Just over six weeks on from injury. 12 runs (well, run / walks) completed. I’m waiting for the day that I can go out and run without thinking about if my leg hurts or not.
Last week I dared to take the dog with me for the first time since falling. I knew that I’d run faster with him and hadn’t wanted to push myself too much. Four miles done in the pouring rain. It was lovely to run with him, and he was happy because we had jumped in the car and driven 5 mins from home = lots of new smells! And yes, I ran faster.
This all meant that I was happy to plan a run further away from home and on hillier ground (where I live in East Yorkshire is very flat). Add that to the change in lock down rules and being able to stay away from home and the first trip away in the campervan was planned!
We wanted to wild camp (or free camp – whatever you want to call it) to test our self sufficiency, and not be more than about 80 mins drive away. A couple of possible places to park identified, runs mapped, van packed and we were off. The slight worry of 50 mph winds being forecast from early hours on Sunday was in the back of my mind, thought it might disturb us overnight and be a blustery run on Sunday.
We headed to Newgate Bank which is a forestry commission site, where the area looked great for exploring. Parked up among the trees and headed straight out for a walk to explore. We were effectively half way up the dale side, therefore there was always going to be hills to do! Decided to head the opposite way to the run we had planned for the next day and headed down into the dale. It was beautiful. I’d actually forgotten how much I enjoy walking, rather than always running to explore. Looping round we needed to start heading back up towards the van… this certainly got the heart rate up and worked our legs.
(click / tap to scroll through each of the picture galleries)
Starting off in a very basic way, the evening meal in the van was beans on toast. We managed fine (may try something a bit more adventurous next time!) and we were soon settling down to get some sleep. Very happy to say that the wind didn’t bother us at all, the trees surrounding us obviously gave us plenty of protection, and we didn’t hear anything from the other vehicles which were nearby.
Sundays run was planned and mapped using the OS Maps service. 6 miles that would take us along one site of Brockhill Wood, a steep climb up Clark Bank through the wood, before following the top side all the way back round (and past the trig point) to the car park. Not the most interesting of routes, but easy to follow!
I’ll let the photos do most of the talking – wonderful views, lots of green, and I loved going up through the woods (although that was all walking). It was very windy on the way back when we were up on the tops, but not much we could do about that.
Back to the van, a quick drink and snack, changed into warm dry clothes and we were back on the road heading home. In non lockdown times we would have gone and had a walk round nearby Helmsley, probably a cafe lunch…. we look forward to being able to do that.
All in, a very successful first trip out in the van. Now to plan the next one.
a mile run 
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