NEW RUN ROUTES....SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND!

  Those that know me well know that I have time and inclination to run everyday.  Well you brush your teeth every day and brush your hair every day so why not run.  It's body maintenance after all.
  I DO however have very easy days and the session usually consists of jogging several laps down on the local fields.  No speed, no hills, no mud,  no traffic.  BUT  it is very open to the strong winds that tend to blow down Wharfedale and without company can tend to get a bit boring lapping grass for 40 or 50 minutes.
  Quite often I've noticed "doggie-walkers" , as I call them,   exiting over a fence at the corner of the far corner of the fields but until yesterday  never been tempted to discover where they have been heading.
  Bringing up the area  adjacent to the field  on  http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/   revealed quite a large area of land with quite visible paths through woodland and around a couple of large ponds.  But quite a lot of trees so difficult to measure  exactly.
 I ventured in  yesterday and   within minutes came to a sign telling me I was in BEN RHYDDING GRAVEL PITS NATURE RESERVE.  Very grand I thought.  Should be well maintained paths and quite extensive, I thought.    Not quite so!  I  ran as large a loop as the terrain allowed and  was back at the sign having covered just a kilometre. 
   Somewhat disappointing but  I did at least discover a very good loop for an offroad speed session prticularly useful in windy conditions. Ideal for anyone doing a cross country season.  Still combining the Gravel Pits loop with the playing fields, covered twice,  gave me an easy 4 mile start to week 4.
  Being able to look for and then explore  routes which  are within a  short drive is one of the benefit of having more time for training and certainly the satellite pictures provided by gmap-pedometer and similar sites
are a tremendous aid to this.  A great bonus for the modern runner particularly within the measuring facility.
Just wish I'd had the means to measure runs so accurately when I was training in earnest in the '80s instead of driving around a route or trying to measure it with string on a map!