IT started out so well yesterday. We set out, in light drizzle, with a nice route planned. A nice safe eight or nine miles, back in time for coffee and cake at noon.
I'd warned my fellow runner, Ryan, that with just one week to go ahead of my first half marathon of the year, that a long run was the order of the day....
But it ended up much longer. The problem was, on a map it looked straightforward. We were running from Llanymynech to Llansantffraid - for a lift home.
The route should have taken us up past Brynmawr, Deuddwr, Penrhos, back in a loop, join main route again near Deuddwr, arrive near Jugs Restaurant, Llansanttfraid. From there it was round the corner and you've arrived.
To quote the world's most famous meerkat, 'Simples'. Hmm, not 'simples'.
Up in the hills all roads look the same, what looks on a map like the main road of a few is nothing of the sort, junctions don't always exist, signposts... yeah right.
Somewhere along the route, we'd ended up veering to the left.
'I hate to say it', I said, 'but these don't look like the hills around Llansanttfraid?'
I was right. They weren't. Suddenly we arrived at a village. I say village, it was basically a house with a school attached to it. We were in Trefnanney.
Now for the benefit of those readers not familiar with this part of Mid Wales, it meant we were about four miles of course. And Llansantffraid was still four miles away. And of course there was only one way to get there.... run.
This came after a fairly bizarre time of it last weekend. After December's ice, snow, freezing temperatures and gales, I thought Mother Nature had nothing left to throw at me. I was wrong, welcome to half marathon training in a flood.
We were, literally, hemmed it. Roads out of the village on three sides were flooded. There was nowhere to go. Running anywhere other than on the spot impossible.
So on the Sunday morning I want back to bed. Well actually I did what any responsible journalist would do, I went and grabbed the camera.
Monday I decided to head out, having finished work nice and early. And I was able to put in a nice hilly nine-miler, running on roads that had been submerged the day before. If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, you wouldn't have believed it.
And so we come to next weekend, and Sleaford. The first of 12 half marathons in 10 months. And I still don't even know exactly where Sleaford is....