Saved by the track!

It's been getting really difficult to find places to run recently. Not only am I out in the dark after work mostly, but it's been really wet so there are lots of flooded areas and large puddles everywhere. And before you scoff, I'm not just being a wuss here. I don't mind getting my feet wet but running into water that you can't see the other end of and don't know how deep it is (let alone what's lurking beneath the surface) due it being dark is just plain foolish. It would be all to easy to injure myself by doing this and then I'm in real trouble .....

It was already tough, then storm Desmond struck. Most people will have seen the mess made by this deceptively benign sounding event and it's added to my problems by churning up a lot of the paths and tracks and adding extra piles of rocks or bonus pot holes to turn an ankle.

I'd even started doing what a lot of off road runners do this time of year and that I really didn't want to do - running on roads. It's not nice though. Once you're used to the reduced impact you get from non tarmac surfaces it does feel very uncomfortable on this much harder surface, especially with the lesser cushioning I have in my trail shoes. And no, I don't want to buy another pair for the roads.

Off round the track in the dark - you try getting a good photo this time of year!

So I've been reduced to using the running track. That's right, Windermere has a running track. It's only short (I reckon 300 metres), but it has a nice cinder surface and enough ambient light from the surrounding streets and houses that you can run on it with your head torch off. Depending on what pace I'm going at it takes between 1.5 and 2 minutes to do a lap and I've only managed an hour at most before getting bored, but it's been a bit of a life saver in this last week and I've been round it I don't know how many times.

Now the storm has faded, the flood waters subsided somewhat and a lot of the paths and tracks have been repaired, I'll be venturing out further afield again soon but there has been a strangely hypnotic and comforting feel to these circuits. I just hope I can still run in a straight line!