snows had made the north slope of Winter Hill near enough impossible to make headway on. Even so. the final bit of the mast road still had about two foot of snow so it was easier to leave it and use the fell.
Wednesday saw me head over to Hollingworth Lake for 14 miles of Winter Wandering with the East Lancashire LDWA group. There was still quite a bit of snow as can be seen here.
The walk included a little bit of God's own county in which I had the pleasure of spending a few moments.
More photos and report at on the East Lancashire LDWA site
I knew I had to get a bit more mileage in before the Northern Cross Country Championships on Saturday so just did a couple of reps up to the Jolly Crofters and back on Friday. I'd measured the route beforehand to be exactly (well near enough) one mile each way and about 350ft of climb for ascent.
Hopefully that had not left me too tired for the Championships at Witton Park in Blackburn. The course designers had been very kind to me, ensuring that every lap had not one, but two good climbs of about 150ft and just for good measure the two "long" laps had an additional climb of over 100ft. My estimate is that the 11.5k had about 1500ft of ascent in it - good enough for a B Medium fell race! I started steady then managed to move through and generally held my place to finish strongly, only six minutes slower than the previous year's championship race. As the winner was 5 minutes slower, this was equivalent to about a 5 minute gain for me, especially when compared against last year's results for those around me.
The week totalled 37 miles and 6000ft which puts me on course to exceed the target as long as I have a reasonable final week of January, especially as this week as started with a 12 mile recce of the Pennine Bridleway leg for next Sunday and 6 miles road/track session tonight.
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