Oh no, it's training again.

Commuter day again today, which meant another round of jumping on and off trains, from bleary o'clock in the morning until half past knackered at night. Still, it's a straightforward (phew - I almost wrote "easy" then), way of chucking on a bunch of miles, and running to catch a train is a great motivator.

Stop start running is also a sure-fire way to get plenty of room on a train. I take a change of clothes to wear in the office, but the stinkies go back on again for the run home. Nice.

The weather on the way out this morning was surprisingly chilly, with dozens of icy boobytraps, left by men in transits who've tried fixing water leaks by ramming tarmac into wet potholes.

A couple of miles of running with my 15lb (I weighed it) pack soon warmed me up however, and by the time I sat in a warm train I was glowing buckets.
  

Local Adventures Chocolate Deliveries
(castles a speciality)
~ ~ 



London was wonderful again. I'd love to have been able to capture the panorama from Waterloo Bridge. In every direction, the city was waking up: floodlights still shining against a tapestry of architecture, but with the stone and glass facades warmed by a lilac sky. Truly beautiful in every direction, from County Hall, the Savoy, and the twinkling embankments up close, to the hazy Houses of Parliament and dome of St Pauls beyond. What a place.

Then onto York once again, and the three mile stint to my client's office. Today, running along the River Ouse (Ooze?), I appeared to have just missed the flooding: the tarmac path was an inch deep in silt, and the playing fields all around still feet deep in floodwater.

A day in the office, meetings over-running again, and true to form, I left the building about three minutes after I should have done. Hotfooting to the station at an uncomfortably rapid pace, I was constantly tempted to just throw in the towel and pay a zillion pounds for a later train, but kept on it, and arrived in a record twenty one minutes. Whereupon I had to cling to a noticeboard, as sweat poured, legs trembled, and the overhead signs advised me that my train had been delayed for over thirty minutes. Hmmm.

A good plod across London again, and by the time I alighted at Farnham for the last leg of the journey, the moon was really going for it. Having left a headtorch at home, I decided I'd make the best of the moonlight, and my low-viz clothing, and headed home past Farnham Castle for a quick photo, and a stealthy bimble across the park, under a moon so bright you could count the rabbits.


Summary:
Today: 15.1 miles, 2:06 hrs, 2062 cals
January: 266.9 miles, 38.53 hrs, 36194 cals