I am holding a World’s Biggest Coffee morning for Macmillan Cancer Support on Friday 27th September 9.30am to 12.30pm at The Victoria Club, High Street, Lingfield.  Do please join me for yummy homemade cakes, stalls and more…

There is only one thing worse than LONG runs and that is VERY LONG runs.  My datum has certainly shifted.  A few months ago I baulked at the thought of running  3 miles.  Now I think, ‘Oh good 13 down only 4 to go!’  Last week I did my VERY LONG run along Forest Way, a former railway line which goes from East Grinstead to Groombridge which, I would like to point out, is in the next county, Kent.  Yes I am now going international with my running.  Forest Way is great.  It is very flat, traffic free and straight. The downside is it is interminably boring.  Mile after mile of leafy former railway lines and embankments.  In fact the scenery was so monotonous I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. When  a route involves running to a specific point and then retracing my steps  I keep thinking ‘Oh God have I got come back ALLLL the way along here?!’  Husband and Toby, the Pointer, came along for moral support but both of then soon tired of trying to keep down (the opposite of keep up) with me.  At the 14 mile point I had had it.  My back crippled me, blood was oozing out of a blister on my foot and I was soaked to my goose pimpled blotchy skin.  ‘Shall I just sprint the next 3 miles and pick up the car and collect you?’ Husband said helpfully.  I actually think he was getting worried that we might struggle to get home in daylight at this speed.  ‘No!’  I exclaimed ‘I WILL WALK IT!’  And so I did, on my own, mile after bloody boring mile of fern fringed track.  I did the usual calculation of how long the New York Marathon would take me at this speed but the stats were so depressing I might have thrown myself off a railway bridge if I had spotted one at that moment.  By the time I got back to the start point Husband and dog were all cosy in the cafe having had tea and bacon sandwiches and read the Sunday Times from cover to cover.  In the absence of any horse strength tranquilisers to numb my aching joints I settled for a bacon sandwich and four flapjacks…