Stick to the roads, boys...

First of all, many thanks to everyone who has sponsored me on my justgiving page.  I took a look this morning and I have reached the £500 mark,  so thanks again.  I would like to reach £2000 by the time of next year's London Marathon, so I'm making pretty good progress.

"Stick to the roads"

Wise words from Brian Glover's character in "An American Werewolf In London".  I should have heeded this advice before setting of on today's run, but then it has provided me with something to add to the blog, other than "Run 14, 8.2 miles".

I started from home, then up the boat lane to Brun Clough, and met the Oldham Way over the tops, with usually a lovely view of Cattleshaw.  Today it was wet and misty, so I saw nothing of the landscape, slipped more times than I should have and 3 miles in, was met with a worring sense that I was lost in the middle of the moors.  A happy moment when I realised I was on the right path was short lived, when I noticed a large black cow grazing on the footpath.  Whilst working out how to get round him, my attention was arrested by the site of one of his comrades lying down a couple of yards in front of me.

Hi-Viz jackets are very useful, however totally inapproriate when you want to disappear from the view of two curious and grumpy looking cows.  I stopped in my tracks and the one closest to me suddenly stood up, and with a swish of his tail, I headed for the nearest wall and changed my route pronto.

I usually do this route with my friend and running partner, Patrick who is laid up with a virus, so he luckly missed out on this afternoon's bovine antics.  I decided to switch from the roads to the fells at the weekends to run on a variety of surfaces and take a break from pounding the same pavement.  I've no regrets about this and plan to go over towards Dove Stone Res tomorrow.

My trusty GPS told me I completed 8.2 miles. The credit for these extra miles I completed goes to Carolyn for making me the smoothie of all smoothies before I set off.