Slow ten or so miles

Today it was only Paul and I that met up and as I was so keen to try out my new bit of kit I went around to his house in the dark and rain. I was running around Paul's front garden trying to stay warm when he popped his head around the door and said, "Ohh. I've got one of those and we've still got a few seconds before seven, I'll go get mine."

We set off up the hill like an articulated lorry, both our head torch lights on full beam side by side in the middle of the road.

At the bottom of the steps to the Nicky line we needed to fiddle with our equipment for a moment to get the optimal settings for the dark path. The surface was wet, with the deep snow gone, but slushy sections covering ice in places. Turns out the best setting was us both on narrow beam running side by side we just about illuminated the path ahead well enough to get just past Ken's zone one pace.

Both of us admitted to being tired from the epic battle that was the day before's race which was reassuring as tanking any part of the route was not really in my plan. We played some silly games on the path, such as who's torch can hit the sign first? Lets point our beams at anything that moves and so on.

As dawn broke we were coming into Redbourn and through the common along the path Ken never knew was there all those years he worked for the Grid there. On the other side of the church I got to recycle some old jokes about the new cemetery and people dying to get in and show Paul a new stretch of footpath on the outside of the church.

Paul now felt obliged to take me on new ground of his own so no question of going up the Beesonend lane, which neither of us fancied, so left it was over the ford at Redbournbury towards the fisheries and then right up the footpath vaguely Harpenden bound. I recognised the back of the houses and figured we'd hit a path or a golf course - in the end it was a rather nice back garden we'd dragged ourselves through waist wet grass to get too. Could not run in the field as the mud was so sticky it felt like running with deep sea diving boots on. Doubled back to the golf course and out around their car park to the main road. Just opposite was a sneaky cut into the Rothampsted estate - more new ground cut. Then the tree lined avenue home, going the long way back to cut out station road.