Sale Fell and tree felling

big load of trees have gone from Wythrop Woods

I've been off work this week and have been taking it easy.  It's been quite hard for me to take it easy, and at the same time, my motivation has been pretty low.  I had planned some mountain biking yesterday and a big run today but the weather wasn't great and so it was an easy excuse to chill out.  I dragged myself out for a run today.  I headed to Sale Fell, my local fell.  A round trip of Sale Fell is about 3 miles so it's not a massive commitment but I had a feeling that, once I was actually out, I would want to carry on.  The good thing about Sale Fell is that there are multiple routes so runs can be extended.  I was completely right.  I checked my watch and it was at 0.2 of a mile that I was having a great time.  This continued for the rest of the run.

I think I've become a bit of a plodder.  I don't really do any training, I just go out for a run.  My hill climbing has become really weak and I don't have anything like the speed I used to have.  My plan is to do some specific training sessions: different hill workouts, speed intervals as well as the long slow runs which all my runs seem to have become lately.

Today, I decided I wanted to do hills.  Some long steady climbs rather than very hard efforts, and concentrating on getting into a rhythm going up rather than bombing down.  I had planned to run down the road from my usual parking spot and wind up through the woods at Routenbeck.  This would have provided a gentle but continuous hill climb, something that I was wanting to practice.  When I parked up, there was a sign on the gate showing my route was out of bounds due to tree felling.

Instead then, I headed anti-clockwise on the main bridleway and climbed up the nose of Sale Fell.  Slow but steady, I made it to the top.  I then headed south to Rivings and Lothwaite, taking the path back north west along the wall, climbing up by the fell wall and then back up to the top.  I then took the long descent down the nose, back to the bridleway, this time going in a clockwise direction.  I took the ledge path through the old quarry then around the east side of the fell, climbing again up the wall, this time carrying on over the shoulder back to the main path.  I continued around and then took a path up the north side which seemed to contour around before I turned off and headed up to the top.  From here, I headed back down the nose, around in a clockwise direction back to the car.

quite a lot of trees have gone

there were some nice tree-lined paths in there (as well as this one) from a run in August last year