Race date: Sunday 7 October 2018

The Limestone Way Half Ultra is a 17 mile / 27 km ‘point to point’ trail run through the Peak District, starting at Monyash and finishing at Hope, with 1,970 feet (600 m) of climbing.

As I live in Edinburgh, but work in Sheffield fortnightly, this was my first event in the area, and it didn’t disappoint! I’m training for the 28 mile Wooler Trail marathon in Northumberland in November, and I’d enjoyed running near Kinder Scout and Derwent Edge in July. My colleague, Andy Wier, told me about his Ultra training, and when I realised there was a Half option, it fitted the bill very nicely!

I’d left it too late to book a seat on the bus from Hope to the start in Monyash, and my carefully laid logistics plans fell apart in the week preceding the event, so I was very grateful to Andy and his family support crew for picking me up in central Sheffield (at 5:30am!!) to get to the start.

It was great to be able to see the 7:30am start in Ashbourne, then find a spot for Andy’s kids to play while we watched the runners come up the trail – then it was on to Monyash for my turn!

As at Ashbourne, the registration and start in Monyash were well organised – there were lots of people to help, nice toilets and tea and coffee etc. You could also leave bags to be transported to the finish. Everything was well signposted and clear instructions were given for the route and the timing dibber.

After a briefing at each start time, we “dibbed” our timers and off we went…. The route was lovely – some (very quiet) roads, some good wide trails, some scary descents (into Millerdale!) on worn wet leaf-covered tiny limestone paths, and beautiful views. The weather was perfect – not too hot, not too exposed on the top bits. Some dales looked runnable but the grass was disguising ankle-turning stones which slowed me up.

The field was well spread out, so for much of it I seemed to be alone, but the signage was excellent (although apparently some had been tampered with earlier on – I was far enough down the field that it wasn’t a problem for me!). I didn’t need to look at the provided map, which was clear and well-designed.

There was a checkpoint and timing point at 18km with a great selection of food, drink and electrolyte tablets, as well as nice inside toilets. There was a marshal on the main street if you just wanted to “dib” and keep running, but we were holding out for cake so enjoyed the rest stop.

After that it was just 10k to the end, up and over some more dales and then the drop into Castleton. Another scary wet worn limestone descent and then there were suddenly LOADS of people, and cars, and streets, and things that got in your way. Fortunately we were soon back on to trails on the final stretch beside the river towards Hope. The “1km to go” sign was very welcome, although it seemed an awfully long kilometre as we doubled back into Hope for the finish at the Sports Club.

A very efficiently organised finish – much cake, tea, coffee and timing download – T-shirts, car-stickers and certificates (rather than medals) were collected, and toilets and showers were available.

In summary – well organised race, fabulous scenery, good distance between a half and full marathon. I’d definitely do it again, and maybe try to go a bit faster next time.

The first male was Mark Elwis in a time of 2:17:21. First female was Shelley Fairey in 2:32:39.

Striders’ result: