Who would have thought it was possible to lose Hammersmith?

Another long run out of the way - and what a mixed bag it was too.

The target distance was 12 miles although I ended up doing almost 13 miles. I'd planned a lovely zig zig route along the Thames to get me back to West London. The first 6 miles were great, lots of riverside views, very few roads to cross and not even a lot of traffic to pollute my lungs. However, once I reached Putney Bridge it all went a bit wrong - Putney and Barnes were very traffic heavy, even the countrified bits of Barnes were relatively chaotic. The situation got worse when I realised that Barnes is too posh for street names, and as a result I was totally and utterly lost.
I found a street/path that said it led to the river, so headed off down there, sweaty and hopeful. The path seemed to go on for miles and just kept leading into more and more trees and bushes. Where was the river?

By this point, my knees were getting a bit panicky. How much of a detour was this? Was I going to have to go back to the main road and find a 72 bus to follow? Was I just going to have to give up and get on the 72 because I would end up running another 6 miles round Barnes just trying to find a way out?

Finally, though, a bit of blue on the horizon. Knees started whooping with joy, until we got to the riverside and I couldn't see Hammersmith Bridge. Vague panic #2 set in, until I found the tiny 4pt sign that said it was 3/4 mile to the left. Tiny but beautiful sign, oh how I love you!
I think we can safely say this is the first time in history that anyone has been pleased to see the Hammersmith flyover.

Unfortunately, by this point I was desperate for a drink, so had to make another detour into M&S in Hammersmith to buy a bottle of water. Despite having cash and only one item, no one would let me go before them and their large weekly purchase of ready meals so I had to stand an twiddle my sweaty thumbs for a while in the queue, slowly eroding any pace I'd built up on the Nike+ to get there in the first place. I consoled myself with wishing bad karma on the woman in front of me.

Water duly purchased, off I head towards salubrious Hammersmith/Acton borders. Unfortunately, the change from my bottle of water is now clinking loudly in the back pocket of running trousers and I only made it half a mile before I had to stop again to rearrange the contents of my pocket to remove any jingling. Third time lucky, I head off on the final leg towards my parents' house and a damn good feed.

The whole experience was pretty knackering, both mentally and physically. I had all sorts of new aches and pains by the time I finished, with knees and achilles both being particuarly vocal about this new, non-Tube, route home. I was also particularly 'cheered' by my Beloved's comment over dinner that if I'd run back to work again, that would be the marathon distance.

Amazingly though, I seem to have woken up this morning ache- and stiffness free. I realise now that 12-13 miles is now no longer a real surprise for my body. I have clearly trained it to cope with that distance with a minimum of complaint - now all I get is the occasional whinge, usually along the lines of 'can we just sit down for a minute, please? Please? Will you just BLOODY SIT DOWN, WOMAN!' And it might just have a point there.

Cheered by my powers of recovery, I'm trying to forget about the NY marathon for a few weeks and am concentrating on achieving a PB in the Great North Run in 3 weeks. I'm aiming to do it in under 2 hours. Last night's time - 2h01min. So assuming I don't get a) lost or b) have to stop to queue up in M&S, I think I may have a chance!

LON