R*n 660: Heversham

It was a great route - well at least the one we ran was. We're still not sure whether we followed the trail or not…

We were joined by two guests from Cornwall (Bra and Blow & Go) who had decided to spend their wedding anniversary with LVH3! They were greeted by stand in GM / RA / Hash Cash for the day Baldbrick wearing his best rain hat (punk wig), which we all thought suited him very well indeed.

The route started promising through Heversham Churchyard. On exiting the churchyard the trail went cold / missing. Had the trail been washed away, had it been sabotaged or had it been eaten by those pesky sheep? We shall never know…

We thought we'd struck lucky and could retire On Inn after less than 200m! However the Hare had covered this eventuality by planting 5 of her clan within the pack. They knew the way - or at least that's what we were told.

We circled around Heversham Head, got lost in some lovely bluebell woods, ran through a field of horses before we located some flour somewhere near Hincaster.

Onwards to Viver and onto the northern section of the Lancaster Canal. Lurch and TD up front gambled wrongly on the two left turns towards Levens, but the canny Hare intervened from her car and turned the pack towards Crooklands.

A long stretch of canal towpath followed without any comfort of evidence that we were on trail - until - we found flour. Unfortunately it was a Fishhook, but it was the trail and for once we were glad to see it. After discovering some more flour on top of a canal bridge (the route went under…) we plodded onwards to the County Showground and on to the much needed Beer Stop.

The rain gave way to sunshine, and three Rambos set off from the BeerStop with TT acting as guide / live Hare. He was confident that his part of the trail (laid earlier in the morning post overnight thunderstorm) was intact. However, the local farmers had done their best to thwart us and had spectacularly soiled the trail with proper shiggy. It stank. However we made it back to the Heversham Hotel intact but rather smelly. The wimps returned via the road. The Circle was abandoned due to the fact it was nearly 2pm and everyone was hungry. The Wimps route was just over 12km, and the FRBs covered over 17.5km. Despite the navigational problems it was a memorable run, with a number of new paths some of us had never covered before.