Running in a new world

We went to Norfolk last weekend, did a bit of walking, some seal watching, lots of geocaching, too much eating and running in accordance with my half-marathon schedule (which unfortunately didn't counter-balance the eating thing!).

Arrived at our hotel Friday evening and not knowing the area were pondering where to go for a run. I loosely suggested to Mr W that there was a geocache local to the hotel that maybe we could try and find whilst out, then before I knew it he'd taken charge of the GPS and plotted out a whole route for us to do incorporating 4 caches.... Ok, so we only actually found 2 of them - one was in too busy an area and appeared to be in someone's garden and the other one was a rather complicated puzzle - but it certainly added some spice to the first couple of miles of our run and then we settled down and did the last couple without any stops. A good evening's work!

The next day for a run was Sunday and so after a day out and about we returned to our hotel somewhat lacking in enthusiasm for an 8/9 mile run. Mr W didn't seem to keen on incorporating geocaches so we just headed off towards a park the hotel staff had told us about armed with the Garmin for navigation purposes. Didn't find the park but after a while we did make it to the large campus and grounds of the University of East Anglia and then the lure of the little green boxes flashing on the map screen became too much and we made a short diversion to hunt for a geocache! 3 caches, a couple of aborted searches and lots of stings and scratches later we decided it was time to head back to the hotel. 'Let's take the road' said Mr W so we can see on the map where we are. 'No' I said 'I'm sure there must be a way back through the woods - that will be much nicer'. I really must learn to listen to Mr W more as we then spent half an hour or so running up and down paths in the woods before ending back at the point where we first considered the road option! We'd done almost 6 miles, the light was starting to fade and then Mr W announced that it was still another 3 miles back to the hotel! Eeek! We finally made it back about 8pm after having completed 8.9 miles - quite possibly the longest run I've ever done. So all in all we had a lovely weekend of running in a new location, however as a post-note I would say thank goodness for GPS to guide us!!