Night-time winter unsupported attempt at the Centenary Walk out-and-back FKT route from Manor Park up to Epping and then back to Manor Park.
Following a night-time winter attempt at the one-way FKT (Manor Park to Epping) of this route the previous weekend, I decided to give the out-and-back variation a try.
The Centenary Walk passes near to my house and I have been meaning to give it a crack for ages. To add a little more spice to some otherwise familiar trails I decided to run my attempt in the dark and in the worst winter conditions I could find - in Epping Forest this means lots of mud.
It had rained a lot the week prior to my attempt and the forest was about as wet as it gets… perfect!
I tried to stay true to the route marked on the OS 25k map, which is essentially the route GPX on the FKT website. As mentioned in the description this route isn’t way-marked and was originally published in the 1970s, so what may have been an obvious path in the forest then has in some places since disappeared.
The three main places I felt I varied from the mapped route were:
(1) Across ‘The Lops’ between the A1009 and A110: The marked route goes to the west of a rectangular clearing on the map, and then along the Ching. There is no longer any sort of path here, and the natural route now runs to the east of the clearing and then parallel to the Ching, about 50 yards to the east.
(2) Up through Hill Wood: I came off Main Path and went across Whitehouse Plain into Hill Wood as per the CW route. There are various paths in Hill Wood but none follow the CW route, so it was a case of just hacking a direct line through the trees up to Cross Roads. Not ideal but better than staying on Main Path and just running up the track.
(3) Around the Visitor Centre at High Beach: I took the opposite approach here and followed the track rather than hacking through the wood! Once I had crossed over Cross Roads I followed the track that runs parallel to Epping New Road (A104). The CW route tracks higher up the hill nearer to the visitor centre. I recced this area a few times in the daylight and I’ve never managed to find anything resembling a path here that runs close to the CW route. The track is rolling and fun to run, so seemed like a good natural alternative. This track rejoins the CW route where it crosses Epping New Road about 200 metres south of the Mount Pleasant car park, and then takes a straight line SE through the woods past Loughton Camp to meet up with Green Ride.
The run itself went pretty smoothly, although a little slower than I had hoped. I carried a vest with a couple of soft flasks (refilled twice at the public fountain at the hunting lodge) and gels. My Petzl Swift RL head-torch was as dependable as ever, as were my inov8 Mudtalon Speed trainers. About as good a shoe as I’ve found for Epping mud. My pace on the return leg through the muddiest section of route (hunting lodge to Forest School) was slow and more ‘Bambi on ice’ than I’d care to admit. No doubt there is a tonne of time that could be taken off the out-and-back in more agreeable conditions, or even in the winter if someone fancied a very muddy run!