A 9km run on a blustery day (surprisingly hot and sunny for the first few km).
Route: leaving the car at the Cartmel racecourse car park (£3.50 for 3 hours to allow for beer time) and heading north along the road parallel to the track, taking the right fork and then, a little later, forking right again onto a footpath at the edge of a field. Turning right into the woods and running east on a muddy track and a footpath across fields, and lots of tiny flag beck crossings, at one point watch a hare bound the length of a field in front of us, to cross a C-road and, after another field, doglegging across the B-road.
Running up a track to turn left at Hampsfield Hall and right again, leaving the track to join a path uphill across a field. Ignoring a sharper right turn to continue past a substantial lime kiln and descend slightly to High Hampsfield Farm. Here, choosing to go left and down the road and then right on a track (rather than right and left) to enter limestone country and continue parallel to Merelwood (confusingly labelled Eggerslack Wood on the ground). At a junction turning right on an initially switch-backing track to gain height and pass through a wall to the Hospice at the summit. Then heading south on a grassy path and then west descending to Pit Farm and across a couple of fields and a road to re-enter Cartmel.
Conditions: some sun but mainly cloudy and blustery on the top.
Pub: the Unsworth Yard Brewery for Crusader Gold.
