Sandstone Trail

TLDR: Darren and I ran the Sandstone Trail in Cheshire, 55 km, on the shortest day. Maybe watching his video will be more exciting than my words:

It’s always good to catch up with Darren, not least because it usually means a decent run as well as good company. A pretty awful forecast for the shortest day of 2024 meant that I was struggling to find an appealing route in Eryri. Just as I’d cobbled together something a bit janky in a desperate attempt to stay out of the gale-force winds at 650m+ elevation, Darren texted to suggest we look at the Sandstone Trail instead. Long-time readers will know that some of the best days of my mis-spent youth were frittered away riding pushbikes around Bulkeley Hill, which is just south of halfway along the route. However, I had never run the entire trail before. It’s 55 km, so not a trivial day out, and Darren didn’t initially suggest we should do the whole thing (it was to be the shortest day, after all). Things soon escalated, though, and suddenly we had plans for car drops and a full traverse. Huzzah!

The start in Frodsham felt suitably exciting given the darkness, poor forecast, and lack of simple options for bailing halfway. We chatted away ceaselessly for the first who-knows how long, and soon entered Delamere Forest, and with it the first bits that I recognised. Ever southwards, past Gresty’s Waste (driven past it hundreds of times; never stopped and looked around) and through more woodland before a boggy wasteland to Peckforton and Beeston castles.

Spirits were restored by a pasty that was hotter than the surface of the sun, and we continued to Bulkeley Hill, Rawhead and Brown Knoll. This was definitely my favourite section, partly because I’m so familiar with it and partly because it’s the most scenic and engaging trail running of the whole route.

After Brown Knoll you reach the newer final 15 km of the Trail, being an extension added in the 1990s (the original route thus far having been incorporated in the 1970s). There was some uninspiring muddy field-bashing and cow-avoidance, and a swamp that came so close to swallowing Darren whole that it wasn’t even funny. We were eventually forced to switch on headtorches, and I don’t mind admitting that morale dropped a little until we reached the Llangollen canal. This represented the final 5 km stretch to our destination, the bustling metropolis of… Whitchurch. There was a slight navigational quandry when our GPS routes took us in different directions at the first bridge, but that was resolved and we ran at a good pace into town. The local media obviously weren’t expecting us to arrive so soon, because none of them were waiting for us, but it certainly felt like a nice little achievement for the day. 10 hours and 20 minutes, which seems reasonable given the ground conditions. It was a reassuring reminder that I can still run more than 10 km in one go, and the added element of doing it on the shortest day just added to the fun. And it was fun – I had feared it may turn into a route march, but we were laughing and joking all the way (OK, apart from the 2 km leading up to the canal).