After spending the morning suit shopping for a friends wedding in Swindon, we wanted a mini adventure to get out on a Sunday evening. Heading back to the Southwest we decided to stop off in Somerset and give the three peaks a try. It was something Katy had wanted to run for a while but was waiting for slightly drier weather. However Tal was keen for a route around 25-30 km and it seemed to fit well.
Arriving with about an hour till sunset we set off from the field gate in Stowey heading clock-wise. The first section in the setting sun was beautiful, rolling through fields and along tracks taking us up to Maes Knoll. A little bit of power hiking ensued before running along the escarpment to the first summit with awesome views of Bristol to the north and Somerset to the south. We stopped for a few quick pictures here and took in the scenery before heading back down with the fading light. In Pensford, as we joined the road the headtorches came out of the bag and we settled in for some running in the dark, From Pensford the paths became increasingly soggy, well trampled by cattle, providing the proper Somerset FKT we'd been expecting. Navigation became more tricky in the dark and we had to retrace our steps at a few points, however it made it harder to be intimidated by the two remaining peaks.
Arriving back onto concrete paths at Clutton, we realised we only had 20 minutes to make the FKT so we sped up to catch the last boggy descent down to Stowey, making it back to the gate in just over 3 hours.
It's a really great route and we'd both love to try a quicker attempt in the daylight on a dry summers day!
We both took a soft flask each and were mainly fuelled by fruit pastilles and a couple of Cliffblocks