March Snow

I remember hearing a phrase, as a kid about the March weather, "It comes in like a loin and goes out like a lamb".  Something has gone badly wrong this year as the early part of the month was very spring like but it has been back to January-like conditions the past ten days, especially the last five days with a  long-forecasted snowfall over the weekend. Up early on Saturday morning for my usual "Cobden Cross, Mellor Church" run. There was a bit of snow around the house but nothing serious. Down to the canal and then the climb up to "The Foxes". The fun really started on this climb.

Track up to Shaw Farm

The actual centimetres of snow fall was  not that much but it had been very windy so the snow had got blow into every "nook and cranny" possible and where better but sheltered bridleways.
There were some massive snow drifts on this climb and being out so early I was first so I had all of this pristine snow to trash through. It was hard work, very slow but great fun. Who says we can get too old to behave like a child! Whipping the phone out to take a few photos also did not help speed matters!

Road by "Three Chimneys", Cobden Cross

Eventually trashed my way to Cobden Cross (327 metres) to get an amazing view of Kinder

Kinder from Cobden Cross, with my snowdrift-filled bridleway on the left

Unfortunately coming over the crest of the hill at Cobden Cross mean I was facing directly into the wind. It was brutal stuff trying to protect myself from the snow flakes that were being driven into my face at a million miles an hour. The snow on the bridleway was so variable in places nothing, while in other places it was deep snow drifts. Trying to progress with my face down and eyes half open I managed to trip over a  small snow drift to get a painfull crash onto the rock hard ground.

Trying to protect my face from the driving snow

I was relieved to get to my left turn to "five ways" where the driving wind swung behind me. I was now at one of the highest points in the local area (about 300 metres) with a 1Km bridleway to the road. This bridle way is quite exposed so a lot of snow had been blow onto it to give some amazing snow formations (and more thrashing through snowdrifts)

Snow being driven by the wind

Got to the road that was in very poor conditions to meet a big tractor that was attempting to clear it a bit. He must have through I was mad to be out in those conditions (maybe I was!). Made my way to Mellor Church (222 metres) to meet a lady and gent out enjoying the conditions. From here I quickly lost height on the long decent down to the River Goyte. I was enjoying the run so much I dragged it out by a couple of miles at the end and even met a couple of runners down by the river.

I was out for about 2.5 hours so far from my fastest run.

Goyt Way back to the Railway Tunnel

When I got home and uploaded my strava plot I had a quick look on the FRA forum to find out the Edale Skyline Fell race had been canceled. Having experienced what I saw that morning I can't say I was suprised. This comment from the dissapointed race organiser sums up the conditions over in Edale

"I heard reports that Jude Jepson and Heather Marshal ran from the start of the route to Win Hill - they took 2 hours to do that! Which leads me to think that no one would have made the cut off at Mam Nic... It's almost a shame that we couldn't have had a Championship race where the ENTIRE field was timed out!"

IanFiz.

In last year Edale Skyline it took me 1:07 to get to Win Hill, Heather won the inaugural "The Trigger" so in a completly different league to me. I would guess 45 to 50 minutes would be a more typical time for sombody of her ability to reach Win Hill.

Cobden Cross Hill Reps - Runner Vs Bike!

Since "The Trigger" I have mainly being doing the Cobden Cross, Mellor Church route, which is about 16 Km (10 miles) with about 450 m of climbing. This is a 1:45ish run but I have being doing it quite regularly since January so my fitness levels are not too bad. I am due to help out PaulB on his Bog Graham in the second half of April so it is time I start to ramp up my mileage (and more importantly climbing). I enjoy the Mellor Church but there is not a large amount of climbing on it as once the initial climb to Cobden Cross is complete I more or less stay high until the decent after Mellor Church. The running around Marple would not be true fell running territory, it would be mainly trail running but they would be pretty challenging trails. The longest climb in the area would be about 200 m (over 1Km) of assent from the river Goyte up to Cobden Cross.

