Day 29 - Up Bosley Cloud

I'm going to the top...

As mentioned in yesterday's blog, I was thinking of routes I have run in the past but have not included in the Juneathon challenge. Well today was the chance to air another favourite - an out and back route from the office to the top of Bosley Cloud - a round trip of just over 10 miles. The hill stands at 1,125 feet and is visible from miles around. From the direction I was tackling it, most of the climbing is done in the last two miles!

After a drive up to the office, I set off at 6:30am on the route to the top. The first 2.5 miles took me along a well trodden route along the canal past the Bosley locks as featured in several other daily reports. Once off the canal I had a couple of hundred yards of very wet grass to get through! Now the climb started, I got a brief glimpse of where I was going (above) and I could see the road winding up the hill. After the slow climb up the lane the final part to the summit is via a set of steps.

Route to the sky...

Stairway to heaven...

At the foot of the steps is a sign signalling the way to the summit, so, on up the steps (I counted 60 in all). The final trail to the very top took me over a lot of exposed boulders. The sun was breaking through the clouds and casting some great shadows over the fields below. It was now just after 7.15 and already there were a couple of walkers with fully laden backpacks admiring the view!

I can see for miles...

The route back down took me on a more gradual descent on a long and twisty rocky path through the heather bushes. It took a lot of concentration to ensure I didn't fall, I wouldn't have wanted that being so close to the end of Juneathon.

The long and winding trail...

The final trail before getting back on the road took me through a tricky wooded section, a multitude of tree roots criss-crossing the path, again lots of tripping opportunities! After successive miles of 12:01 and 11:21 I was now back on the country lane and fairly flew down the hill, clocking the next mile in 6:58! This certainly was a good test on the legs, speaking of legs I have been very pleased on how well they have faired with 29 days straight of running. I took the last three or so miles fairly steady, back along the canal and the final hill up to the office for another 10+ miles.

Having uploaded the route to the website that brought up my total to 260 miles. I thought I would mention here that the runningfreeonline total and my calculated total have differed from the start. I have been quoting my mileage based on the endomondo recorded mileage and then when exporting to a GPX file and then importing, the actual distance is slightly different. Sorry to bore you with the details but that explains that! The final day tomorrow, not sure of the distance yet, maybe something to make a nice round number, not sure how round that number will be yet!

Stats
Distance: 10.42 miles
Time: 1:31:29
Juneathon Total Distance: 258.91 miles