The new cycle way takes shape

Lost satellites after less than a mile, so above is courtesy of Mr Paul Savage, thanks mate.

Paul led today's run and the first (and only real) incline of the day was made easier by jokes of Ken's lack of manhood and much tittering about what exactly his father's day treat could be that kept him out of running fource once again. He also failed to show at yesterday's Max HRT session. Perhaps we'll see him at the next curry night? Anyway, back to the run.

I struggled through the first 30-45mins and took a gel early which perked me up.

The climb all the way the top route takes us along tree covered footpaths eventually opening out with views across to Luton Hoo and the airport. We run past the castle ruins taking us into scary territory as my OS map runs out at this point - I'm worried we'll fall of the edge of the world. But as the airport boundary gets closer and we end up sandwiched between the perimeter fence and the railway a marker post points us across a field of corn. This is a classic off road experience akin to the start of gladiator when he walks through the field of corn, picture post card stuff and beautiful off road running.

We find a house with cars on the drive which is a great clue that there must be a tunnel to get under the railway but it takes us a while to uncover the nettle ridden track down to the tunnel. Suddenly we are on Lower Luton Road with the footpath above us and feeling exposed. We scamper south and make it through the undergrowth into the field and I can't wait to see the new path so scamper directly up the embankment while Paul smugly appears 20m further along having snuck in at the end.

The new path is the business and the last few weeks have seen massive improvements, the section between the Airport and Luton Airport Parkway is now complete enough to cycle and run on and much more of it is surfaced.

Dave's first traverse of the new foot bridge so we forced him to pick it up and lead over the road to much cheering and shouting from the rest of running fource.

All in all a top run. Following the data from the test most of the run was in my Zone 3 with a nice bit of Kenyan style finishing to hold off a challenge from Paul taking me into Zone 4 and then just touching Zone 5, but held him of with 4bpm to spare.

Cleared the 9.61 mile in 1h 22m. Taking into account the nature of the run and fact we were crawling under fences and trees and had no idea where we were at several points in the run puts the 8:37 pace in context.