18 to 21 April 2026 - A parkrun, a marathon, and a Spunch

 

Saturday 18 April - Wythenshawe parkrun #662. Run Director Dan nearly gets mown down by 378 runners dashing off on their Saturday morning run.

I stayed at the back for a while.

Beside the football pitches and along to Far Bridge. Soon after that we start to be lapped, the leaders finishing in a little over 17 minutes today.

I passed a few folk and finished in position 296 out of 378 participants, in 33:38. Here are some of those I overtook, at the finish.

Sue wasn't running today. Yoga took priority. Coffee and cake as usual afterwards. Full results are here.

Sunday 19 April - The Manchester Marathon

With all our local roads closed for this event, I took a stroll into Timperley village and Brooklands Road. Found Fechin, who used to run marathons in under two and a half hours, glad that he wasn't in today's race despite perfect conditions. I wished I'd been running/walking, it was a great event. I took a few snaps of random runners, and I saw Richard Evans storm past at well under three hour pace. Well done, Richard.

Here are the snaps I took on the day, including throngs of folk coming along Park Road, seemingly hours after the leaders had sped through.

Tuesday 21 April - Spunch Cheadle Hulme

This running/walking event was a nice activity for a sunny but cool evening. Here's Sue beside a pond that rather blocked our way to a certain satellite point. We lost time here.

Back at the Pointing Dog pub after our 120 minute outing, we enjoyed a beer and a meal whilst waiting for Alistair Pooler to return to base with a very creditable haul of 920 Spunch points. Here are the results:

Here's the 12km route that I took. Sue did the same but picked up a couple of outliers whilst I had a rest.

Spunch turns out to be good fun. We will book some more events shortly.

Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 April 2024 - Fletcher Moss parkrun, and the Manchester Marathon

We chose to avoid the Wythenshawe mud, in favour of Fletcher Moss's network of dri(ish) tracks, for Saturday's parkrun.

After dropping Isabella off last night, Sue and I enjoyed the company of Mick and Gayle, who had parked their campervan, Bertie, in nearby Frieston Road.

Mary Berry's 'Humble Pie' seemed to be appreciated, washed down with a bottle of Mick's finest Bordeau Superieur.

Anyway, Saturday morning was soon upon us, and we took a 15 minute drive in convoy, to park outside Isabella's house in Didsbury, from where a short walk took us to the lovely tree-lined start of Fletcher Moss parkrun, pictured above. 

Setting off at the back of 455 participants, Teddy, on his first parkrun, got pushed the first section. We took over 9 minutes for the first kilometre, but sped up after that, as Teddy and his family spectated from the banks of the River Mersey.

 

The Barbers joined us afterwards for coffees in the Sports Centre, and Jenny and Owen also turned up. It was Mick's 100th parkrun, achieved nearly 18 years after his first parkrun, which he assured us was some sort of record to be proud of. Perhaps!

 

Full results are here.

Sunday morning found Sue and I trapped in our housing estate, with our local roads closed for the annual Manchester Marathon. I'd been on the point of entering, but was put off by the advertised 6 hour cut-off time. I'll know better next time! (The last finisher took 7:24.)

The half way point is about 200 metres from our house. There were cheers from the roadside as the leaders went past at about 11:10.

Two of those pictured above, 108 and 113, came second and third in around 2 hours 18 minutes. The winner must be hidden from view. Number 156 dropped out.

Those following were cheered past as I watched from Park Road. Here's the 2:45 pacer with his entourage.

A couple of hours later, Sue and I went out to cheer on our friends, Caroline and Lexi, who would finish in around 5 hours, with Caroline overtaking her daughter at around the 18 mile mark. Sue ran with both of them for a while, and I failed to get any pictures. I was too busy ringing the handbell we have for such events.

A massive choir was putting on an impressive performance outside Timperley's Methodist Chapel.

By the time the runners (many of whom are walking at this point) had been to Altrincham and back, they were strung out along Altrincham Road before returning to Timperley. At this point the 5 hour pacer went past, closely followed by the 4:45 pacer. Oops!

A great event in perfect weather (results here) with 21,500 finishers. Well done everyone.

