I needed to have a long training run this week, prior to the Compton Downland 40 miler.
The Boudicca Way looked like the ideal trail.
Headed a few miles out of Norwich and tried to find the start. Just past Lakenham on the Stoke Road is where it was supposed to be.
Heading over the A47 via a bridge I quickly found the first route marker.
And headed off up the road looking for the next one.
Into Arminghall
I missed the next marker, but backtracked after it looked like I was getting too close to the B1332.
Finally I was off-road on the trail
After a mile or so I was back on the road 🙁
Then the route ran through a farm yard and onto a track – much better
Eventually I reached Shotesham and continued until the Garmin said 10 miles, at which point I headed back to Shotesham and stopped at the local ale house, to top up on drinking water. While I was there I had a quick bitter shandy, I would have been rude not to…
Sufficiently refuelled I retraced my steps and rounded off a 20 mile run in 3:35 (3:19 moving time) at an average pace of 10:43 min/mile
Here’s the “nutrition” I consumed during the run
Calorie breakdown:
- Sports bar = 215 cals x 2
- Sesame bites = 142 cals x 2
- High 5 energy gel = 80 cals
- 1 pint bitter shandy = 150(?) cals
Total = 944 cals
This was only just enough, another bar and/or energy gel would have really helped for the last few miles. I also took 1 s-cap per hour.
The off-road sections of this were really nice and for another outing I’ll consider starting at Shotesham instead.