30+ miles this week

Compared to the last few weeks the amount of running has been upped.
Sunday was 12 miles, 1800 ft, Tuesday was 8 miles 1300 ft and Thursday was 8 miles and 1500 ft plus 2 lots of badminton and a turbo session.
Anyway, the hardest run so far for me was Thursdays run.
We, that's me, Nick and Dave set off along the Great Hameldon race route. We've run this literally hundreds of times. The race is 6 miles and 1100ft, doesn't sound too difficult and to be honest, the first half wasn't.
The initial climb up through the coppice was ok, the run out towards the 'Golf Ball' was fine. After that, the ground was completely saturated and what were paths had turned into streams. What was damp moorland was now thigh deep bogs!
So, the first climb to the top of Great Hameldon, now not on the race route was tough going. Every step was taken with care to make sure you didn't disappear up to your waist.
After the climb to the trig, we ran off Hameldon, (great fun a fast decent!)
We followed Nick, always a mistake who took us off track for a while until he managed upon the right path again.
This time we ran up through the stream, that used to be a path before returning to the bottom of Hameldon again. The climb to the top was tough!
Finally at the trig, while Dave and I were having a quick drink, Nick saw his opportunity and started on the descend. Sneaky or what. The run off Hameldon is great, but quite technical following the race route. There are plenty of rocks and boulders sticking out of the moorland. It also has the potential to be pretty quick.
We caught up with Nick, had a quick chat and moved on. This section for the next couple of miles is either downhill or flat so you can up the pace here to race pace - good fun, but hard.
The last climb is only about 300ft, but drags. After climbing this it's an easy run home.

A good run out, but one I found pretty tough!

The trig on Hameldon Hill - very wet - and if it's wet on top it's really wet lower down!