I had some shiny new trail shoes and a 9 mile trail run on the books. What better place to try them out than on Wimbledon Common? Inspired by Ultraboy, who will be running the Summer Breeze Half Marathon, I decided to recce the course to see how muddy it is.
Shiny new shoes
I printed off the route, studied it hard, and set off.
The theory
You might think that following the route would be easy. After all, I run on Wimbledon Common a lot. My running club meets at the Windmill, Beverley Brook used to be part of my run commute and my first ultra was on the Capital Ring. Joining them up would be a piece of cake!
It appears that the space warping wombles that inhabit the common were out enjoying the sunshine. Barring a couple of small detours, the first half was largely okay, but from Fishponds onwards… let’s just say that my map-reading leaves a little bit to be desired.
Hmmmm.
Is the route muddy? Who knows!
Certainly the route I ran was, though there are long sections of firmish, dryish footing.
And those shiny new trail shoes? They’re not so shiny anymore.
Not-so-shiny new shoes
abradypus 
Eeek, I’m running it too. Trail shoes it is!
You never know – it might have dried out again my next weekend.
Nice shoes! Nice mud!
Trail shoes are not supposed to be clean and shiny!
This is true. They all end up mud brown I’m the end (at least mine do).
But hey the sun shone it seems! Maybe try clicking your heels they might have mud avoiding powers
I like those shoes!
Trail shoes are happiest when they are muddy. It’s a scientific fact.
Loving the new sites -and even more for the christening you gave them. I once got lost trying to run the route of a road 10k. I ended up, clutching a shredded little map, asking passersby if they knew where I was. And my shoes weren’t nearly as pretty as yours
Curse you, predictive text. I of course meant that I loved your new *shoes* sigh
Lol – if my predictive text doesn’t stop capitalising parkrun soon, there’ll be blood, I tell you, blood!
New (red!!) shoes – huge thumbs up here. 🙂
🙂
Hee hee!! Love the before and after leg-and-shoe pics!! More mud, more fun, right? 🙂