Tally-Ho! Frodsham 12th Sept 2020

 

The 2019 / 2020 season was cut short by the unwelcome arrival of Covid-19, it took a fair amount of thought to enable the 2020 / 2021 season to start – but start it did.

Runners arrived, ready to run, at Forest Hills, above Frodsham, a venue that has hosted the first trail of the season for many years. Unfortunately Covid-19 restrictions meant we couldn’t use the excellent facilities – we couldn’t even have dinner.

The weather was glorious, bright, warm sunshine – not that ideal for an eight mile cross-country run. But it wasn’t raining – unlike last year!

Hon Prez Park was, as usual for this venue, the trail layer. Runners set off to follows Joe’s sawdust trail from around 1pm.

I teamed up with Old Ruddock and we trotted off down the hill, struggling at times to follow the lumps of sawdust – the bright sunshine of the day made it very difficult to spot the trail.

But we got round.

The trail led us around Beacon Hill, out to Frodsham Golf Course and then to Crow Mere. Not too many nettles were encountered, well not unless you counted the path around Beacon Hill.

Note to self: wear tracksters next time, running shorts are a no-no in nettle country at this time of year.

We continued by Five Crosses, then, passing the lovely Sewage Farm conveniently located next to a caravan site, Peel Hall.

Nice.

All the time we were checking to see if there were any runners behind – we didn’t one all afternoon.

Left along a bit of tarmac along Pike Lane, then north by Bellair Farm, the pear trees of Bradley Orchard, and up to Newtown, close to  the Frodsham Swing Bridge. 

 

Elderberries

We thought we were going to be routed down to the Weaver Navigation but we didn’t get closer than about 300 yds.

 

Turning South to pass through Bradley we then joined the North Cheshire Way for a short distance which then crossed the B5152.

 

This Moggy Minor deserved a snap:

Trotting around the other side of Beacon Hill we completely lost the trail. The good news was that we know exactly where we were so we just made our way back to Forest Hills, a distance of around 500 yds.

Arriving back at the car park we were surprised to see that nearly all the runners had made it back before us…..how did that happen?

I can only assume that we were overtaken whilst we were off trail – something that happened a few times!

Whatever, it was a good trail, even if we didn’t see that much of it! Les is always good company – and he slowed down for me!

It was a good turnout, and great to see everyone after the restrictions of the year.

Thanks to Joe for laying trail, and to everyone else for making the first run of the season a success….even if Les and I kept losing trail!

Where we jolly well went, all 8 miles of it: