When Trail Running goes a bit Blair Witch

Thought I’d have a change of scenery today so I ran the trails around St Brides common (St Brides being the next village to us). I used to walk Soak up here a bit so I knew a little of the area but not that much, today was as much about getting out into different conditions, finding a few hills and just going where the trail took me.  It turned into an 8 mile jaunt which I didn’t really intend to do but I felt fresh and the way i’m feeling at the moment i’m not too worried about the legs for the half on sunday so while the weathers good why not do a little more?

So my journey in photos

 

DSC_0012
Nice easy trail to kick off with some sand to get the muscles working
DSC_0015(1)
Looking down on the River Ogmore
DSC_0023(1)
I ran floodplains
DSC_0028
And saw some geese (Possibly Canadian Geese I don’t know, I’m no avian expert)
DSC_0019
However I know a swan when I see one
DSC_0030-PANO
My phone kindly made a panorama for me without being asked
DSC_0038
Climbed a hill – ended up on a golf course. Variation is the spice of life and all that
DSC_0040
First lamb of the year spotted!
DSC_0046
Ok so when is a left turn not the right turn?  When the trail stops and you end up in the woods running along a 45 degree slant with no path.
DSC_0044
Still lost in the woods and it’s all going Blair Witch (Ok I’m using some poetic licence here, I sort of knew where I was I just couldn’t be sure. We used to play around here as kids but it looks different now)
DSC_0050
Success! This is where I was trying to find. the old quarry at Castle Upon Alun.  Scarily we used to happily climb these cliffs as kids with no safety gear whatsoever. Ahhh the feeling of being an indestrucible young un.
DSC_0048
It actually gave me chills realising how steep these things actually are
DSC_0052
Took the scenic route back – All uphill it seemed
DSC_0054
I pass this tree everyday on the way home from work. I call it the “fuck you tree” For some reason it was felled years ago but in defiance it is determined to sprout again and keeps growing year on year.  Can you draw inspiration from a tree?  I do, it reminds me that whenever life beats you down you don’t give up. You get up, dust yourself off, say “fuck you” and grow again.

So all in all a great run which put a smile on my face, especially the ending with my inspiring tree which i’ve wanted to take a photo of for a while and today serendipity happened.

Image1sxsxc

Author: Gareth

Running coastal trails in South Wales and working on a healthier body and mind

2 thoughts on “When Trail Running goes a bit Blair Witch”

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s