4 to 7 June 2026 - Four Runs

Thursday 4 June - Spunch Sale

With Sue at a spa day with Jenny, this was a solo effort for me, shown above, happily smiling before the start at Trafford Metroviks, a large sports ground hidden away between Glebelands Road and the River Mersey.

I set off soon after 5pm on a quick loop using good paths beside the river between Sale and Stretford.

No more pictures were taken until the end, after an annoying navigational mishap shortly after meeting Alison Pearson, who was enjoying her inaugural Spunch with running club friends.

Michelle was her usual jolly self at Control, where I contrived to sign in with fewer points than any of the other two hour (120) participants.

Click on the image for a better version

My route is shown below. The green 'start' marker should be next to the red finishing one (I forgot to turn on the recording until five minutes after starting). The long erroneous diversion to Moss Lane at the bottom of my route rewarded me with 30 penalty points and at least four missed Spunch points, so I should have scored at least 670 but for that error.

Never mind, there was cake at the end, and a huge chicken burger, and Sue turned up to encourage me.

Saturday 6 June - Wythenshawe parkrun #669

After a wet start, the sun nearly appeared for 368 runners over the 5km course. Sue and I both took it easy, Sue finishing in 27:46 (position 147) and me in 44:13 (position 348).

RD Andy addresses the masses

Splish splosh!

Steve Thurston, volunteer marshal at 'Far Bridge'

Backmarkers approaching Far Bridge

A hard earned finish...

We lingered in the Courtyard Café at length, during which time Paul and Jeanette were persuaded to join us on the next event.

Saturday 6 June - Spunch - Woodbank and Goyt

We assembled soon after 11:30 at the Strawberry Gardens pub in Offerton, where I think in bygone days we used to adjourn for liquid refreshments from Dave and Robert Kitto's nearby business, Dartmouth Performance Clothing Limited. At the time a competitor of Sprayway. I still use their balaclava.

Today, Paul and Jeanette had nipped home for supplies, Rufus had emerged from a parkrun sulk, and Alistair Pooler turned up to loosen up for a marathon around Coniston Water that would see him having to rise the following morning at around 4am.

The sun came out and despite a bit of teething trouble with the Maprun app, and a failure to pay through SiEntries ('never mind'), Paul and Jeanette at least got one of their phones with the app on it working for most of the two hour duration of our run/walk around Woodbank and the Goyt valley.

It was muddy in places and point 47 had us flummoxed for a while, but with no serious mishaps we had an enjoyable outing and failed to match the last place that I had managed in Sale two days earlier..

The pictures speak for themselves.

We finished after visiting 36 Spunch points in the allocated two hours, with a couple of minites in hand. My planned route was achieved, with one short cut that allowed us to avoid a last minute rush.

The results for the two hour (120) participants are shown above - we were very happy with our result that included novices and a geriatric.

Here's the Garmin Connect version of our route, which basically comprised three anti clockwise loops.

Sunday 7 June - Wythenshawe Community Run

Whilst Alistair was running around Coniston's marathon course in just under seven hours, I popped along to Wythenshawe for the 5km Community Run. I stayed at the back as usual, and enjoyed a long chat with Tom Lavin.

My quickest 5km of the week, albeit in a modest time of 38:29.

Wednesday 22 April 2026 - Stockport Air Raid Shelters

A private, evening guided tour of the Air Raid Shelters was organised for 15 SWOG members, from 7.00pm until approximately 9.00pm, at £ 12.50 per person.

Our guide, warden, Roger Douling has a wealth of knowledge of the ARS Shelters and war times. He proved to be a brilliant raconteur and guide.

Whilst waiting for the others, Sue and I admired the grafitti on the other side of the road.

Made entirely from bottle tops.

After an introductory video, we entered a well lit part of the tunnel. The whole system is a ladder shaped  excavation out of the soft sandstone that lies deep in the Stockport area, where there are similar tunnels built to house thousands of folk from the Manchester area in the blitz of WW2. I'll finish this posting by way of captions.

The boss's office?

When sheltering here, up to 100 people could be seated each side,

with another 100 standing in the middle.

Roger was both informative and very entertaining

Some side passages were out of bounds, and Roger's assistant, Kate,

was positioned to intercept any deviants

It's a huge area, accommodating up to 5000 people.
For most of our visit we needed to use the headtorches provided

Early toilets were rudimentary affairs

Spot the grafitti

Beds were eventually provided. Originally the tunnels were expected to be used for short periods of an hour or so, but they soon became all night refuges

'WOMEN'

This is the hospital, screened for cleanliness, and equipped with a radio
(reception rather limited)

Eventually there was even a kitchen, mainly providing cups of tea

And flush toilets were introduced after a year or two

A warden's office

Well, wasn't that fun! It was dark when we emerged into the street that carries a blue plaque.

This is a popular outing for schoolchildren - fully booked until mid 2027, but visits like ours can be booked at fairly short notice. Roger and Kate do a couple every week. It was all very interesting.

Weekend running

Saturday 18 November 2023 - Our usual parkrun at Wythenshawe was called off due to a plague of mud, so a few of the regulars met up in nearby Stockport, at Woodbank Park. A few of those suspects - Jeanette, Sue, Laura and Andy are shown above. Looking as if they have just emerged from their respective washing machines (apart from Andy's shoes!).

We got going promptly at 9 o'clock, thankfully in just about fine weather. There were soon quite a few people ahead of me. (I finished in position 142 out of 211.) (34:10, on my 350th parkrun.)
 

It's a two lap course, with a steep hill that needs to be negotiated twice. I caught up with Cary there, but he soon raced off ahead of me again - he's just ahead of me as I start the second lap.

The reflections looked nice, so I had a little break to seek out, not entirely successfully, a suitable puddle.

Meanwhile, there were some unavoidable puddles on the course, which Sue flew over. I think the next picture was taken by Laura, who finished in third position today. Well done Laura, and it was very gracious of you to allow the man pushing a buggy with a child in it to finish ahead of you in first place.

Full results are here. 

The four pictured above were then joined at the finish by Rufus, Cary and Paul.

Eventually I finished and could be included on a photo.

We spent some time in the cafe. It was afternoon by the time I got home!

Sunday 19 November 2023 - Wythenshawe Community Run

Over 80 men, women and children turned up with numerous volunteers for this Sunday morning ritual on a drier course at Wythenshawe than the parkrun mudbath route. I walked around the track by way of a 'warm up', then returned to the car to collect my waterproof jacket. At the point (below) when Colm was doing his briefing the drizzle intensified.

Here I am at the turnaround point for the 2km runners. Very tempting.

However, I braved the rain, and the footballs - the lady behind me in the next picture was hit by a football from one of the nearby pitches where only a few weeks ago hordes of Asian lads were playing cricket in the sunshine.

32:10 for the 5km was two minutes quicker than yesterday's effort at Woodbank. There are no hills at Wythenshawe... but it was definitely a soggy outing.