger than last week but that didn’t make it an easier run. In fact, I found this week much, much tougher and really struggled for a lot of it.

Possibly it was the steady incline right from the start coupled with the clammy conditions, but my legs just refused to work. Or maybe it was my head, I don’t know. It happens.

Of course, what goes up must come down, so the descent was most welcome and I managed to claw back some time and pride. There was also a nasty little kick right at the end as you turn up towards the cinema, I was determined to run up that – and I did.

But I’m going to draw some positives from tonight. It was another chance to train in the heat, something I’m clearly not used to. I also ran the last mile home after we broke up to bring my total for the night up to five – and I managed it in under an hour which doesn’t always happen. In fact, it wasn’t so long ago I’d have been delighted with my time tonight.

So not a total disaster then. There is no such thing as a bad run, I’m constantly learning and I’ll learn from this. It’s grand.