Challenge Date: Friday/Saturday 22nd/23rd March 2024
The Wild Peak Rounds are a series set up by Inov8 Bakewell along with the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, and the three routes (15km, 50km and 120km) visit the nature reserves in the area, ranging from large riverside wetland, ancient woodlands and a moor or two. The shop in Bakewell has taken the lead of the George Fisher shop in Keswick or the Outside shop in Hathersage to create routes from the door to encourage runners and walkers to explore the area or even challenge themselves. They can be done at a time of your choosing, with set checkpoints to visit, and if you manage to finish when the shop is open you get a nice wooden coaster and a coffee, and there’s a leaderboard online to record the times of the Full and Half rounds.
The route us 5 intrepid heroes embarked on was the full round of 120km. I look back on this run with great fondness. My first through the night run, my longest run at the time, and to do it unsupported, i.e without the infrastructure of a full race, felt like a real challenge. We set off from the Inov8 Shop in Bakewell as the pub time bell rang at 10.30pm (and after I’d been out for a very nice indulgent meal at North Town, deluxe levels of carb load), opting to run the route anti clockwise, setting off north. Heading from the start point at Bakewell, to Ladybower over Bleaklow, on to Crowden which was the most northerly point of the route. Then south through Glossop, New Mills and Buxton before a little trudge along the Monsal trail, aiming to get to the finish at the shop before it closed at (as we thought) 4pm the following day.
Of the starters we became one man down as Davor rolled his ankle 10km into the run stepping off a curb, heading into Foolow. Ben left us at the point of no return at the Ladybower Inn, leaving him to run the few miles home to Dronfield for a little 50km pre breakfast jaunt. And so the three remaining runners (myself, plus Simon Bayliss and Ollie Harrison both of Dronfield Running Club) stuck together, hitting 30km as we headed along the east shore of Ladybower toward the no man’s land of Bleaklow. Running in the early morning the Reservoir was unsurprisingly bereft of people but the wind blustered and the rain was intermittent. We took a moment to top up waters from a stream or two in a lightly sheltered section before we finished following the Derwent to its source and beyond.
Even on a midsummer day Bleaklow really is aptly named. But at 4:00am on a March morning with icy gusts stinging your face and peat bogs up to the mid calf, even more so. The relatively obvious path gradually ebbed away to a trod then completely vanished leaving miles of peat, and navigation became a struggle in the pitch black. Over the brow of the hill, Emley Moor crept in to view, a beacon of hope in the inky black. Before long the descent off the wintery sticky mess became firmer, and rockier. And the few miles of Bleaklow slinked away black as the peat bogs that stuck like clag to our shoes – ahead, Crowden, and the expanding gloam of a new morning. This is the first time I’d experienced running to the morning and the hope and warmth that daylight can bring is incredible. The three of us stopped at Crowden for a moment or two, adjusting layers, popping headtorches away and eating sandwiches and brownies ready for changing terrain on some hard ground and some easier miles.
The rest of the route was largely inconsequential, heading to Glossop for the petrol station for caffeine and sustenance. And on to the canal for more chugging through the miles. Trying to run as much as we could on the flats, we arrived at another petrol station to be greeted by my wife Laura and Neil in Whaley Bridge (about 80km in) who were on their way to some relays after a bit of parkrun tourism at Lyme Park.
There were a few more climbs to get over from the Goyt Valley into Buxton. An ascent of around 220m in a couple of kilometres wasn’t hugely welcome to my tired legs especially after the 90km of running prior. But we made it with the support of each other and the good Mr Haribo (of tangfastics fame). The fields around King Sterndale above the quarry on the A6 were awkward to navigate and required some hopping of barbed wire, but making it down the steep valley and eventually to the Monsal Trail at 100km on the dot.
At this point I was in bits, the chaffe on my inner thighs was brutal, the combination of undergarms was less than ideal, but I live and learn. Sticking mainly to the Monsal Trail save for a few ventures off the track to reach the last few way points in Millers Dale and Cramside Woods, we were soon (relatively speaking at least) home free to Bakewell. We put a real effort in to make it back before 4 o’clock when we thought the shop closed, only to discover we could have had til 5, for a brew and a piece of flapjack, finishing in 16hours 54mins (an unsupported FKT), although we are still currently the only people to have run it apart from Chris Andrade who works at the shop. This route really was a challenge but to run it with people I barely knew and come out the other side with them it was a real honour, although I was in bed pretty early that night.
Full Leaderboard is here: Leaderboards – Wild Peak Rounds
