29th August The One in Macclesfield forest (R43)

 

On the way back from Wigan I popped in at Poynton to make an emergency delivery of two bottles of Stardrops to Mrs O so she can put in her claim to be crowned owner of the cleanest windows in the whole of East Cheshire. 

After a cuppa, a catch up up and a couple of custard creams, I started off back for Nottingham but not without the chance to have a run in one of my old stomping grounds. And that was in Macclesfield Forest, a former royal hunting ground, home to the areas very own mini version of the Matterhorn, the similarly shaped Shuttligsloe.

I seem to be on a bit of a roll at the moment with lots of different runs cropping up in different places so rather than have a mad dash in Nov / Dec to try to complete the 60@60 when its dark, damp and dismal, I'll grab any opportunity whilst I can. Unfortuately with it being BH Monday every man, woman child and dog seems to have the same idea with all the nearby laybys and car park rammed to capacity. 

Trying to pick out a short cut route from where I finally managed to park didn't work out as intended meaning a re tracing of my steps before I finally located the Trentaback reservoir and the actual start of my little gallop. A gallop that quickly turned into something more sedate as the undulation turned in an incline that seemed to go on forever. Now I remember why this was an occasional running route.

Finally reaching the top of the initial climb I was now faced with two options, a run across the open moorland and then up the final climb to Shuttlingsloe, the route everyone appeared to be taking or undulate around past the standing stones, making the most of the downhills but knowing that what went down would ultimatly go back up again. I chose the latter but admit to not noticing any standing stones at all which I can only assume was due to the speed I was running!

Eventually 3.5 miles after setting off, I arrived at the small car park on Standing Stone Road from where it was just over 2.5 miles almost all downhill on twisting tracks through the forest back towards the Trentaback reservoir again. 

I'm now gonna put the trainers away for the rest of the week as I feel my body needs a bit of a rest after taking a bit of a pounding in the past couple of weeks. After all this is the 60@60 challenge and today I am feeling everyone of those 60 years.

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