I'm surrounded by lots of lovely places to run, I'm very lucky that way, but I'm due to head out in the morning for w4r3 and frankly I'm bored of my usual. Enjoyed the beach, but it's wrong tide time in the morning - and I discovered on Friday - very wet sand is almost as bad as dry soft sand and slightly treackle like. Made for hard running.
I have lots of bridleways around me. I know from reading the highways act (zzzzzz zzzzzz zzzzz!) I CAN run on it. But is there an etiquette that I should be aware of before I head out with my trainers on tomorrow?
Written by
Pen11
Graduate
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Not that I'm aware of... There's a bridle way here that I sometimes use. For safety I'd recommend not having both headphones in and music up loud - just make sure you'd hear if a horse came up behind you. But other than that I think you're fine!
I overtook a horse on a bridleway on Thursday evening, had to delicately let the rider know that I was coming past (didn't want to startle her or the horse). Just to be completely clear... the horse was walking and I was jogging just a little bit faster than the horse.
As long as you let any riders know you're there (if you're coming up behind them) & give the horses decent space you should be fine. If you're particularly fast, you might want to slow down as you pass so's not to spook the cuddies but apart from that you have as much right to be there as they do so enjoy, oh & watch out for the horsey poo! ☺
Avoid the horses, watch your footing on any chewed up bits and think about trail shoes for when it's wet - otherwise enjoy! I run on bridlepaths a lot and it's never been a problem (even did a race on one where we did meet up with some riders - the health and safety briefing just said to be aware of them and try to give them a wide berth). We did and they were fine.
I do it Regularly, they're usually well maintained with very few potholes and a decent surface. There is some signage on some of those local to me requesting pedestrians to keep to one side or the other, but it's not consistent.
Just need to watch out for anything those horses might have left behind.....
Our bridle paths are muddy, rutted, nightmares and not maintained at all. The deep ruts dry out and make running on them impossible as they are ankle breakers
There are horses on our country park and I give them a really wide berth. I let the riders know I am behind them. A discreet cooeee etc works wonders. The hoss muck gets on my wick as I don't want it near my running shoes. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh
Please use the bridal ways, they are for everyone, walkers, runners, horses and cyclists. The advice about keeping one earphone out is good as you won't hear a cyclist until they are almost past you, thus speaks the mountain biker/runner.
They often go through brilliant countryside which changes with the season, always something different to see and very often not any horses. They can be very, very muddy in winter so now is the time to scope out the ones which are well drained.
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