Early Bird run

Out for 6.30am this morning heading out for a run with Tim. Glorious morning, lots of mist and haze around though could still make out hills in the distance. It felt good to be up so early, getting out on the path before anyone else. We had a steady uphill section followed by a flat bit, the uphill got me puffing and panting, probably not the best way to warm up at the start of a run! I got more into my stride on the flat...

I can't say too much about the location of this run...we were out to grab the DPFR September calendar box....and we succeeded :)

After a fair bit of bracken bashing to find a path which didn't exist we chose to head back up hill, find our original path then head to the hidden location from a different angle. The plan worked. Not 5 minutes back towards path #1 we find a slightly better than well worn trod which is pretty runable - I'm not yet adept at bracken running...something else to practice.

Down a little, then a steady uphill trod which I manage to run most of...give or take a few map check pauses. There's a discussion about wall angles, paths to take and which is the best route to approach the vague location we're heading to. Luckily the path we choose is a direct bee-line straight to the Calendar Box. Yey! It's not a particularly well hidden one this month, but it'd be a difficult one to find if you heather/bracken bashed from anywhere other than the trod we were on.

After a brief pause to sign our names in the log book (we were the first this month, bonus) we're retracing our steps to pick up another trod....and heading back to the car. We had about 1.5km on road at the end, including an uphill stretch I managed to run all the way up, quite chuffed with that one, and I ran all the way back to the car.

8.69km in total
total time is 1:38:43 but that did include map reading, bracken bashing, walking and photo shots of grouse (I'd post a pic but it would give the location away!).
Moving time 1:17:23
Average pace: 8:54/km (which isn't all that bad considering stopping times)

Moral of today's run. Get up early and get out there. Best time of day.

Rest day

So today was a rest day....but the call of the Dark Peak Fell Runners calendar box (its essentially a geocache) was strong. We found a spot to park up then trotted along the track for a couple of kilometres at a reasonable pace of about 7:30/km - it was afterall a rest day and I shouldn't really be running. A hike up the hill took us to our search area where we split up on high and low ground. It was great for me, gaining confidence on tufty, rocky steep slopes, scrambling over boulders etc. After a fuel stop (homemade rocky road from the Woodbine) we retraced our steps and found the box tucked in its hiding spot.  Nice one.  Taking a rolo each we replaced those with a mini snickers, and Tim wrote our entry in the log book and headed down.

Tempting as it was to head up the hill from our location and jog along the top, we chose to head down, it is a rest day after all!! Steady on the down, walking steep/rocky sections and jogging out the grassy bits. Legs feeling good we cross the stream and back on the track towards the car. I could definitely tell I'd run yesterday. If I'd been on that track with fresh legs I could have run all the way back to the car. As it was, I took a couple of short walk breaks and enjoyed the feeling of being out in the hills on a rainy day. We'd managed to avoid the worst of the weather, but gladly took my goretex proshell for the couple of heavy downpours we did get. Temperature was warm throughout, and by the time we were back at the car it was lovely and sunny.

At the car we took some time to learn names of the local features...then headed home for a cuppa.  I'd publish a picture, but that would give away the location, and we want everyone else to get their maps out and do the search using the clue map. Good Luck everyone!