Your favourite training routes

We talk a lot about races that we participate in on this forum, but it is actually through our training runs that we have our day to day relationship with running.  I think that all runners have their favourite training routes.  They might be routes that we find aesthetically pleasing, or challenging, or simply routes that you have a sentimental attachment to because you used them to train for your first marathon. 

So what are your favourite training routes? 

Comments

  • I get to run around the hills (Cotswolds) and routes used in the Sodbury Slog.............Magic

  • When I started running, I ran along the towpaths of theGrandUnionCanal.  That is the, not the larger canal between London and Birmingham that has spawned a certain event.  I came to love it for the picturesque rural scenes, and also for the industrial heritage that it displayed. 

    When I started to tackle races with more ascent/descent, I started top look for big hills.  I actually got the inspiration for my first hill training run, from a route that I had worked as a dustbin man, to pay my way through university over the summer holidays.  There was a competition among the gangs to load Bird Hill in the fastest time, and I held the course record for a while. 

    I learned my best hill training routes from local trail races such as the Woodhouse Challenge, and the Beacon Hill Trail Race.  It is always worth entering any race within a few miles of your house, because you might just learn something valuable for training!

  • Snap!Snap! ✭✭✭
    I'm lucky enough to work at the foot of the Surrey Hills and live on the South Downs. That Ives me free run of the South Downs Way, North Downs Way and Box Hill. Awesome. I love it.
  • Bottom of Box Hill steps - to top of Reigate Hill (incorporating extra hill climb on way) and back.  Fairly short nasty and brutish - albeit with lovely scenery - but maintains my 'hill fitness' which I now find more important than actual distance when training for most of my events.

  • Snap!Snap! ✭✭✭

    Bear B. Hind - I might well run into you. I'm the good-looking one, though this picture of me was taken a few years ago and I've put on a little weight since...

    (You should be easy to spot)

  • Yes - I always carry my red velvet heart with me image.

  • WiBWiB ✭✭✭

    Love a point to point run over the South Downs. Heading out through 7 Sisters country park and on Beachy Head is always fun.

  • The recent sustained period of rain is really starting to annoy me now.  Not so much because I mind running in the rain, but because a lot of my favourite trails are now impassable.  I went to run on one of my favourite routes recently, only to find that it was flooded and there were ducks swimming around on it!

  • I live in eastbourne so straight over beachyhead and severn sisters for me aways a challenge but worth it and night runs just jump on the train to brighton then sdw back to eastbourne do like night runs over the Downs.
  • Snap!Snap! ✭✭✭
    Longstreet, the night runs sound pretty cool. Must try that.
  • Fellrunner, that's not fair! I have to run 2-3 miles to reach anything more of a hill than the bridge over the railway line It's much further to get to anything resembling actual scenery.  And as for the Lakes - it's HOURS away!

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