Delamere Parkrun (& the Sandstone Trail)

For reasons no longer known to me, I signed up for Viper 369 and it is approaching fast. I was feeling the need to get some mud and hill training in (I hate mud and hills) and so a group of us decided to go and run Delamere parkrun followed by a longer run along the Sandstone Trail. 

I've only been to Delamere once and it was at the end of a 10 mile race (was a bit delirious) so wasn't sure what to expect other than hills and mud. It was hilly and muddy. Did I mention the hills and the mud? There's a car park really close to the start of the parkrun (it normally costs £4 but the machines were broken so didn't have to pay) where there's also NICE (!!) toilets, a cafe and a bike hire place. From there it's just a couple of minutes' walk/jog (sprint if you're running buddies are anything like mine). We got the general introduction/safety instructions from the nice guy with the megaphone and then we were off in a crazy fast start. 

We'd started in the middle of the pack but there was such a buzz that it was very easy to get carried away with the speed. The others we were with vanished quite quickly (including Paul who ended up getting a pb after warning everyone he wasn't going fast!!) leaving me and Bryan to run together. I was into my first half a mile and couldn't understand why I couldn't breath until I looked at my watch and realised we were doing a crazy 8/mm pace. The idea was not to race so we'd still have some energy left for the run after so we slowed down a little, started to breathe again and could enjoy the pretty view. 

Delamere parkrun route

Delamere parkrun elevation

The course starts with a path that's just over half a mile, next is a two a 2 mile loop of the lake and then back towards where you started. I was expecting it to be very hilly and it was a bit but no where near as bad as I thought it was going to be.  There's quite a few downhills too so i think it evens itself out overall and it could be a fast course.  I was wearing trail shoes but I noticed a lot of people were wearing normal trainers and not struggling.  Whilst it is muddy and rocky, the majority of the route is quite solid and not too uneven so it's actually a lot nicer to run that I thought it was going to be.  I'd like to go back and try it again when I'm not running 8 miles after (and haven't spent the night before drinking cocktails in the hot tub).  Everyone except Martin (who got a pb of 22:33) was technically first timers so times do not count but was some great running going on from Warrington Road Runners (I merely tried to keep up with Bryan whilst not dying).

With parkrun out of the way we headed of to the Sandstone Trail towards Beeston (doing the Sandstone Trail Race backwards).  Me, Paul and Bryan covered about four and a half miles before turning back whilst Luke, Martin and Tarja went further and faster and did 11 and a half in total.  I found out that 'doing a rocky' means running up lots and lots (and lot and lots and lots) of steps, Bryan is the King of Hills and that Paul knows quite a few Steps lyrics and we may have spied Michael Owen's house.  Whilst we were having fun and enjoying ourselves (think the guys enjoyed the bit of the run that I couldn't talk) Martin was doing "Spiderman falls without the special effects" whilst trying to protect his Garmin but thankfully we all survived injury free.  It was really fun but hard going, especially in the really muddy bits (I could only see with one eye for the whole time which certainly added to the adventure).  Afterwards we all went to the cafe and had a nice hot drink, well except for Tarja who decided to go and do the parkrun route again (Crazy lady!!).  We certainly earned out cake today.

If you would like to know more about Delamere parkrun then click here.