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Hills and Hugel...Running and Riesling

Last Sunday, I took to the trails for the 21.2 (by my GPS..measurements vary!) extremely hilly, cold, muddy Meon Valley Plod. Quite an experience. The goal was to test my endurance out - and I am delighted to say that it passed with flying colours. I came 44th out of 250ish, and even had some push left for the last few miles. But oh my gosh, what a course! There is something very special about these kind of long events. You sit at the end, and run your mind over the 3 hours 15 of running, and all the things you have seen..and it is incredible. Sometimes you can't even believe it was the same event. So, now I need to let my legs recover, and then I have 3 weeks to get a totally different type of training in- faster work, to be road ready for the Silverstone half marathon in 3 weeks. We move away from time endurance and towards speed endurance. This is gonna hurt...

On the wine front, last night Janet was in Scotland, so I have a chance to try 'the wines that come in tall think bottles, and are a bit Germanic, and maybe a bit floral'. The wine of choice was a glorious Alsace riesling from Hugel - the tradition 2008. It was dry, only a hint of floral, and with an intense citrussy nose. At £14.95 it is not cheap, but you are getting hand-crafted wine here, some of which I am sure is the off-cuts from Grand Cru vineyards. If you have not experienced a great Riesling - and crave a very different style to Chardonny - you should get your hands on a bottle of this.

Altogether quite lovely.

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