A run, a chat, a sneeze

My brother in law, Pete, was up this weekend, so I had company on my 'long' run (9 miles this week) which made a nice change. It's been a long time since I did an accompanied training run. We had a thoroughly pleasant time of it on a route which we named the 'Three Rivers' because the course takes you along the Kent, the Mint and the Sprint, with a few hills, a bit of golf course, the edge of a light industrial estate and caravan site in between.
I'd hoped to splice together two previous routes, but it didn't quite work. For the key bit I was trying to remember a walk that Mags and I did about a year ago, but we were running it in reverse and I made a mistake with about 3 miles to go. So on my midweek runs I'll try to put it right and get the final piece of the jigsaw into place.
The grasses are absolutely at their best at the moment. Great waist-high stems with nodding pink panicles making fields look like shimmering purple water, all pinpricked through with startling yellow buttercups and white daisies. Very beautiful - and a bugger for my hayfever as I was itchy-eyed, sneezing and wheezing as we went.
My training goes up a notch this week, with my Tues/Weds/Thursday runs being 4/8pace/4, whereas I've had 3/6/3 for a couple of weeks. Next weekend's long run is 14 miles. And so I creep ever onwards towards the September marathon and next April's 53...

Smiley rating 8.5/10