Meerkbrook, home to the awesome Roaches! This Sunday we headed out into the peaks again for another brilliant day out!
Before we set off the weather reports were showing as overcast with patchy sun, but from the off the sun was out! We set off in two groups, in my group we had Clive, Gaz and Mark. In the second group led by Wayne was Lynn, Hein and Donna.
Both groups tackled the course in different direction my group started with a fairly flat 4 miler around the reservoir before going onto the climb of the roaches. Whereas Wayne’s group took the climb on first, presumably to make sure they had enough left in their legs after the climb!
As we went around Titterworth reservoir we could see the huge roaches looming in the background waiting for us, it’s a shame that the pictures really don’t give you an appreciation of the sense of scale.
The climb onto the roaches took a fairly tasty 1000ft of ascent in the space of roughly 3 miles so it was a pretty tough climb, but all the fatigue melts away once you see the awesome view from the top!
And, of course, the sense of achievement when you hit that trig point and know that it’s all downhill from there! It’s worth giving Gaz a shout out here, his first proper trail run with the club and this course is on the higher end of the difficulty rating, we didn’t half put him through it, but like a trooper he carried on pushing and didn’t give up. A massive achievement his Strava activity deserves that kudos!
Overall it was a brilliant day out, we were blessed with decent weather – just don’t mention the wind up top (as you can see from some of our grimaces!). The fantastic scenery always makes for great running and the effort you put in, although it’s more, always seems less. Great fun, great people, great scenery!