Last night I dropped off my daughter off at the Gang Show, went to the supermarket to get some coffee for my wife who has failed in her attempt to give the stuff up. Then at 19:20 off on a run,  with the head torch and  2:30 hours available to me before the post show pickup. I do not normally get out this early, it would often be after 9pm before I get out. I though being out earlier I might meet some mountain bikers as the Marple trails are popular MTB territory. Out of Marple and down the Roman Lakes road to meet a coupe of MTBs comming up and then further down a runner without a light. Obviously he was out a bit longer than intended as it was pretty much dark at this stage.

Overlooking Manchester from Cobden (Mellor) Cross

 I decided to try a few reps up to Cobden Cross. This is OK as are there are a number of routes up to it from the Goyte river valley.  I done my first "up and down" and on the second "up" from Shaw Farm I saw a runner coming towards me it turned out to be Pennine's GeoffB. I have been running these hills for four years and, despite a number of club mates living around the area, only once before have I met another Pennine runner. A little chat about the Edale Skyline then continue the climb. I got up to Cobden Cross four times so you can have a bit of fun trying to trace my route on the map below! The weather conditions were great and underfoot it was not too bad either so a very enjoyable run.

Up and Down from Cobden Cross

Passing Linnet Clough scout camp on the final decent to Marple I met a group of about ten mountain bikers resulting in a race down to Bottoms Hall. I threw caution to the wind struggling on the rocky decent as my batteries were getting a bit tired. I reached the bottom in about 7th place. They waited at the bottom for the stragglers to catch up and I kept going up to start the final climb up to "Strines Rec". They came after me but once on the climb they could not catch up with me as running up hill is faster than a bike.  Another one of my regular climbs is from Strines Station up to the Fox's pub. A couple of times on this I overtook MTBs on this climb. When I first started using Strava I accidental uploaded one of my runs as a bike ride and, I felt very proud, as the Strains Station up to the Fox's pub segment had me in 9th place out of 80. When I realised my mistake and changed it back to a run I was down to 3rd out of 4.
I waited at the top to have a chat and the leaders were a bit put out that I beat them to the top!

Manchester From Cobden Cross

In the end I done 20 Km with 840 metres of climbing so not a bad run.

A Blustry Night With Pennine

Another Thursday night another Pennine run. There were quite a few of us tonight, probably about 20. Little bit of drizzle in the carpark but not a bad night. The quick guys were around (DaveW, StevieK, Stefan, etc) so I though there is a change for a "quick one" tonight. My progress as a fell runner has been slow enough, plain and simply, when on my own, I do not push myself enough (or at all). Thursday night hanging onto the coat tails of the quick lads gives me an opportunity to inflict some pain on myself!

They decided on the "round the res" clockwise route, which is a route well know to us, despite the fact that I went wrong, when navigating it, last week. The route is on the map below, took a bit of work to get that map. I use Strava on my phone and from the Strava website I exported to GPX file and imported it into "My Routes" on Bing Maps. Bing Maps is great as it uses the OS 50,000 and 25,000 maps.

