Alison had been badgering me to do some hill running, so yesterday I agreed to accompany her up one of the easier slopes up to the top of the ridge of Wendover Woods. We started at Halton Bridge and ran half a mile before leaving the canal towpath to take a public footpath up through the woods near the RAF camp. This was a reasonably steep climb, up to Tring Road. We crossed over and took the path up Mansion Hill into Wendover Woods. The path climbs almost continually before reaching the top near Boddington Hill. Somehow I had managed to get to the top without stopping, a total height gain of over 450 feet. So I was pretty happy to run a mile on the level around the top of Boddington Hill before retracing our route, this time downhill.
The total distance was just over five miles, but with a time of 1 hour 4 minutes, it seemed a lot longer. Again, it helped enormously to have Alison pacing me up the hill. I can see the attraction of running in the nice scenery of the Chiltern Hills, but it will be a while before I try the whole of the scarp slope again.
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