On arrival at the Pike, John C had asked that we didn't wait for him as he was going to do his own thing, so we headed off down to George's Lane and then along to the kennels and up to Two Lads. I'm not going to lie, I was quite tired this morning and the climb to Two Lads was hard work.
Once at Two Lads we headed up for the trig point, but decided to avoid the 'wet' route today and ran mostly along the mast road.
Just before the trig point, we bumped into John P, David and his two dogs so Kev kindly took a photo of the group, although only one of the dogs featured in it, the other one enjoying itself running around the place...
From the trig point, we went down the diagonal and onto Belmont Road, where John C was also arriving at the same time. From here, Julie, John and John headed back towards the barn and myself, Kev and Gordon went the other way and over to Hordern Stoops.
We ran up to Great Hill but I was struggling a bit as the flagging was really slippery and I kept nearly doing the splits on it (at one point even squealing like a girl) but it was too boggy at the side of the flagging to run on that instead. This seemed to be one of those occasions where having grippy shoes on was more of a hindrance than having less grip so my Mud Claws weren't doing me proud.
Once at the top of Great Hill, where a full of beans Kev had been waiting for a while, we headed off down to White Coppice and then along to Waterman's Cottage. We then took the path through the woods and along to Angelzarke before coming out onto Knowlsey Lane.
I told Gordon about the Strava segment for 'slipway steep bit' so he was determined to get up there in a decent time. I, on the other hand, was totally done in. I couldn't summon any strength to get up that very short hill at any effort. Gordon looked to be going pretty well so I think he may have beaten my segment time but I'm not sure at the point of writing.
We then ran back down towards Rivington, via Dean Brook, up the steps and across the field.
On returning to the barn, Gordon went straight home but Kev and I retreated to the barn for a drink and a well deserved piece of carrot cake.
Another enjoyable Saturday morning with good company. I have made the decision not to do the Red Rose XC this year because if I do both that and Mid Lancs then every Saturday in November will be taken up by an XC race and I really don't want to miss out on my Saturday morning UTUP for the sake of a 5k race through boring fields.
Total Distance - 12.8 miles
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