This route starts with the 1.5 Km climb up the Snake Path to the Shooting Cabin. The benine conditions in the car park were quickly blown away as we faced strong head winds and driving rain the whole way up. I am doing a lot of running these days as I try to get the weight down as part of the "Overweight to Race Weigh" thread on the FRA Forums. As part of this (and compition on Strava) on Monday night I done a 20 mile run on the Middlewood way to Macclesfield and back. I was a bit tired, as most of tonight I was in the bottom half of the group when usually I would be further up. It was Ok, the group kept together, as the fast lads kept stopping to allow the stragglers to catch up. We were rewarded for the hard climb into the head wind  when we crossed the bridge below Mermaids Pool. This bridge is followed by a climb and we never went up it as fast as we were literally blown up by the wind, great way of climbing! When I got to the gate below Kinder Low End, the lads were waiting to regroup before the decent down through Tunstead Fields. I saw some head torches continuing towards Swines Back as one of the lads shouted "go on Pat you know you want to!" So off I went trying to chase down the fastest runners in the club. When they got to Swines Back they saw me coming  behind them so waited and asked if they wanted me to wait for them I said no as I assumed they were just going to head down the bridle way and back. But no they turned left and headed over to Dimpus Clough, bloddy 'ell this is going to be hard they are going to head up to South Head. I kept them in sight by running my heart out and kept the gap down to about 50 metres. Crossed Dimpus and "now where are they going?" they kept low rather than the expected climb crossed a stream then started climbing. It went on forever and they were slowly drawing away from me. I had no idea where I was and this climb kept getting steeper . With the mist closing in I lost sight of them. Eventually I hit a trod and and I had no idea where I was. I choose to turn left and head down hill and quickly I hit a wide bridleway and still unsure of where I was but I could see street lights to my right so that had to be the way. Very quickly I hit a gate and knew exactly where I was. We had actually went directly from Dimpus Clough to Mountain Famine and I had hit the trod just below the summit. The other lads had turned right on the trod to go back via Mountain Famine and the Dragon's Back while I turned left to hit the Trans Pennine Bridleway and headed straight down that to get back. I had a great run down the bridle way and arrived in the car park where Stevie was just changing so they were not that far in front of me. Stevie was glad to see me as they did not like abandoning somebody in those conditions. He reckoned I picked a better route back as the Dragons Back was very difficult in the conditions.

Glad I done it as I pushed myself hard and got in a good 13 Km run.

A Kinder Meander

Another planned Pennine 3 hr run last night. Helen had two volunteers, PaulB and me. The intention was to do the Kinder Trog, but going up the Giggle Gaggle rather than the road via Sunny Side. Started off OK but Helen cried off at the top of the Giggle Gaggle as she was feeling ill so Paul and I continued on. It was a nice evening and we carried onto the top of William Clough OK. By now it was getting quite a bit colder and Paul was not dressed warm enough so was not keen on going over Kinder. I would have carried on but we decided to head down William Clough and then follow the res around to Kinder Low End.

Turn right to William Clough

William Clough Decent

 Now I have been around this numerous times,in both directions in both day light and night time. We were going OK got to the woods below Mermaids Pool, crossed the bridge, up the track, took the left fork, through the gate, down the steep hill, through the next gate crossed the stream, crossed the stream again (WHY!!!) I knew I should not be crossing two streams but there was a trod going that way. I just switched my brain off - if there is a trod it must be right! Continued up the steep climb having long since lost the trod and my confidence we were going in the correct direction was waining. We finally got to a small rocky outcrop and I knew this is wrong. We decided to abandon it at that stage so turned around and headed generally west as Hayfield had to be in that general direction.

While messing about we could see a number of head-torches on a hill above and were curious as to who they were. Apparently the main Pennine group had gone up the 3 Knolls path, followed the Pennine Way to Kinder low Trig Point. From there they headed off towards Kinder Low End to decend. After quite a bit of running in the mist they ended up at Kinder Low Trig for a second time. Like us they done a bit of brute force navigation and headed off on a westerly compass setting to get off the hill. We probably  saw them as they found their way off. Kinder is quite forgiving on that front as there are relativly few places where it would be difficult to get off the plateau.

Some excellent navigation by Pennine's best!

 Out compass bearing took us a lovely decent through a number of fields (no right of way) to end up a Hilltop houses, from which it was a straight forward return to hayfield. We ended up doing 10 miles in 2 hrs so a decent enough run, despite my dodgy navigation. The main group had just got back a few minutes before us as many of them were still in the carpark as we arrived back. I fell a bit better about it knowing somebody as experienced as GeoffB also went wrong :)

Paul got the plot up on Strava and we can see this lovely little out and back for 300 metres or so going in an easterly direction. The rocky outcrop we got to would have been in the three knolls path area.

Strava Plot here