Training safely in & around Wells

I am making a personal plea to runners in & around Wells to please take great care when running on single track, winding country roads with mp3 players on.

Its great to see so many people taking their health and fitness seriously around Wells and the surrounding villages but please don't let it be at the risk of your safety.

I watched open mouthed the other evening when a pair of ladies were running alongside each other round a blind corner on the Old Wells Road the other evening when an oncoming car, travelling pretty fast on their side of the road, only just managed to break in time to miss them.

It could be argued that the 60mph speed limit there is just too fast, but, had the unthinkable happened, recriminations after the event would have proved fruitless.

I am a big fan of running with my iPod to keep me company, I need the soundtrack to distract me from my laboured breathing and aching limbs not being in the peak of fitness myself. I do take the precaution though, to unplug when crossing roads and I only run with it blaring out when on footpaths or pavements.

There are enough accidents on our roads and any small measure we can take to keep the number of bad news headlines has got to be a good thing, right?

On to a more positive note, does anyone use the iMapmyrun app on their iPhone / iTouch? It’s absolutely awesome. Just register at http://www.mapmyrun.com/ and enter a few details about yourself & you can map your route and then when out the app will tell you your miles-per-hour, your pace (which tells you how long it will take you to run a mile), the average values for your whole run & when completed, will sync your run with your account to keep a permamnent record and tell you how many calories you burned (the GPS function of your device also works out the relief you’ve covered and incorporates it into the calculations).

If you run locally in Wells and have some favourite routes you’d like to share or have a personal best you would like to challenge other readers to beat, don’t forget to add your comments to the box below.

Wishing you happy and very safe training.

Photo by JonnyEnglish