More training, more miles

The 25 miles taking me to Darwen Tower, detailed in the last training update, left me with little energy the next day and 2 miles was all I could manage, very slowly. But if recovery times are a good guide to fitness the two six mile runs on the Friday showed some progress has been made.

Saturday was a repeat of the previous Saturday, but somewhat faster, and was followed the next day with an eight miler, and then 12.5 miles on the Monday which was very close to a personal best for that particular route.

Having missed a swimming session because of the fall of the previous week, Tuesday saw me back in the pool for a few easy lengths followed later in the day with a four mile run - another minor energy crisis.

The shortage of energy was short lived as the Wednesday, back to Darwen Tower for another 25 mile run, saw me back on form with a nine minute improvement over the previous Wednesday followed by six miles on the Thursday.

And so, with eight days left to go the serious training has been completed and a winding down of the mileage will hopefully leave me in peak form. With this in mind a short recce was planned for Friday to re-aquaint myself with final leg from Colden over Bleaklow to the Snake Pass road.

The intention was to check the line off Bleaklow and then return to Colden, but the best laid plans (of mice and men.....) don't always work out. The obvious path from the summit cairn soon petered out into a maze of peat groughs and certainly no Pennine Way. So it was a case of retracing steps to Bleaklow and following a less obvious route which eventually proved to be the way down to the road. This turned out to be a worthwhile recce as valuable time could have been lost on the day of the challenge if the same mistake had been made.