Flippin' Freezin'!

Just me and the Brothers Swift this morning for a snowy run.  John has been staying on even ground for the past few weeks but has now had the all clear by his doctor and, in his own words, could now get back to 'running with the grown ups'.  

We headed straight up to the Pike through the terrace gardens but Ed went off a different way and announced that he would meet us at Two Lads.  John and I ran up to the Pike, which turned out to be easier than running down from the Pike.  It was soooooo slippery I felt like I was skiing down.  I think that is the slowest I have ever come down from there as I just kept nearly falling over.  

We then ran along George's Lane and up to Two Lads.  Once at Two Lads we could see Ed coming up behind us and he shouted to us to keep moving and he would meet us at the wooden bridge on the way over to the mast road.  When we got there I stopped to take a picture of Ed's approach...

We carried on up the mast road and along to the trig point.  Ed ran along to the trig point but John and I stayed on the road and carried on to the diagonal where I took a photograph of the beautiful view however unfortunately it isn't done justice here...

I'm not going to lie, it was absolutely freezing coming down the diagonal.  The wind was so cold and I was chastising myself for not wearing enough layers for the weather conditions.  Despite wearing two pairs of gloves, my hands were numb and I just couldn't wait to get down to the bottom.  Again, the descent was quite scary as you just didn't know when your foot was going to sink through the deep mud because the snow was masking everything.

When we got to the bottom we were so cold that we decided to alter our plans to run to Great Hill and instead to run over to the Bomber Memorial.  Once we got out onto the road, we turned right to Hordern Stoops and then ran the diagonal route towards Higher Hempshaws. From there we went through Simms and out into Lead Mines Clough, where we climbed up to the Bomber Memorial.

We dropped back down again, through Lead Mines Clough, then ran up the road at Alance Bridge, where Ed broke into something of a sprint.  Unfortunately, Ed's exertions left him too tired to fend off the tree trunk monster which we encountered around the corner...

Luckily, he survived the attack and was able to finish the run.  We went along to Dean Brook then up the steps and out onto Rivington Green then back to the barn.  We hadn't done as much mileage today as usual but all felt that we'd had enough for the day and just needed to get home to our warm houses for a well earned cuppa.

Total distance - 9.5 miles

https://www.strava.com/activities/248496794