Not Much News from Santon

Just back from a short visit to Santon Bridge, where I ran a little less than planned due to various housekeeping tasks, but I did manage to capture this shot from Irton Pike on one cold and frosty morning:-

Great Gable, managing to catch a little of the morning sun on her snow capped summit, despite the cloud's efforts to interfere. The bird high in the distance is a buzzard, which had just passed me quite closely on my ascent, before soaring off towards the head of the valley.

I had made it up onto Whin Rigg the day before, but with no camera.

Tomorrow (1st Feb)

I'm UTUPing; will I have company?

Darwen Tower and Great Hill

No indication that anyone would be UTUP-ing so decided to venture across the tops to Belmont for a little outing to Darwen Tower.  Keeping it short meant that I got back to the  car before the horrendous hailstorm arrived.   Best of the day here 

Looked promising setting off from Aspull

 

On the way to Belmont

 

Witton Weavers Way

Bumped into Brian along the way – here he is at ToT, with some ghostly apparition standing looking out from the Tower

 

On Spitler’s

A Day on the Howgills

It's a while since we had a squad outing and initial enquiries suggest that an outing to the Howgills may attract some interest.

A few years ago YJ, tBiL and I ventured out to visit the eleven 2,000 ft tops in the Howgills. It was an rewarding outing and, once we'd got onto the main ridge, quite runnable. We set off from the Cross Keys at GR SD698969, travelling in a generally northern direction to take in Yarlside and Randygill Top. Then we turned south westish (it's an orienteering term) to start a roughly anti-clockwise loop finishing with Great Dummacks before returning to base.

Although it's a way off yet, I'm suggesting a re-run 15 March or 5th April, to avoid a clash with Edale and Heptonstall.

Any thoughts? Any preference for a date?

Skippool Creek

A good outing yesterday morning with better weather than at least the forecast I read.  Twelve miles only, but it seemed enough.  I headed to the Bowling Green for a cappuccino and had a bit of mooch back along the river to get some snaps (see blip on right)before the rain came on.  A short local run this morning before heading to the Fylde coast and Skippool Creek at high tide.  As I have no running pics thought you might like to see some boats.  More old wrecks here : )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the hard work begins

This year's challenge is on. And now that I've also been accepted for a full-time job (starting Monday), this is no longer quite the annoyance to the boss that it was a week ago. End of August sees me joining Mr & Mrs Sunter and Inov8 Insider (as I think he is known on the FRA forum) on the start line of the Grand Raid Pyrenees. Albert is doing the 160km event whilst the sensible ones amongst us will compete in the mere 80km (50 miles) event with approx 16,500 feet of climb.
New job means that I will have to be more organised in my training and will include some weekend working : I will be able to get in some long runs during the week and will do Anglezarke Amble (entered) and Haworth Hobble (not yet entered).

Night Ceases to be Twice as Long as Day

According to my sunrise/sunset table, yesterday, 15th January was the first day this winter when we had over 8 hours (8 hours and 2 minutes to be precise) daylight. By the 31st , daylight will be 8 hours and 52 minutes.

"Has this guy nothing better to do?" I hear you ask yourself.

This Week

UTUPing today, Thurs 16th, planning 3 x (Foxholes, George's Lane, Jolly Crofters and COR).

UTUPing Sat 18th.

Garstang 10k

I've never managed to beat a Swift in this race so thought this year I'd have another go.
The eldest had disappeared down south so I was left facing Etu and his daughter. An upset tum on the day ( which I'm told was due to food and not drink!), left just myself and the female Swift to do battle. The glorious conditions and good company made it a very enjoyable race with the best woman disappearing into the distance around the 3 mile mark. Official times were 55,08 for me and 53,12 for the winning Swift. Both pleased with our times and interesting to note that I did beat Etu's time last year of 55,21 but I presume that doesn't count as a victory!

This Morning

A small group consisting of JtE, KLM, TF and yours truly set off from the barn just a few minutes late and headed for Healey Nab.

The majority seemed to be in high spirits and insults were freely exchanged without appearing to cause too much offence. From Healey Nab we proceeded to White Coppice and, in view of the underfoot conditions, decided to eschew the high ground and return via the part completed mill stones above the quarries.

Thence cross country before picking up the tarmac again at Manor Farm before leaving the road again and descending to Lead Mines Clough. Then Alance Bridge and cross country back to base. Just 9 miles (14.5 Ks in KLM speak) and not much climbing.

For the benefit of those unable to attend, and for the further annoyance of those that did, I'll repeat the story of the guy that went to a sale in a prosthetic limb factory just before Christmas and bought a significant number of false legs - he said he just wanted them for stocking fillers.

Unusual New Years weight loss programme

Not sure this is one you'd want to try or whether there is any scientific basis to it, but this morning I witnessed what I thought could only be a different take on the January weight loss programme.

I'd returned to the changing room after my Friday morning spin class when another lady arrived (dressed for the gym) who then proceeded to remove her jogging bottoms and then brought out of her bag a roll of cling film.

Curious at this, as it wasn't something you'd normally bring to the gym I very slowly started to get dressed waiting to see what she was going to do with it.

Well!!! She unravelled it and started to first wrap the cling film round her upper left leg, then two wraps round her middle and then finally wrapped it round her upper right leg. She then put her jogging bottoms back on and left (presumably to go into the gym).

At this point, one of the other ladies who'd been using the hair dryer and had her back to her during the whole process, turned the hair dryer off and turned round. She must have been able to see her in the mirror as the look on her face said it all. We both said 'WHY' simultaneously.

We both decided that if she was 'Twiggy-like' in two months we might be prepared to give it a go.

Out for a utup tomorrow, I'll bring a roll of cling film if any one wants to give it a go!

TF

First Run of 2014

Bit of a rogues gallery of a post – great morning, great weather for it a good to be out morning – a few more in the usual place .  I’ve now re-posted this as google+ continued to strip out the colours when uploading these – think I’ve now got it under control.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second Outing of the Year

Despite donning waterproofs at the start, no rain appeared – result!  Good outing of eleven miles up over Spitler’s, Great Hill, White Coppice etc.  Poor light for pics, but a few below and a couple more here

PS  - The pics from Thursday’s outing were particularly blighted by the problems I’ve been having uploading via Google+ which has been stripping out colour etc, Ian’s now managed to sort the problem for me and I’ve re-published the post – huge difference in the pics which now look as I uploaded them.

 

 

 

The Baptistry

Mystery Picture

As was correctly described by our anonymous poster, it was in fact a Baptistry, in essence a 'human dip' rather than a 'sheep dip'. I'll post a picture of the info board located near to the feature which explains all.

TF