A Long Drive to Heysham

We’ve just arrived in the Isle of Man after a long day travelling on Wednesday. I had a meeting in Aberystwyth in the morning and then went for a run before we started travelling up.

My run went surprisingly well considering the fact that I’m not feeling at all like a ‘triathlete’ at the moment. I did the route that I call the Bird Hide Loop that is about 5 miles long. My best ever time on this loop appears to be 32:41 but that was back in 2010. I haven’t ever done it quicker than this but maybe I didn’t run it while I was feeling faster. On this occasion I got quite close to my course record with a time of 32:50. Not bad really seeing as I feel fat and unfit a the moment thanks to being ill and eating too much over Easter. Presumably the week or so of rest meant that I was well rested and ready to go.

We then packed the car and left early, hoping to stop off at a church to take some photos for Anna’s mum and then get to Heysham in time to go to the cinema before getting the 2:15am boat to the Isle of Man. The film started at 8:30 and we were leaving at 3pm so we had plenty of time for the 3.5 hour journey. It was lucky we did leave early however as we got stuck in traffic for hours and in the end didn’t get there in time for the film. Instead we had dinner at a pub in Lancaster – The Boot and Shoe where I had a lovely liver and bacon meal, Anna had a home made pie and Morgan had roast chicken, all followed by a yummy homemade sticky toffee pudding. Mmmm Mmmm.

We then had to wait a few hours at the ferry terminal before an uneventful and thankfully calm crossing to the Isle of Man. Morgan and Anna slept well on the boat and I managed an hour or so too. The idea of getting the night boat is that we don’t waste one of our 5 days on the island on the boat, but it does of course mean we have to force ourselves out to do something today despite having had very little sleep… We’ve had breakfast at Pats house and now a nice easy day geocaching is in order I think, followed by a swim for me.

Tags: Isle of Man