Having had a very tiring slushy sprint session (hardly sprinting but!!) at Bush at Lunchtime, I was feeling fairly weary and fed up of slush. I thought both sides of the Hermitage and Braidburn Park would be a nice, likely to be snowless, easy 4 miler.
As the group arrived I asked where they would like to go, Alan intervened, and correctly announced that I had made the decision already, so we headed off. We summitted Blackford and took in the views before descending to the steps. They resembled an icefall so after a quick look at the snow cleaned trail shoes of the group I decided to take the long way down.
The earthy slopes and fallen trees of the Hermitage were soon behind us as we squelched across the final grass to the tennis courts. Braidburn Park was good running and then we took the high route along the south Hermitage popping out into the field. Some building preparation work left us ankle deep in mud (sorry!) and the clean shoes were no longer.
A couple of bum slides on the final descent and we headed back into Craigmillar Park and home. A lovely run but 1.15 miles over the promised, but no-one seemed to care
Willie