No sense of direction...

... can be an advantage. Or not.

Beautiful October day. I carefully planned a 4 mile route - this being the intended traing distance by end October. From home, down to Ringland church, following the road round to the other side of Weston Longville and back in through the village that way is 4.25 miles. I walked the first 0.25 miles (which I didn't count) in order to be able to stretch before I started, and off I went.

I was aware that the first leg - about 1.6 miles down to the church - was downhill all the way. Still, really nice, and trying to ignore the voice that was saying "so guess what the hill will do on the way home?!" Paused for three minute stretch and water by the church, set off again. The next bit was the promised hill with a vengeance - steep, hard work. Evened out, get breath back, HR round about 150.

Came to a junction. Paused for two more minutes, stretched and considered. Decided that left hand fork was the one that I wanted - right hand one looked like a dirt track rather than a road.

Finally emerged onto the main road coming back into our village. Expected to see Rectory Road very soon on my left. No sign of it. Kept running, and finally saw the road that I should have taken (the right fork) coming in on my right...

Caught my foot in a pot-hole in the road in the last bit, which was a pain - have frozen peas on it now - but it didn't actually cause too much bother in that part of the run. Got home, remapped the correct route, and found that my 55 minutes less 5 minutes breaks had covered 4.6 miles. Not Olympic standards (and still well over the 10 minute mile I'd like) but at least I did it. And it means that, in terms of distance at least, I'm ahead of my own game by about three weeks...