Mud . . .

[Travs]

The cross-country Euro Champs in Brussels yesterday was remarkably "English" looking in terms of mud.

A really tough course.

[anthonykay]

What's worse than the deep, sloshy mud that we were running through a few weeks ago?

Mud that has frozen, and then a thin layer on top has thawed. This must be one of the most slippery surfaces there is; particularly nasty on a path with a camber, where you can slide off sideways.

[Travs]

We had similar on a XC race before xmas.

Rutted mud/field which had frozen over solid, and was either like uneven sheet ice, or a layer of slosh over sheet ice.

[Llani Boy]

I took a couple of runners on a recce of the Tigger Tor race route this morning. Although very mild, around 12 degrees, the ground on the moors was still frozen under a thin layer of damp peat which made it very treacherous in places.

The two main boggy areas on the route were also partly frozen but with the weather forecast as wet and mild for next week they will be back to their shoe sucking best for next Sundays race.

The new TT route is far better than the old as it has no tarmac whatsover!

[anthonykay]

On today's run I had the dubious privilege of being the first pedestrian to cross a newly ploughed field - actually, an 80% newly ploughed field, as ploughing was still in progress. It was one of the fields that the public footpath on the way back from Woodhouse Eaves goes across diagonally. I was reduced to a walk for much of the way.

[anthonykay]

On today's run I had the dubious privilege of being the first pedestrian to cross a newly ploughed field - actually, an 80% newly ploughed field, as ploughing was still in progress. It was one of the fields that the public footpath on the way back from Woodhouse Eaves goes across diagonally. I was reduced to a walk for much of the way.

The ploughed fields have now been harrowed, making a much better surface to run on. However . . .

There are anecdotes about engineers who bore tunnels from both ends, and don't quite meet in the middle (and if you have travelled on the railway between Edinburgh and Dundee, you will know that this has actually happened). So when a field has been ploughed and harrowed, and people start using the public footpath across the middle of the field, they aim for the point where the footpath exits the field at the far side, creating a trod. In both the fields where this has happened on today's run route, the trods from either end don't meet in the middle, but gradually fade as people have noticed that there was a better trod from the other end, a few feet to the side.

[PeteS]

Approximately 11k of my 12k this morning were nothing but mud of the worst kind. Deep, wet, slippy and utterly unavoidable. It hadn't been that bad until late even with all the severe weather we have had but the heavy rain this week has tipped it over the edge and no doubt it will now be here to stay until we get a long dry spell.

[anthonykay]

Approximately 11k of my 12k this morning were nothing but mud of the worst kind. Deep, wet, slippy and utterly unavoidable. It hadn't been that bad until late even with all the severe weather we have had but the heavy rain this week has tipped it over the edge and no doubt it will now be here to stay until we get a long dry spell.

If I went out today on one of my usual routes, I would probably come back with clean shoes; there's more surface water than mud. But I have been wearing Walshes on all my runs for the last three weeks (and probably the next few weeks), to get a proper grip on the mud - apart from yesterday's parkrun, where one of the attractions is that the gravel paths of the Beacon Hill course are well drained and only get a thin coating of mud in a few places, even in current conditions.

[Travs]

National XC should be fun next weekend. They've already had to shift all the parking due to water-logging.

[anthonykay]

They've already had to shift all the parking due to water-logging.

One reason that the Beacon Hill parkrun was a bit crowded yesterday was that Dishley parkrun, on the other side of Loughborough, was cancelled. The Dishley RD reckons you ought to be able to tell the difference between the towpath and the river/canal, and he doesn't like it when the playing fields are serving their alternative purpose as a swimming pool.