A 5.5km run to justify pre-lunch pint after a longer run on the previous day.Route: leaving the car in the Kirkgate car and crossing Kirkgate, the next car park and the footbridge to run along the bank of the Cocker to the dilapidated wooden steps up to the Greenway. Running along this past the cemetery to take a left, just before the new road bridge, across Bitter Beck to Casshow Way. At the end of the road, turning left along an informal path slightly uphill behind the houses to a sign pointing right to Slate Fell. Then across fields to a broken stile to join a level lateral path across a field and then down a track beside the Wyndham Hall caravan park track to the Cockermouth–Embleton road.
There turning left to run down past Cockermouth School on Castlegate Drive, looking for a path inbetween the school and Beech Lane but, finding none, taking Beech Lane and turning right at the end to find the Isel Road play area (swings and short loop of woodland path).
Returning along Isel Road, doglegging left-right through the sports centre (stopping to climb Tute Hill for a view of All Saints) and across St Mary’s Road to cross a footbridge into the grassy area behind the Kirkgate car park and thus back to the car.
Conditions: cool, perhaps 16C and cloudy.
Pub: the Cock and Bull, Cockermouth, for Cumbria Ales Loweswater Gold and Coniston Bluebird.
