Yesterday I took the afternoon off and headed over to Church Stretton to get a medium length run in and see how the calf reacts. It was very warm and sunny, so I decided just to head off onto the Long Mynd and run at an easy pace until I started to tire, thinking aroung 10-12 miles would be the target. That way I'd have increased the mileage from Tuesday's run, still have something in my legs for a decent outing on Sunday, and hopefully not overwork the calf / ankle injury recovery.
I set off along Madeira Walk and across the Cwmdale road, through the fields to All Stretton, then started up the Batch (as we'd done on Tuesday on the club run). Here's the view as you drop into the Batch:
Instead of turning into Jonathan's Hollow I continued on directly up the main valley. There are sketchy paths up either side of the stream most of the way: it's runnable, but not as easy running as many of the Batches and Hollows on the Mynd.
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| Phone camera fighting with the contrast. Should have sun-screened up given all that sun! |
At the top I came out onto the High Park - Portway path, followed that briefly and then turned left up to the west top of Haddon Hill. I dropped down to the col below the east top and then doubled back along a nice singletrack line which contours back round the west top. From the end of this I picked up the grassy line of to the left which leads over Mott's Road to the top of Calf Ridge.
I continued in reverse along the line of my Gill Harris round to Wild Moor and the Shooting Box, then headed up to Pole Bank.
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| Forced underexposure but hopefully you can see Cader Idris faintly on the skyline |
I was pretty warm by now, so I finished my drink (High5 with carbs and caffeine and not too disgusting apart from the way you get loads of foam on the top!) and had a little snooze on the grass near the view marker.
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| Strangely still sunny when I woke up! |
I needed to top up the water and didn't want to do more than about another five miles, so I jogged off down to Pole Cottage and picked up the path that leads down across Barrister's Plaiun and round Callow to Little Stretton. On the way down I practiced some of the descending drills I'd been shown at the England U16 coaching day a couple of weeks ago: pushing hips through, not leading with straight legs, looking up.
Callow looked nice but I was really in need of water so I went straight down without diverting via the summit.
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| Callow from the side of Grindle. |
Down in Little Stretton the Ragleth was closed so I refilled my bottle at the campsite and then went up Ashes Hollow and into the side valley between Yearlet and Ashlet. I climbed this at a walk, feeling quite tired - I'm not sure whether this was the heat and slight dehydration or just not having much running in my legs because of the injury?
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| Looking back down the valley between Ashlet (L) and Yearlet (R) |
However looking down it's pretty steep and maybe I was just a bit tired. I ran off down the green path, and was pretty slow down there too....
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| Church Stretton and Caer Caradoc from the Ashlet-Yearlet col |
A jog through the rectory wood and I was back at the car. I had a nice chat with Terry Davies from Mercia walking through town to get a bit of shopping after my run.
Stats for today: 11.2 miles; around 2,400' of climbing; running time about 2 hours 27 minutes.
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