The Mary Townley Loop is a 47 miles circular route that
forms part of the Pennine Bridleway National Trail. The loop was opened in 2002
and is named in memory of Mary Townley, strangely enough. You can start and
finish the loop anywhere along the route.
The route passes through Whitworth, Waterfoot, Cliviger and just east or Worsthorne before continuing past Hurstwood, Widdop and
Gorple reservoirs. Hebden Bridge is next on the route where crosses the A646 and heads up to Edge
end moor. Here the route passes close to Studley Pike monument and I usually
make a point of visiting the monument when passing.
After Studley pike the route takes you through Mankinholes
and Walsden before passing close to the edge of Littleborough and finally
over the moor to Whitworth.
I have run this route twice before in summer time and it a
cracker, however I always felt the route would be interesting to run in the
dark so selected the nearest weekend to the shortest day of the year, the
weekend before Christmas.
Chris and Dennis came up from Lincolnshire for the pleasure
of my company and to join me for the challenge. We chose to set off at dusk or
there about, so it was getting dark as we departed Whitworth and headed off up
Rooley Moor, luckily it was quite windy, foggy and raining hard, otherwise
route finding would have been just too easy.
It rained for the 12hrs and 20 minutes it took us to run the route but it was incredibly enjoyable. Maybe i like the pain and suffering that comes with being a long distance runner, or maybe it was the company? What ever, after months of suffering i have finally re-discovered my running "mojo".
No comments:
Post a Comment