I've not been on a long run in a while and had planned one for today anyway, but after the team meal at Akbar's last night I felt the need to burn some calories. It also helped that it was much cooler, positively fresh even as the day reached noon.
As so often, I had little idea of which way I would go as I left the house - Rivelin Valley? Up over Loxley Common? Bradfield? Wharncliffe Woods? Toward Sheffield? A moments indecision and I set up Wadsley lane and the steady climb toward Worall, with that familiar view of the fields dropping down into the valley and the woods climbing the far side.
At Worrall I almost baulked at seeing how overgrown the path the Hagg Stones was, but pushed and high-stepped the couple of hundred metres through high grass, nettles and brambles before it opened onto the field beyond. I've never been entirely clear where the path goes across this field, but sticking close to the tumbledown remnants of the wall has always seemed the best bet.
Sharply down a hill then the path leads to Burnt Hill Lane which climbs for a kilometres before the turn onto Onesmoor Bottom and another couple of km of climbing. It is glorious here; it is rare to see a car, just the rolling fields and woodland stretching away on all sides. Cows, sheep and horses in occasional groups in the fields. The stiff wind whipped the dust from the back of a combine cutting back the stubble and some grouse chased in to pick over the remains
The sky is a in uneven quilt; one side different textures of grey, flat or roiling, the other gloriously chaotic stacks and rags of clouds bobbing like cotton wool or twisting up into the shapes of creatures of ancient myth. Further on it become more broken and leaks out golden light that will shower its blessing somewhere around Hoyland or Wombwell.
Here, the first spots of rain immediately fill the air with petrichor; thought it is now cool the ground is dry and hard still after these arid months.
The road crests and begins to descend, at first shallowly and then precipitously, switching back to mitigate the gradient. but I spot a path and this brings me sharply down the the edge of Broomhead reservoir by stairs and the roots of trees. The reservoir path itself I've walked and cycled, but i'm not sure I'e ever run here before, and I glory in taking its twists and turns, and, higher up, as it becomes a matter of close focus to step correctly between the gnarled roots and rough stones. It stays this way along the south bank, around the east tip, and all the way back on the north bank of the Broomhead, until a gate at the tiny Ewden Village leads out onto the road that continues the rest of the way down, past the lower More Hall Reservoir all the way down to the road at the bottom, this stretch of which is actually called Main Road.
I follow it back though Wharncliffe Side to Oughtibridge. The heaviest of the rain came down while I was in the woods around the reservoir, although it's still steady, so I decide on the cover of Hollins and Beeley Woods, running the path in the reverse of my usual direction. Surprisingly, I feel I have the energy to eschew the footbridge at Middlewood and carry on along Clay Wheel Lane, taking and extra loop down the the bottom of Hillsborough park before swinging home to bring the distance above 25k.
That was joyous. It took me perhaps 4 km to find my legs but it is far too long since I had a long, meditative run like that. And I think I burnt off *most* of the curry, too.
https://www.strava.com/activities/1762607185
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