Your favourite training routes

We talk a lot about races that we participate in on this forum, but it is actually through our training runs that we have our day to day relationship with running.  I think that all runners have their favourite training routes.  They might be routes that we find aesthetically pleasing, or challenging, or simply routes that you have a sentimental attachment to because you used them to train for your first marathon. 

So what are your favourite training routes? 

I get to run around the hills (Cotswolds) and routes used in the Sodbury Slog.............Magic

When I started running, I ran along the towpaths of theGrandUnionCanal.  That is the, not the larger canal between London and Birmingham that has spawned a certain event.  I came to love it for the picturesque rural scenes, and also for the industrial heritage that it displayed. 

When I started to tackle races with more ascent/descent, I started top look for big hills.  I actually got the inspiration for my first hill training run, from a route that I had worked as a dustbin man, to pay my way through university over the summer holidays.  There was a competition among the gangs to load Bird Hill in the fastest time, and I held the course record for a while. 

I learned my best hill training routes from local trail races such as the Woodhouse Challenge, and the Beacon Hill Trail Race.  It is always worth entering any race within a few miles of your house, because you might just learn something valuable for training!

Bottom of Box Hill steps - to top of Reigate Hill (incorporating extra hill climb on way) and back.  Fairly short nasty and brutish - albeit with lovely scenery - but maintains my 'hill fitness' which I now find more important than actual distance when training for most of my events.

Bear B. Hind - I might well run into you. I'm the good-looking one, though this picture of me was taken a few years ago and I've put on a little weight since...

(You should be easy to spot)

Yes - I always carry my red velvet heart with me .

Love a point to point run over the South Downs. Heading out through 7 Sisters country park and on Beachy Head is always fun.

The recent sustained period of rain is really starting to annoy me now.  Not so much because I mind running in the rain, but because a lot of my favourite trails are now impassable.  I went to run on one of my favourite routes recently, only to find that it was flooded and there were ducks swimming around on it!

Since I moved up here a couple of years ago, most of my runs are my favourites!!!

 I do love my backdoor run ... straight out onto the Moray Coastal Trail, never fails to lift the spirits with the sea below and views across to the Black Isle and the mountains there.

But then I also love my runs up onto Dava Moor - never ever see another soul up there and just five miles from the road you are in the middle of nowhere, although I have to cross a small river and after snow this is very tricky - fast flowing snow melt is not to be underestimated and does prevent me from heading where I want at times.

LOL at the ducks!

Kentmere Horseshoe and Fairfield Horseshoe are my regular training ground and If I want something a little longer then I take the bus to Keswick and run Back over the Dodds, Hellvelyn, Fairfied Red Screes Thornthwaite crag, Ill Bell then down into ings for the bus home, TBH I am really spoilt for choice.

HAPPY DAZE

Fellrunner - you are DEFINITELY spoilt for choice!!!!

I also love my trips down to Glenmore, just started to explore some of the footpaths and smaller hills down there ... always a challenge to see what I can fit in between the school drop-off and pick-up!!!  But it's challenging and beautiful.

Fellrunner, that's not fair! I have to run 2-3 miles to reach anything more of a hill than the bridge over the railway line It's much further to get to anything resembling actual scenery.  And as for the Lakes - it's HOURS away!