Two days off to rest my hip and knee and I’m feeling a bit better – the hip is a long term injury but I decided that a bike ride was the way forward. I loaded a route onto my Suunto that would take me to the start line of my next race – the Valentines Run in Gravesend – and off I set.

Now the Suunto is only as good as it’s user and human error kicked in about 10km when I turned down a bit of a blind alley and my road bike met the worst of Kent’s boggy fields. Holy shit, I had to push my bike through 5km of wet mud and when I finally reached the road again I got back on the bike and looked down to see I’d brought half of the mud with me. Thankfully, the roads of Kent are also flooded and so I was able to clean my bike and feet. I had a lovely time, just over 45km cycled, a shitload of mud, hills that could break you and a maximum speed of nearly 50km per hour. I might not have run this weekend but I feel much better for having gone and gotten the wind in my hair!

Hope everyone had a good weekend of exercise and a huge congratulations to @mia79gbr who completed the Thames Trot in a stunning time.