I’m still on a mission to catch up with my blog posts before it becomes an impossible task. The difficulty is that I am aware that time is moving on and there is still so much I want to do. I often find myself working on into the evening and then feeling too tired to start writing anything that would make much sense. If I’ve been running in the day, I usually feel pretty exhausted by the evening.
Monday was a fairly quiet day trying to catch up on things and continuing the large map-drawing plan I’ve been making. I’ve been wanting to make some contact with some local running groups and sent an email to the Leigh on Sea Striders to ask if I could join them on some training runs. I didn’t expect to receive a reply so quickly and found myself at the back of Chalkwell Rail Station at 7.40pm, looking for a group who looked like a group of runners. I was a little nervous, as I’m not used to running with a group, preferring instead the solitary experience, which I find allows me better mental headspace. However, everyone was very welcoming and friendly and after signing on a register as a guest, we were off for a 4 mile or so jaunt along the Grand Parade and up some slopes, past Leigh Station and to the top of Belton Way, where it meets Leigh’s Marine Parade for a loop back through the town to where we had started. It was an exhilarating run in the approaching darkness at a slightly faster pace than I’ve been used to recently and I was glad that I had taken the plunge to join the group. Unfortunately I can’t make the remaining meetings this week, but hope to join the group again next Monday evening.
Tuesday was spent planning my next reconnaissance run along the estuary. I was intrigued by a path that could take me close to the edge of the river, from Tilbury Ferry port to massive London Gateway (Super)Port. The route I worked out would be largely following the Thames Estuary Path, which is a 29 mile (46.6km) footpath through the South Essex Marshes, from Tilbury Town to Leigh-on-Sea. I was not intending to complete the full 29 miles and was looking at a possible 10 mile stretch between the two ports. As I wanted to keep as close to the river as possible, I knew that I would have to divert from the official Thames Estuary Path at some points. A closer examination of the Ordnance Survey map, which I now have access to online and as an app on my phone, revealed that there could be possible connections to other footpaths, closer to the estuary and through Thurrock Thameside Nature Park and Stanford Marshes Nature Reserve, which ends very close to the London Gateway Super Port. My next post will reveal the details of the almost 9 mile run, which I completed yesterday.
