Standish Hall Trail Race

Standish Hall Trail Race includes part of the course of Shevington (Shevy) High School’s cross country route. Paths I haven’t seen for a scary 27 years (sob). This time, however, I didn’t have to wear a pleated skirt or worry that I was going to get detention from Mrs Balmer for being rubbish.

Actually, despite the bad experiences of my youth, this is a really good race. At a bargain price of just £4 it’s a well organized, well marshalled event with free hot drinks at the start and lots of free parking.

It’s a two lap trail race with 400ft of climb, run wholly off road on bridle paths and woodland trails, with less than a hundred yards of tarmac path and Wigan Phoenix run it twice a year, in October and February. 

The course loops around a series of fields then through Elnup wood. Despite the recent dry weather, the floor of the wood was still awash with thick, sticky mud (my favourite!) which sapped the energy from my legs and made the climb out of the trees feel really hard work. Out of the woods and there’s a second steady, muddy climb through fields back up to repeat the lap.

My Garmin now showed 5 miles, “Yes!” (I thought), we must bypass the wood on the second lap, but no, turns out my Garmin was having a hilarious joke at my expense; we did have to run through the bog of doom a second time and this time I could see the Trawden stripes of Tim Coyne hot on my tail.

With the legs slowing down considerably now, I was really very happy to see the finish line, my evil Garmin now read 7.75 miles but I’m reliably informed it was more like 6.2. Finishing time was 46.17 and I was delighted to finish 5th lady. Tim was exactly 30 seconds behind and if the race had been any longer he’d have left me standing. Good job I didn’t stop in the bushes for a crafty fag.

A tractor pulling a trailer full of manure then squeezed its way past the finish and on to the course, not ideal finishing conditions for John McDonald, on his SECOND 10K race of the day. Special mention to my very brave sister-in-law Leo, who loved her very first ever off road race.

I would really recommend this race; it’s easy to get to, very friendly, lots of prizes and a nice challenging course. Mrs Balmer, you would have been very proud.