Circumnavigating Winter Hill

At this morning’s UTUP were myself, John, Ed, Julie and Kev.  Unfortunately, Julie and Kev weren’t running with us and had just popped along for Christmas card delivery and a little chit chat, which was nice.  After a natter, John, Ed and I set off towards the top barn. 

There was a border collie looking terribly lost and running about the place and I kept trying to call it over because I was worried about it but we couldn’t get anywhere near it, to the point that it would run off when we were as far away as 100 metres.  We slightly changed our course so we could try to see where it went but it had completely disappeared.  I haven’t stopped worrying about the poor thing since and really hope it’s OK. 

After failing to find the dog, we headed up through the terraced gardens, coming out onto George’s Lane and then ran along to the kennels and up to Two Lads.  From there it was along the mast road then down the San Marino ramp.  At the bottom of the ramp, Ed was pushed for time and so he turned around and went back up again, leaving John and I running along the road into Belmont.  We carried on all the way to Piccadilly which was the least enjoyable part of the run as, in parts, there is no pavement and the cars drive pretty fast along there.  Personally, I would have gone around the reservoir at Belmont and onto Witton Weavers Way, but John had a set route which he has done before and wanted to compare times.  A bit of road running is good for speed anyway so no complaints from me.

At Piccadilly, we headed off into the woods and down towards Tockholes, before founding Roddlesworth Reservoir, coming out into Abbey Village.  We then crossed the road and headed up the road to Brinscall and along the trail to White Coppice.  By now, we were both getting pretty tired.  This is the furthest I have run since my marathon training, having only done a maximum of 12 miles since the beginning of September.  We then followed the road to the Bridleway though Healey Nab, coming out onto Back Lane and running along to the Yew Tree.  We then went up ‘the slipway’ and down to the Bowling Green into Rivington Green and then back to the lower barn. 

A very mixed bag of mostly trail and road today with a bit of fell thrown in for good measure.  Good to get a decent amount of mileage under the belt! 

Thanks for the company John!

Total distance – 18.9 miles