I HAVE discovered the drawback of doing your longest marathon training run whilst staying in an unfamiliar part of the country and believe me when I say it was a big mistake... I mean HUGE!

It seemed like a good idea to go for my 20 mile run whilst visiting my sister this week as she lives in Ilkley and the views around and about are pretty breathtaking. But somewhere along the way I took a wrong turn and my carefully planned out route transformed into a trip to Purgatory, via Menston and Leeds/Bradford Airport up a hill that looked like it went on, well, forever, and ever, and ever... or about 10k to be precise.

My pace went down as the hill (mountain?) went up and in the end I took 3hrs and 45 mins to cover the route, which was easily 25 mins outside the time I hoped to do it in.

I didn’t even have the energy to wave gratefully (must have been 2001 when it last happened!) at the man in a van who pipped me and shouted out something about me being a hottie (I have to say that was early on and I had my baseball hat on low or he probably wouldn’t have bothered!) I literally had nothing left towards the end and watched the last 3/4 of a mile go by on my iPhone App like my life depended on every step. I stopped bang on 20 miles and rang my sister's to get someone to pick me up in the car. Never mind having to find another 6.2 miles on the big day - I didn't even have another metre in me after that!

On the plus side after reaching the giddy heights of over 700m above sea level, I expect even Kings Worthy’s Nations Hill or Sleepers Hill in St Cross will seem a walk in the park now compared with the mountain I climbed this weekend. See, there’s always a positive side to everything…