Tuesday 3rd Jan

 11 Days to Start!

Up early and felt good after a days rest. Had my banana and toast and set off to Kings Langley station to get the 6:41 to Euston, met Cliff on the train. We got the tube to Warwick Avenue and made our way to Little Venice. Unfortunately no toilets at the tube station.

We set off at 7:45 along the Regent canal, west towards Chiswick. It was great running early in the morning through west London, weather was holding, apart from being very blustery. Felt good and 13 miles went past quite quickly although we had a fierce head wind and underfoot turned from tarmac to gravel to mud and puddles!

We turned right onto the Grand Union at Balls Bridge and the wind was behind us making things easier but weather started to turn! Up to today I have only been wet once in 4 months. It looked like today would be the second. We ran to Uxbridge with the rain steady but bearable. Legs ok but knees feeling the damp and stiffening. We left Uxbridge and through Denham the rain turned into a monsoon! Cliff suggested stopping under a bridge but I said let's crack on, it will pass in a few minutes! 20 minutes later and we could not see 20 foot ahead and we were soaked to the bone. I admitted defeat but there was only a tree to get shelter from! We stood under the tree for a few minutes, decided it was actually giving us no protection so we decided to crack on. Legs got very stiff and knees proper hurt! Rain eased and we battled through the river that was a tow path, very tough going, reached Rickmansworth Canal Museum in 4 hrs and 18 mins and had covered 27 miles. We stopped in the shop for a couple of minutes and warmed up, left the shop, rain had stopped and blue sky started showing and we had a surprisingly nice 5 mile run along the tow path to Cassiobury Park and up through West Herts Golf Course to our finish at the car park by The Grove. Total time 4 hrs 58 minutes including stops. Very tough but enjoyable and a great experience.

This was my last big run before my start, I leave on Monday and travel to Portugal. Thanks Cliff for all your help, anyone that wants to learn to run distances contact him, he has got me running distances that I never thought I could.