Sunday 16 April 2023 - The Manchester Marathon

Thanks to Wythenshawe Community Run supremo Paul for the picture taken above at the finish, where he was volunteering. Whilst somewhat distant, he has captured a rare moment when I was actually running. What a contrast to four years ago!

Today's 18579 runners started from Old Trafford over a period of two hours. Purple A, where I was placed, started at 10:50. Elite runners started at 9:00.

That left time for a good breakfast and a photo in the garden before I discarded the bum bag, stuffed my pockets, and wandered off to Timperley Metrolink station.

What a contrast with my previous marathon at Loch Ness. A ten minute tram ride from home, and masses and masses of toilet facilities.

I wandered around for a while before joining the Purple queue. Apparently there was an 'athletes' village', but I didn't come across that on this occasion.

This series of photos has been provided by various supporting friends, as well as Paul - Sue, Cary, Andy Wright, the Barbers and others. Thanks to all those supporters, one of whom must have taken this picture of the lead car/runner (just following the motorbike).

Meanwhile, I was dawdling my way to the start behind the other Purple A runners. Judging by the bags of discarded clothing, it had been a busy morning. They got a nice t-shirt from me - the three layers in which I set off from home would have been a tad excessive. You can see runners coming the other way on the left, after their 5-6 mile run into central Manchester and back.

Soon after setting off I'm sure I saw these guys coming the other way at or near the front of the elite race. (It's not my photo.)

Laura finished in 2:57:22, the 21st woman out of 5074, a fantastic achievement. I'd probably done about 5km by then!

Her dad was going strong, ahead of the three and a half hour pacer, but watch where you are treading, Paul.

Oh no - he didn't watch where he was going. A face-plant saw off the 3:30 target, but Paul still finished in 3:36:04, and came a creditable 10th out of 81 in his MV65 age group. Well done both! I hope Paul's expensive running shoes didn't get damaged.

Sue was positioned near our house (roughly the half way point), armed with a banana, isotonic drink, etc, and jogged along with me for a while along Park Road, where I was pleased to see that the potholes had been filled in overnight. I'd kept to my planned 8 minute/km pace up to then, but after half way that started to drift...

I chatted with folk who had travelled far and wide to take part in this event - South Wales, Birmingham, members of a worldwide menopausal women's virtual running club, a chap from Dumfries who couldn't speed up fast enough for his pacemaker to change gear, so he was trapped at a low heart rate pace. Etc, etc, with quite a few 'Run, Walk, Run' enthusiasts - which I think applied to most people at this end of the race.

Soon afterwards, or 'some time later' I was seen, head down, trudging through the litter strewn streets of Altrincham. (Sorry I missed you, Sheila.)

Sue then reappeared in the middle of Timperley outside Treadgold's butchers shop and ran/walked with me to the 30km point for a couple of photos to broadcast that I was still in the land of the living.

Returning to Old Trafford along Washway Road would have been too easy, so the route took us through the leafy suburb of Sale, where Cary and Penny spotted me from the corner of their road, where Tris and Alison (just in the above picture) were there to accost me with some goodies.

Sue had also pedalled into Sale, and was there with Richard and Jenny to create a rousing welcome from a large group of residents who seemed to be cheering me on.

I was very tired by now, with a rather delicate knee that didn't take kindly to running (or walking, for that matter).

Anyway, I made it up to the bridge in Sale, where Andy Wright took the next three pictures. Thanks for your support, Andy. It's a shame that I don't seem to be running, apart from in Paul's picture of me striding out in the distance to reach the finishing line!

The last five miles was something of an endurance test, but the couple of hours of pain at the end of this run was well worth it for the money being raised for St Ann's Hospice (as I write it's up to about £1200 - thanks for all the donations - the JustGiving page that I started last Thursday is here).

There was tremendous support for the runners as we passed through Chorlton, and I was still hopeful of finishing inside six hours. However, turning into Talbot Road, the finish line was too distant to achieve that, despite a sprint to the finish with a plucky lady in green.

Here are my stats for the day - as usual, click on the image for a more readable version.

Here's the route.

Back at home:

And mainly for my own entertainment, a summary of all eight of my marathons. 

Maybe I'll do some training next time...

That's it - a run in tribute to my parkrunning pal, Michael, once an elite marathon runner, who is having a horrible time just now.