Monsal Trail – The Final Tourist Trip
Monsal Trail parkrun. My final bit of parkrun tourism for the year, bringing the curtain down on 2025 like a slightly out-of-breath encore. I’d been discussing a last tourist outing with various members of South Derbyshire Road Runners over the preceding couple of days, the sort of discussion that involves vague plans, messages, and “well, we *could*…”. I’d toyed with returning to Hanley after failing earlier in the year.In the end, one of the SDRR cut through the waffle though, and suggested Monsal Trail. Decision made. Democracy at its finest.
It was a new one for me, though not for the others on the trip, who spoke about it with the calm confidence of people who knew what was coming — always mildly suspicious behaviour. But they actually didn’t know what was coming, because last time they went the course went in the opposite direction.
Getting There
I drove up the M1 and across via Chesterfield, which felt like a perfectly sensible route and therefore almost certainly wasn’t. Still, it all went smoothly, and I saw the famous twisted spire briefly on my way. I arrived without incident, which is always a win when navigating Derbyshire before coffee.
There’s a good car park at Monsal Trail, and — joy of joys — toilets. Vaguely clean too, if tiny and with a damp floor and the smell of recent cleaning. Think “hobbit-sized conveniences”, but entirely functional. This was all before the café opened at 8:30, which meant there was something to look forward to later, like a dangling carrot, except the carrot was pork-based.
The Running Bit
The weather was a bit warmer than the previous few days, which made a pleasant change from running in conditions usually reserved for frozen food aisles. The parkrun itself is an out-and-back along an old railway line. Flat-ish obviously, but a little downhill on the way out, and then hence slightly uphill on the way back. Not a course for negative splits then. Given my current battle with the inevitable force of gravity, returning 2.5km all uphill wasn’t great.
The route starts at Hassop Station, runs through what used to be Bakewell Station, and continues a bit further before turning around and heading back the way you came. It’s simple and impossible to get lost, which I appreciated.
The views were excellent: Bakewell laid out below, with rolling hills rising up behind it like a scenic screensaver. It’s one of those courses where you briefly forget you’re running and then immediately remember when your legs complain.
Sausage-Based Motivation
The start area is at a cycle hire centre and shop for the trail. More importantly, they have an excellent café. After the run, I can confirm that it does a wicked sausage bun. Possibly the best motivational tool possible. That and the coffee, of course.
I ran it in 33:43, which by recent standards was perfectly OK. Not spectacular, not disastrous — solid, dependable, and unlikely to make headlines.
Slow Boat
The drive back was tedious. I got to the motorway in good time, but then seemingly encountered every possible problem – broken cars, loose animals, loose pedestrains, roadworks, a plague of locusts, gritting lorries and lots of people. It was so slow that I missed the start of the football on the telly. It was Forest vs Manchester City. Turned out to be a decent game despite Forest losing.
So that was Monsal Trail parkrun. A great course, good company, excellent scenery, and a sausage bun that alone justified the drive. A fitting way to round off the year’s parkrun tourism — ending not with a bang, but with a bun.
