The Amble isn't a race, it's a Long Distance Walkers event but quite a lot of people choose to run it, some (e.g. Albert and Josie) in astounding times!
On one of our lunchtime runs, I mentioned it to Kathryn and she said she wouldn't mind having a go at it and said that one of her club mates, Maggie, had signed up and suggested that we all run it together as kind of a getting to know more local paths and having a laugh thing. Sounded like a good idea to me, no pressure of racing, just a good day out so I signed up.
I didn't wake up with any feeling of dread this morning like I do when I have a race to go to and instead was really looking forward to it and couldn't wait to get going.
Kathryn picked me up and the three of us went along to the community hall at Rivington to sign in and get our tally card. There were quite a lot of familiar faces around and I had a good natter before the start with different folk, all with their own aims in mind.
At 8.00am off we set for the Pike, to me the hardest part of the event as it involves going straight uphill which, if you regularly read this blog you will know, I don't like because I'm not warmed up yet. It was a nice leisurely pace though and I had already told myself before we set off that I was allowed to forego my promise of always running up to the Pike today because I wanted to make sure I saved enough energy to complete the entire run. Kathryn and Maggie weren't for running up it either so that was OK.
From the Pike we dropped down onto George's Lane then along to the dog hotel and up towards Two Lads. We didn't actually go to Two Lads though, turning off to the left just before reaching it and heading up to the mast for the first checkpoint where we got our tally cards punched.
We carried on along the mast road and then turned off and down the San Marino ramp out onto Belmont Road. I had to make a quick stop to remove a stone from my shoe at this point and we took this opportunity to look at the route card and find out where we were going next.
We crossed the road and ran through some fields, coming out on the road which leads to Belmont Reservoir. Before reaching the reservoir we turned off into some farm land and the directions said we had to go diagonally through the field. This is the only part of the run where we went slightly wrong as we went too far through the field but there were other people around who went the right way so we followed them.
One of these people was John Swift and, as I know he has done this route several times, I knew we could trust his navigation and were going the right way. We ran along with John having a good natter and a little while later, along came Gordon. The five of us were pretty much together now all the way to the first food checkpoint and I think Gordon must have been really hungry at this point as he pretty much sprinted down the field towards it.
I had a cocktail sausage and a piece of delicious marble cake and Maggie and Kathryn had a brew each then we continued on our way, still joined by Gordon. John had already left before us but we caught up with him again a little bit later on and Gordon disappeared into the distance ahead of us.
The route we were on now was the part of the route I was most interested in as I have never been on any of these paths before but unfortunately it was really foggy so I didn't get to see much. We followed behind John for a good while and we didn't want to lose him as he knew where he was going and our navigational skills hadn't worked out well for us earlier on.
A good while later (I couldn't really tell you where we had been) we started climbing up towards Darwen Tower and we got ahead of John a little. I had now familiarised myself with the directions though and was quite confident of being able to navigate us to Darwen Tower. Eventually, it loomed into view through the mist.
From there, I knew all the route home as it is the same way as I regularly go when I'm over this side of the moors.
We ran down from the tower to the next food stop at Slipper Lowe car park. At this checkpoint I had a quarter of a mini pork pie and a jaffa cake. Yum!
We didn't stop here long and carried on along to Piccadilly and then up to Great Hill. John had caught up with us again by now so we all ran up to Great Hill together.
On top of Great Hill with John, who we would quite literally have been lost without.
That's it, all the hills over with and only a few miles away from the finish.
We headed off down towards White Coppice where there was another food stop but we didn't indulge here and just carried on to the end. By now, we were all really tired. I was just shuffling along and could barely pick up my feet, although Kathryn seemed to still be going strong.
We had aimed to get in under six hours and all the way along I had been trying to keep us on track by checking my Garmin to make sure we were averaging at least 4mph. If the route had been 24 miles as we thought it was, we would have come in six minutes under six hours but it turned out to be 25 miles (partially because of our detour through the fields earlier) so we didn't quite make it. Somehow Maggie found this huge amount of energy as we were going through the field towards Rivington Green and made us sprint because the end was in sight!!!!
We finished, all holding hands and cheering like lunatics, in 6 hours and 3 minutes (Garmin shows our moving time at 5.47.37, although I'm unsure how accurate that is (Strava shows it at 5.30.43 which I don't trust at all)).
With our finishers certificates, trying not to look as exhausted as we felt.
Absolutely excellent day out and I'm really glad I decided to do it.
Big thanks to Albert for talking me into it, Kathryn and Maggie for their great company and to John (aka the Duracell Bunny!) for ensuring we didn't get lost in the fog.
Total distance - 25 miles (OK so it was 24.99 but I'm having that last 0.01 miles because I ended up partially run/hobbling back to Kathryn's car afterwards).
https://www.strava.com/activities/254824845
Photos courtesy of Jim Leyland, Maggie's sister and random strangers we asked to take pictures of us
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