Easy sign up and good communications pre race.  Even offered the chance to purchase a tech t-shirt at a reasonable price.

On the day it was around a one hour drive to get to there from central Manchester, good parking facilities but I would advise to get there early.  We noticed that cars were still trying to get into the car park shortly before the race started and I believe some people had problems getting parked.

Registration was simple, and thankfully indoors considering it was just a touch over freezing.  Hot drinks and bacon butties available, just a shame I couldn’t partake with 13.1 miles ahead of me.

We were advised when we needed to make our way to the start of the race and after a quick race briefing we were off.

As others have said the roads were icy, I think that is to be expected given where it is and the fact it is all country roads.  I loved the scenery although sometimes the "smells" of the country might have been a bit much.

The race was well marshalled and water stations were at miles 4 and 9 with bottles given out with no tops on.  I think this was sufficient for time of year and I believe everyone got the water they needed.  

One thing I wasn’t expecting was that it was completely open road, I thought it would be half closed roads and only having to worry about walkers/cyclists etc.  I can see now why that would be difficult to have done but watch out for cars as I don’t think they were expecting a race to be on!

Not much support on route due to the course being rural but the marshals were all really nice and the support at the end was really good.  Great support from other runners and I got chatting to some nic people during the run.

The race ran a touch long (13.25) but this may have been down to the fact the route had to be changed due to bad weather the weeks before.  Thankfully I wasn’t going for a time so this wasn’t an issue.

Really enjoyed the experience, fun and friendly day and great to meet some other ukrunchat and racecheck folks there as well.  Would I do this again, I think so.  The bling was huge!