On the Run Around Manchester

On The Run Around Manchester is a running guide to one of Britains most sporting cities with a view to coaxing more natives and newcomers to love the lands nearby and indeed labour along them like running up the seemingly endless Joel Lane at Werneth Low in the summer heat.

There are almost 50 routes including coverage of the sweeping greenery of Lyme Park, which was the setting for Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth. Tread towpaths along many of the constructed waterways such as the Peak Forest Canal, taste running alongside the River Mersey at sunset or visit the fantastically named Irontongue Hill near Swineshaw Reservoirs.

Perhaps because of its industrial history or reputation for nightlife, Manchester is not often associated with glorious countryside. Yet nearby there are the Pennine hills, the Peak District National Park and the Cheshire Plains to make this a great place for runners and make OTRAM a valuable guide.

The book includes stunning photographs and gives directions and ideas about where to run but also includes some history, such as information about the Bronze Age finds on Crompton Moor or King Canutes passing through the Hartshead Pike area. Whether runners are very keen and experienced or novices who are tentative about where to head, these routes offer variety. The reader is given a range where ability, surroundings and views are concerned and there are routes in all parts of the city.

Perhaps you like to pound through the parks or you often return home from very long runs drenched, drained and delighted there is something for everyone. All the routes have been tried and tested by the toes and tendons of the author but once runners have tasted some of the sights and successes of the guide there will be lots of going back!

Caroline Oldfield is a writer of both factual and fictional material and is also a poet but it is her love of the undervalued, stunning landscapes around Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and indeed Manchester itself that prompted the creation of the running guide.

Caroline has several years experience as a staff and freelance journalist, and has worked as a researcher on a travel guide. She has seen life at newspapers on a local, regional and national scale in many parts of the country but has returned to her native Peak District and Greater Manchester area in recent years.

She has done volunteer work at various press offices and has written for publications ranging from the Daily Express to The Big Issue in the North. She hopes to spend a large amount of time in the future living and writing in the Peak District but also loves to travel, especially to the Mediterranean and ancient lands.

She is a landscape photographer concentrating mainly on the countryside in the North West of England. She studies a number of foreign languages and has completed several Open University courses in ancient history and archaeology including a Diploma in the Classics in 2009. She completed a BA (Hons) Journalism degree at the University of Teesside in 1998 and has other academic and vocational qualifications in journalism, teaching and languages.

In her free time, Caroline has sung in choirs appearing at the Royal Northern College of Music and ran the Great Manchester Run in 2006. Her love of running is not just a way of keeping fit but a chance to explore nature, surroundings and to find stress relief, despite having the disability of epilepsy.