It was forecast to be a hot day, so I planned an early start to try to avoid the worst of the heat. It was a little difficult in the planning stages as the GPX file from the previous holder did not seem to go all the way to the Monument in Winchcombe, so I downloaded the one from the FKT page.....that turned out to be a bad choice (not sure who submitted that!!!).....I suggest it is removed.
It was HOT at 7am and when I walked a bit around 08.30 to swap drinks bottles around I became saturated with sweat, which made me realise how hot it really was. I am more of a map-person, rather than GPX person, and I was very relieved to have maps as the GPX trail was terrible. It has obviously been made by someone on a computer, probably someone who had never done the route before. Luckily I had the back up of a map, and confidence to use it. Anyone else trying to use the GPX would have got stuck in fields, trespassed, and probably given up within the first two miles.
Anyway, the route itself is really nice, and easy to follow with a map and the good signage. It goes through some lovely Cotswolds scenery, houses and livestock.
I was aiming to beat the out-and-back time, and (if possible) the one-way time. I had my watch settings so that I could not see the elapsed time, so as not to add pressure on this hot day. At the turn around point I lapped my watch and was pleased to see that I had broken the one-way time.
On the way back there was a bit of cloud cover, and I could recall the route, so I hardly had to use my maps and tried to push the pace when I could. I got back to Bourton and was pleased to see that I had done a negative split (by 11 seconds).
I then spent quite a while cooling off in the stream through Bourton (The Windrush I think), which was nice.