Sunday and Monday 12 & 13 June - Bennets Wood Farm, Streatley

Where was Bertie? He likes Bennets Wood Farm so much that he went back for another couple of nights.
Weather: Sunny intervals, dry and reasonably warm.

No lie-in. Again, I woke far earlier than I wanted to and, even though we didn't intend to get on the road until 9am, we got a bit ahead of ourselves, and thus found ourselves at our destination not long after 0930. Fortunately Bennets Wood Farm is relaxed about arrival and departure times and no eyelids were batted at our early arrival (perhaps because we didn't announce ourselves; we just drove onto the field and returned to the house to pay later in the day).

No faffing around on arrival this time. We drove straight to this spot and got levelled up as if we'd been there before... 

I soon headed out for my run. In view of the late night and the excess of food, we'd both opted to switch our weekend long runs around, doing the short ones on Sunday (deferred from Saturday) and the longer on Monday (deferred from Sunday). That gave me just 17km to cover, although thanks to exploring another couple of byways based on eyeballing the distance, without having troubled myself to plot the route, it turned out to be nearer 19.5km.

 
Mick didn't head out until the afternoon, whereupon I set about doing a few chores, then having a nap. The latter was curtailed after 15 minutes when Mick phoned me with a question.

There was no leisure for a lie-in on Monday, although even if there had been, I was awake too early again. We headed out together at around 8am, and almost exactly as we had last weekend, stayed together for the first 7km, as we joined and proceeded along The Ridgeway. I then trotted off ahead, soon taking a right turn to make further explorations of the byways hereabouts. Deep ruts and occasional mud obstacles told me that this is a byway that sees significant use by off-road vehicles (The Ridgeway itself is in part a restricted byway, and elsewhere motor vehicles are prohibited during winter). I met not a single person on that excursion and there weren't the tell-tale signs of frequent footfall.

Back on The Ridgeway for a short while I'd just started pursuing another loop on more previously unvisited (by me) byways, when my phone rang. It was Mick, calling from a bench in Compton. A quick look at the map told me I wasn't that far away, so I did an about turn to intercept him, and we returned to Bertie together*.

With my 24-hour run getting quite close now, I thought it time to start testing my stomach's reaction to a larger range of food substances, so paused at Bertie for a can of chunky vegetable soup (the very stuff that I consumed at Chapel Stile checkpoint at 2am during the Lakeland 50 last year after hours of not being able to eat anything). Straight after finishing it, I headed back out for another 12km without developing indigestion, so it will be going on the menu for the event.

There's nowt to report for the rest of the day. We rested.



^{(*part way back there was a pause for the shedding of my knickers due to a hideous upper-thigh-chafe situation I had going on. I then rummaged in Mick's bag for some sort of lubricant, and found some Gehwol footcream that I thought would do the job. I can report that a peppermint and menthol solution on raw skin doesn't half smart. I borrowed some of Mick's compression shorts for my afternoon stint. They stopped the chafe getting any worse, but didn't stop the soreness just from material touching the raw area.)}