Well, I certainly got unlucky with the weather! One week earlier and it would have been a rare October heat wave!
Heavy rain the previous evening and through the early hours meant the whole of the midlands was already waterlogged.
Chose to do north to south starting at Mow Cop as Kinver is closer to home.
Dealt a bit of light rain to start with then many heavy downpours on and off over the next 8 hours. It cleared completely about teatime and then stayed clear right till the finish.
The first section is on the gritstone trail so it’s well used and the trail is clear and easy to follow, once you leave the gritstone trail it gets a bit overgrown with many of the sections looking abandoned, the time of year didn’t help and I’m sure it’s much better in winter and spring, it does improve once you get to Uttoxeter which was about 40miles in.
Some decent trails from this point through Abbots Bromley, Blithbury, Cannock Chase and Penkridge.
The remaining 40 was a mix of decent established trails, lanes, canal and some overgrown bits.
The majority of the route was flooded and extremely muddy, I was knee deep at one point on a farm with some interesting colours in the 'mud'
Fully supported by my crew, Richard, the wife, Martin & Ben who kept me moving well throughout with minimum cp down time.
I ran the entire route solo, the original gpx states 93 miles but I think it’s realistically a 97ish mile route, I did make a few small errors but I was already 4miles up at mile 30. I am going to try to edit my gpx for a true distance.