I'm doing the 'That's Lyth' LDWA event at the end of the month with John Swift so today I thought I'd better get a decent run in by way of training. That's Lyth is 24 miles and, to date I have only done an 18.7 miler with John a couple of weeks ago so I thought I'd better do another long one and planned around 20 miles.
My plan was go head straight up to the mast from home, then down San Marino, onto Witton Weavers Way, up to Darwen Tower, down through Roddlesworth Woods to Piccadilly, up to Great Hill, down into White Coppice, then home via Anglezarke and Rivington.
It pretty much went to plan, however I missed out Darwen Tower. I was feeling really tired right from the off today and, as with my long run last weekend, I had nothing in my legs. They just felt lifeless. En route up to Two Lads I was already thinking about giving up. I quietened my demons though and pushed on, although there was more walking involved than I would have liked.
It was nice to see Sean and his dogs on the way up to Two Lads so I could stop and have a breather whilst we chatted.
I had hoped that once I started descending San Marino I'd start to feel better but I didn't. My legs just weren't working. Still, I had set out with a goal in mind and, even if it was going to take me a while, I was still going to do it.
When I got to the bottom of San Marino, I took a longer route than I had intended because I didn't fancy running along the road through Belmont. Instead of turning left I crossed the road and turned right, taking the footpath on the left which goes all the way down to a farm, then descends down to a bridge which was INCREDIBLY slippery, before going back up again, coming out onto Longworth road. I crossed straight over the road and ran along an unused road, which then comes out on Stones Bank Road. Again, I crossed straight over and this put me onto Witton Weavers Way.
Because I had taken a longer route to get to Witton Weavers Way, I decided that I was going to miss out going to Darwen Tower. My legs still hadn't come alive and I just couldn't face the climb up there. Even the very small undulations of WWW were taking their toll.
Just before I came out onto the Tockholes Road, I bumped into Adrian and Fin. Again, it was lovely to stop and chat for a bit, however by now it was pretty wet so it was a bit too chilly to be standing around and we soon went our separate ways. We were both heading for Great Hill, but in different directions. I'm interested to see which way Adrian went as, last time I tried to get to Great Hill via the path almost opposite the end of Tockholes Road, I got slightly lost when the path suddenly disappeared.
I went through the woods, coming out at Piccadilly and then heading up to Great Hill from there. It was chucking it down by now and I was so glad to be wearing decent kit - that kit being a good Inov8 waterproof and, surprisingly, an Aldi merino wool cycling top. It kept me so nice and warm and I was so glad I'd decided to put them on as, this morning, I nearly put on a t-shirt under my jacket. I was also very grateful to be wearing my Roosters as my feet were toasty warm. In fact, the only thing that was really cold were my hands. My gloves were now saturated but I was so wet that I didn't want to stop to get my spare gloves out of my rucksack.
I was so relieved when I finally got to the top of Great Hill and started making my way down into White Coppice. I felt like I was on my way home now and kept having fantasies about a nice hot cup of tea.
The last few miles from White Coppice home seemed to go by quite quickly and I was pleased to see that I was on course for getting 18 miles in. It wasn't 20 but it was close enough in this horrid weather on my own.
Total distance - 18 miles
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