Greater Manchester races

Canal and city-edge running, and almost entirely flat. The Bridgewater and the Rochdale canals give long, uninterrupted, hard-surfaced running that suits a steady pace and punishes a careless one — there is nothing to break the rhythm and nothing to make you walk.

The races here are long. A hundred-mile canal route and a two-hundred-mile circuit of the county both start from around Trafford Park and Salford Quays, and the difficulty is entirely in the distance, the repetition and the night sections rather than in the ground.

Towpath is firm year-round and rarely closed by weather, which makes this reliable winter racing when the hills are not. Navigation is straightforward — the water is on one side — but the flatness means the same muscles work for every one of those hours, and people who cope well with hills sometimes find this harder rather than easier.

Greater Manchester trail running routes (1) with free GPX, if you want to run the ground before you race it.