It’s taken me a while to get even halfway organised with this project, but I’m getting there slowly but surely. I’ve realised that I’ve not linked to any maps or stats yet and I’ve been uploading extra photos to flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/travellinghopefully.

Adventure 1 - Gathurst to Appley Bridge

Adventure 2 - Adlington to Haigh

Adventure 3 - Johnsons Hillock

And after much faffing around, I’ve managed to put all three of my adventures onto one Google Map. If you keep zooming back for ages you can see both Leeds and Liverpool (and a tiny trickle of red in the middle).

Or – From the Familiar to the Unknown.

This is my home stretch of the canal. When I was first starting to run, I did my run/walk sessions with my friend, each week my running creeping up by a minute at a time. Since then, it’s been a favourite of mine for being a mainly flat  3 or 4 miles with lovely scenery and a good chance of spotting some animals. I hadn’t expected to run this as part of the Canal Adventure for a few weeks, but the yesterday’s weather turned out fine and we fancied a route outside the village.

Bridge 80 - currently under repair

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A bit tardy with the blogging, but on Friday I completed the second chunk of my Leeds and Liverpool canal adventure. This section is kind of known to me; I ran the very beginning and across the very end during Janathon, and I have sailed down some of the route on a barge a couple of times. I thought that I had been further along towards the end point, but it turned out that I was stealing the memories of former Sooty handler Matthew Corbett and I was actually remembering the lovely Locks and Quays programme that he made about the area. Ooops.

The start - Bridge 73

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Or, more accurately, a woman, a daft idea, a canal, Leeds-Liverpool.

After a bit of pondering, I’ve set upon my post-Janathon challenge – I’m going to run the length of the Leeds-Liverpool canal this year. It’s an idea that I considered last year, but dismissed as being a bit too, well, difficult. Having completed Janathon successfully and in one piece, it’s now just another daft running challenge*. My daylight Janathon runs made me realise how much nice scenery is on my doorstep, how much I like a canal and that I only really run along the same 7 mile stretch (leaving another 120 miles unexplored). Continue reading →