Race Date: Saturday 30th November 2019

7.6miles 1200ft climb

With Percy Pud the following day, only 2 striders made the journey across the frozen moors to Baslow for the inaugural Baslow Bolt Fell Race.  This is a new addition to the fell racing calendar, and like most of these local races raises money and was based at the local village school.

The morning started as a cold one, -3 degrees and I don’t think the temperature got above 0 degrees during the whole race, which meant a beautiful but very icy route!

It is also the only race that I have ever been to that starts in a graveyard, with the vicar reading out an uplifting quote from the Bible before setting us off.

The first 200m is along the twisty narrow paths through the graves before the route opens out for 2 miles of climbing up frozen rutted fields.  Following the climb we ran along the hidden gem of Bramley Woods (through an amazing Rhododendron corridor) before running down to the river at Curbar.  The hardest part is then the climb up to Curbar Gap before a lovely misty scamper along Baslow edge and a brilliant fast finish down Bar road to the school, where homemade soup/cakes and massages awaited.

It is run under FRA rules but would say it is more a cross country/trail race than a fell race – none the less it is a lovely route and a great addition to our local race calendar.

There were 229 finishers.  The race was won by Joe Oldfield in 50:36 and the first woman was Shelley Fairey in 1.00.21.

Striders Results: