Anglezarke Amble - 24 miles of hills, mud, bogs and more bogs....and more hills....boggy ones!

Thank goodness the weather held up for us!  A week of full on rain meant that we knew what we'd be facing, and we weren't wrong!  Luckily, we woke on Saturday morning to a general greyness, but we'd been promised a dry day (with a hint of sunshine) and about 7-8 degrees....perfect running weather.  Sunday was forecast wall to wall rain, so we were glad the event was on this day instead!

So, being a local event, we didn't have such an early get-up and only a 15 minutes drive to the start.  The Anglezarke Amble is run by West Lancs LDWA and many of our friends from the group staff the checkpoints along the way.  It's 24 miles of hill (up to Rivington Pike, over Winter Hill, up Darwen Tower and over Great Hill) and incredibly boggy wet ground.  We did the Amble last year, but we walked it.  It was Rich's first ever walk of that distance and I remember it being a bit of a slog.  It took us 8 hrs 4 mins to walk it, and although we knew we had a lot of slogging up boggy hills, we hoped to take a couple of hours off that running.  It's so hilly it's hard to make huge gains in time by running.  I was also pretty depleted from the cleanse, and a nice dose of the 'runs' wasn't helping much either!


Me and Rich at the start

We arrived to a filled car park and filled hall with walkers and runners taking advantage of the tea and toast - we'd already had our porridge.  I managed 4 more trips to the toilet before we set off at 8am...not good!  We gathered outside with a mixture of 24 mile and 16 mile runners and walkers, and managed to bump into Tim, who I'd only previously communicated with via this blog and Facebook.  Our only aim was to get in front of the walkers at the start because the slog up to Rivington Pike has a series of stiles that bottle-neck everyone and we knew we'd get stuck behind for a long time. 

If you read my blog regularly, you'll know that it takes my body about 4 miles to warm up, so running straight up hill at the very start is not a great prospect. But we managed it - we ran up the car park and trail with the rest of the runners and assured ourselves a place at the stile unhindered.  The mist was very low making visibility poor, which was a good thing because I didn't want to see how far away I was from the Pike!  I wasn't feeling great - my fuel tanks felt very low and my tummy was threatening to do its worst...


Walkers and runners registering at the start


We slogged our way up the steps to the Pike and turned for a nice skiddy run down before joining the stony track again.  Rich was feeling quite good and was trying to pull me along - but he knows I'm rubbish the first 4 miles!  This was followed by a boggy uphill stint along the single-track road up to the first checkpoint at Winter Hill.  The mast lights were all we could see in front of us, it was impossible in the mist to make out any shapes!  Luckily a lot of runners were in fluorescent tops, which was very helpful!  We'd been passed by a number of runners on the way up (sorry - I can't run up those hills so early into a run!) but we soon passed them again on the way down.  It's quite a long technical downhill, so Rich and I got a good buzz leaping from rock to grass to mud to bog as we hurtled our way down.  Great fun!

Really boggy crossing of fields and streams then (soaked feet from this point on) and we soon got to Checkpoint 2 where the 16 milers peeled off from the 24 milers.  We remembered this part from last year and we knew the bogs would be worse this year.  We both ended up knee deep in various parts of the bog, but it all adds to the fun!  We kept passing and being passed by a group of men and we had some good banter with them throughout. 

Checkpoint 3 was by a reservoir, but as usual we barely stopped.  Rich just picked up a drink of orange squash and a biscuit.  I was struggling to eat and spent the first 4 hours nibbling my way slowly through some ginger biscuits I'd brought with me.  We then started the long long long slog up towards Darwen Tower along Witton Weavers Way.  You can't see Darwen Tower (although the weather had cleared alot and there was a glimmer of warming sunshine from time to time) at the start of the slog and you just seem to go up endlessly without any kind of reward in a nice downhill.  I'd managed to rub a hole in my sock and my trainer was beginning to work its way through my skin layers, but luckily I was blissfully unaware until Rich pointed it out!

This section has a lot of stony track and never-ending roads.  It then moves onto the more exposed fells, complete with the aforementioned bogs and a crisp cross-wind.  Luckily the sun decided to show its face and warm us up a little.  We marched up and trotted down the undulations, but you never really feel like you're getting there.  Eventually Darwen Tower came into view and I managed to stuff a pack of crisps down my neck as we checked in at Checkpoint 4.


Finally.....Darwen Tower and a reasonable track too!

 Having slogged up for what seemed like hours, it would be nice to have the reward of a lovely long downhill, but you never really seem to be going down.  In fact there are still a lot of 'ups' on this stretch, until eventually you get a short section of track where you can let your legs fly down to the road and Checkpoint 5 at Slipper Lowe car park.  This is a well-stocked checkpoint and the place where the 16 milers re-join our route, but we didn't stop to chat.  It was nice to have the 16 milers back in the mix because we always seemed to be passing people.

However, the worst was yet to come.  The final hurdle now was Great Hill, and the rain clouds seemed to be moving towards it at an alarming rate.  The problem with Great Hill is that there is nothing 'great' about it.  It is high, has 3 false summits as you approach n the direction we were coming from, and is the boggiest piece of ground in the area.  If anything was a slog, this was it.  We literally trudged our way up one small squishy step at a time, feet in and out of bogs, slipping backwards.... the lot.  It's horrid.

Eventually it was over and we reached the tops and got a fantastic run down all the way to the final Checkpoint 6 at White Coppice.  It's a great downhill because it's a mixture of tracks, rocks, bogs and grassland and it's so steep you just have to keep your legs turning. I fell over, but the ground was so soft there was no damage - for a change! My legs were feeling fantastic, and for the first time in the run I was starting to feel a bit better, rather than worrying that my stomach contents were going to appear at anytime.  Typically, when I start feeling warmed up and ready to crack on a bit, Rich is starting to fatigue.  His calves were cramping on and off and his ankle was beginning to protest at all the rocks and cambers.  I'm usually at my best from about 12 miles in!

The finish is about 5km from White Coppice, but it feels longer.  I'm not sure if it's because its flat, or because we know the area so well, but it feels like you're never getting any nearer!  You run along road, woodland, river and past the two reservoirs, but all you really want to do now is get home.  The weather held off and we never got the rain that was threatening us on Great Hill.  We made our final run across the field, across the road and back into the Hall - our time was 6 hrs 14 mins.  Not bad considering how boggy it was this year and having to slow towards the end for Rich's calves. 


Lovely... and the mud goes right up to our knees!

 Unfortunately we had no time to hang around because we were due at Rich's work Xmas do (yes - in February) over in Leeds.  So we got ourselves home, bathed, dressed and ready to go.  Our feet were filthy, and my knees were too from falling over!  However, the only thing we wanted to do was sleep.  Luckily we managed to last till 11pm before hitting the hotel room!


Yep - this is what we slog our guts out for.... and it's worth every minute!