One Hundred Miles Later

The last two weeks of August saw me on the sunshine island of Majorca (or should I say Mallorca – not sure why we have a different spelling) for the family summer holiday. Now I'm not a big fan of lying in the sun getting skin cancer. And I'm also not a huge fan of The Court of King Caractacus, Agadoo or Big Fish, Little Fish. However, I do enjoy running in new areas, especially if there are off-road routes to be discovered.

My running base was the Protur Bonaire (pronouncd bon-are-ee) Aparthotel in Cala Bona from where you can run along the sea front to Cala Millor and beyond to Sa Coma if the fancy takes you.

However, I found the route to be dull. I know there's a headland with a castle, but the long flat section to get there was boring. Not that it stopped hoards of runners from hitting the prom every morning – but not for me. I prefer something a bit hillier where you stand a reasonable chance of getting lost!

So first things first: rather than heading right from the hotel why not turn left?

OK so you can't run along the sea front. But it does get a bit lumpy after a while. And the road doesn't go anywhere so there's not too much traffic. However, once you get to the end of the road you can't go any further – even on foot. Which is a shame.

So the only other way to go, if you wish to keep your socks dry, is inland. And the good news is the roads are flat no more. For a short sharp bit of fun how about this one (be sure to click "Show Elevation").


And then continuing further to the town of Son Servera there are more hills and trails to explore.


OK so I admit these routes aren't from my first trips into the area. Oh no – those runs included lots of dead ends and accompanying U-turns. But with a bit of persistence and some post run map study (I recommend a combination of Google maps with www.openstreetmap.org) I was able to cobble together a couple of worthy routes (selecting Satellite Map gives a better idea of the terrain).



Oh and the reference to 100 miles in the blog title - that's how far I ran during my two week visit.

Sunday Plod

I wasn't feeling great on Saturday and ended up missing Sunday morning's 7:15 am anniversary run. Instead I headed out mid afternoon for a meander out east. The initial plan was to put in an 8-mile effort taking in Wheathampstead, Gustard Wood and Sauncey Wood. However, I took a wrong turn in Wheathampstead (go figure - it's not as if I've never been there before) and before I knew it was Coleman Green bound.

Not wanting to do the full monty round Brocket Hall golf course I cut back from Cromer Hyde Lane on a new and not particularly great footpath and made my way home via Swan Walk with a quick Marshalls Heath detour thrown in for good measure.

Pace was reassuringly slow - I doubt Kenny would have got out of breath. However, it was the culmination of another 40 mile week (41 miles last week, 38 the week before) so I don't bad.

Hare and Hounds - Getting Slower

If the idea of ruining a set distance under race conditions at monthly or so intervals is meant to motivate and improve performance then it ain't working. Hare and Hounds finish times 2010:
January: 33:12
February 33:52
May 34:05
July 34:16

Today was windy - very windy. Luckily it was coming from the south-west and so behind us on the way back. But that's no excuse. And anyway it doesn't matter because I'm not even pretending to be race fit. And I went to Rockets for the first time for ages on Tuesday. And last Sunday's run was quite tough. And nobody really cares that much.

Andy and Martin were both there. Martin had raced last night so was taking it easy. Andy finished ahead of me and was probably running in flip-flops. Maybe I should give them a try...