This year I
was unable to enter the Medoc marathon due to financial constraints and Molly
starting school, while sulking about this I happened to stumble upon a little
run being organised along the Gritstone Trail.
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| The start at kidgrove and all smiles |
This was an inaugural event
which started out as being for 30 people and then grew to 70 plus people. The Gritstone Trail runs from Disley railway station to Kidsgrove railway station, taking in
some of the best hills in Cheshire, White Nancy, The Cloud, Mow Cop plus a few
others I cannot remember.
As some of
you may know the Gritstone Trail humiliated me earlier on in the year when I
ran it with Heather and Giles, running it from the Disley end I came to a
grinding halt at twenty miles in the Rushton Spencer area, so when the
opportunity came for a re-match I had to take it (I still blame Giles and his
time schedule).
The run was
organised from the Disley community centre, so an early start was in order, I
left at 5.20am to go and pick up Heather and Mat to be at Disley and on the
coach to Kidsgrove for 7am.
After the
usual debacle of a council not opening a toilet when they said they would, the
run started at about 8.15 on the canal. The first part of the run is relatively
easy running along the canal (similar to the Sandstone Trail), and then up Mow Cop,
the field of runners seemed quite experienced and soon spread out as we climbed Mow Cop.
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All smiles
still on top of the cloud
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There was a little confusion after Mow Cop and me and Mat lost Heather,
this involved about three seven minute miles trying to catch her up. As we
headed to the first checkpoint we could no longer see runners in front and had
to rely on our navigation skills (remember Mat was with us), thankfully three
sets of eyes did seem to work, and although we lost some runners at checkpoint
one going the wrong way, we plodded on the right course.
The
route took us along the Biddulph valley and then up The Cloud, after that we
descended to Rushton Spencer where I crossed my quitting point from earlier
this year, along the horrid canal feeder system and then up towards the
transmitter (cant remember name of hill), I had a bit of a grey moment on the
top of here and tried a Dioralyte for the first time, it tasted horrid but worked
some sort of miracle and of we trotted again. We spent about ten minutes at the
next feeding station stocking up on drink and salty snacks and then headed off
to White Nancy. We made good progress, gradually working our way up the field,
until we got to Lyme Park and then totally lost the trail which was a bit
infuriating as we were so close to home, so after a bit of sightseeing at the
cage we eventually got back on the right track, the last mile or so started to hurt a bit,
but we eventually romped home in 7 hours and 29 minutes and in joint 16th
place.
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And still
smiling at the finish.
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I think it
is fair to say all three of us enjoyed the day, I found my mojo in Disley, and I
will do it again if it is run again, and on the years I am not running the
Medoc.
There was a good certificate for finishing and some basic food for
re-fuelling, a very good day all round.
For more information visit the Gritstone Grind website.
Alan Pearson
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