It seems I picked the wettest windiest day of the week to go round this, but the fact was, this has been on my radar and list since 2017 and I had a day off so just wanted to do it. Now we'll know what time I or you, dear reader, has to beat for next time.
The rain and general winter Lancashire weather meant that the ground was muddy at best, and underwater at worst meaning that sections that are normally runnable (smooth farmers fields) were too slippy to make good pace on, so that's where I know there would be room for improvement.
I didn't see any natural sources of water on the way round that I would be happy to drink from without a filter, so had to rely on what I carried, which was just over 3 litres.
One note is that my route followed the markers on the ground around Winter Hill mast which diverted away from the original route at the time of the last moors fires. I suspect this route will remain in place in to the future and will be become a new official route on the WPW website, but wanted to point the slight variation out for complete transparency. Having said that, happy to go round again should the markers change and land restrictions are updated ?
Good luck to anyone that comes after me! It's a whimsical string of "paths" to connect together but I do love it, reminding me alot of a local (to me) version of the Pennine Way.