5.10.24

The Curbar Commotion is a BM category fell race, featuring 10 miles of lovely dark peak edges, beech forest and surprise hills.

This year was the 3rd time I’ve run it. In previous years I’ve been blighted by the previous evening’s misadventure. And again, at a beer event the night before the race I found myself on a sensible 11.7% beer to end my evening. Sigh.

Luckily, I woke up pretty fresh and the drive over to Curbar Primary School was uneventful, save our collection of fellow Strider Luke Desforges who joined us for the morning. The weather was cool and crisp, the sky bright, and just a little touch of frost – perfect weather to run up some hills.

The first kilometer takes runners up the tarmac past Cliff College to a small set of steps over a wall. You need to be quick to get here if you are properly contending, but for everyone else it’s a minute breather waiting in line, tutting at people who push the queue to vault the dry stone wall (don’t vault a wall, unless you can rebuild the thing). Onwards up and down some roads through Curbar Village before a couple of flat KM through some silver birch woodland just to settle into the pace of the race.

As the race cantered on, my thoughts turned towards the finish line and the prospect of the cake spread in front of the school. Turns out I wasn’t hangover free after all, it just took the climb up to Froggatt Edge (which is longer than I remember), for it to rear its head slightly and the belly churned a little. Then a steady run along the sandy edge before we turned off, headed for White Edge and some boggy splodging underfoot before a slog up set of rough stone steps at the far end of the edge, which were also longer than I remembered.

Once at the top of the steps it’s the highest point of the race and there’s a nice clear path down to the main road crossing of the race. After this, from Clodhall Road to Wellington’s Monument on Baslow Edge, the footing is simple, but the slight incline and a headwind made the progress feel like treacle. From the monument, descent into Baslow was quick, wind free and delightfully sweeping, through rocky trail then shaded wood until the houses and tarmac appear again. This time in the form of the steep climb up Bar Road, leading to some sticky muddy fields, a few stiles and more walking than I care to admit. Finally there’s a boggy plunge through some bracken, brambles and gorse bush before a wide field or two then some tarmac deja vu back down the hill we climbed at the start… just lean forward, quick feet and it’ll soon be over. I finished with a PB of about 70 seconds on last year, a chunk of fresh focaccia and a homemade salted walnut brittle and dark chocolate cookie and no discernible hangover (the wind must have collected it from me on the last descent). A success.

The race was won by Mark Jones of Dark Peak Fell Runners in 1.04.01 and Sarah Pritchard of HRRC in 1.21.30. There were 257 finishers, including 4 Striders: