Cockhill Beck... The Saga 💀

The run that never was, the jog to nowhere. The ridiculous decision that led to a scramble through unchartered woodland and ultimately traversing two rivers.

I had decided it was time to try my first 5k. I have two 10ks coming up in May and it was about time I amped up the training. I went on my Strava app the night before and searched the local area for a suitable route, avoiding the main roads and crazy locals/rally drivers. I found what appeared to be a peaceful riverside route that would get me to my 5k goal, fantastic.

How wrong I was.

I ran through the village at what I felt was a pretty maintainable pace but as I turned off to follow the river it all went tits up. Gravel, then boulders, then sand, and oh my god the undulations!

After a dodgy 10 mins of this I reached a fork in the path...but thank goodness - a clearly knowledgeable local was mere meters away, so I asked, "good sir, is it right or left to return to the village?", "left!" he exclaimed; so on I went. The trees were getting denser, the path less visible, I knew I should turn around but the ridiculous fear of this man seeing me retreat from his advised path spurred me on.

Before long I found the first river, it was definitely jumpable, and for some reason this seemed logical in my head at the time, so I jumped. Somehow I landed without disaster millimetres from nettles and brambles and continued on. I was giving up, realising that despite my pride (🤣) I was going to have to head back to the other path, I swung a right and discovered the second river, this was not jumpable but I could see the correct path mocking me on the opposite bank. One thought was running trough my head - I must traverse.

A very graceful hop, skip, jump, and slip later I clambered up onto the path, sodden and out of breath, I glanced around, the local man now a blue blob in the distance. I pulled myself together and ran, as fast as I could back to the village, laughing the entire way. It wasn't until later that evening that I discovered that the patch of woodland that I had fought my way though was called - "Cockhill Beck", The laughing continued into the night.

Needless to say, the run wasn't even slightly beneficial towards my marathon training but I had a lot of fun. Here's to the next poorly researched run route!

-Bex