Two Crosses - crashed out.....

Woke up early, weather not the best, but ok for running.  Before Rich even got out of bed he warned me he may not be running - his knee had kept him awake during the night and pressure on it was not likely to help.  After walking up and down the stairs a few times he decided he may give it a go, and pull out if needs be.

So, we got to the start at Tottington Youth Club, Bury.  The drizzle was persistent, and we should really have started in our Pertex, but we decided to trust the weather forecast that said it was soon to dry up.... wrong!

Two Crosses is an LDWA event run by East Lancs Group (our own group) and we have been looking forward to having a chat at every checkpoint along the way.  £6.50 entry included well-stocked checkpoints, tea and toast at the start and an array of soups with bread, puddings and cookies at the end.

The start - Tottington Youth Club, Bury

We set off uphill through the housing estate and climbed our way up towards the misty tops.  Irritatingly, RIch's knee seemed to be fine, but my knee decided it was not having any of this running lark!  The ground was pretty sticky and wet in places, which really didn't help matters.

Jumbles Reservoir

We had a nice long run down towards Jumbles Reservoir, out the other side and up to Affetside and the first checkpoint at Turton Tower.  My knee was not coping with the long downhill sections, and the pressure on it uphill meant we were slowing right down in the first few miles!  Not good.  What was worse was that the weather was not getting better and we had managed to get quite cold (because we were moving pretty slowly and not generating much warmth). 

We passed the split for the 18 or 25 mile option, and were thinking off the shorter route, then realised we only had the description for the 25 miler.  So we decided to battle on.  Then I saw the long slog we were due up the next hill, and as my knee gave way on the downhill road section I decided enough was enough.

We walked back to the split and got a lift back in the sweep up car.  It was gutting because we'd been looking forward to this, but with the double weekend coming up in a fortnight (29 miles on the Sat and 23 miles on the Sun) it would be silly to risk it all now.  Two weeks rest and I hope it'll all have settled back down.  I'll give Chester a miss next weekend, perhaps go do the social walk with the East Lancs group instead.  We'll see.