LDWA Peakers Stroll

See end of this post for 2008 result.

2007 report follows:

This week I did a hill rep session on Tuesday. It's a mile and a half jog down to my hill. I then collected up some stones and left them in a pile at the top. I jogged down and ran back up; about 45 seconds to the top, moved across one of my stones and repeated. After 10 I was shattered, but forced another 2 out just to make it tougher. The mile and a half jog back was slow going and felt hard, especially because it's all uphill!

On Wednesday I did a 5 mile trail route. I swapped my gym session to Thursday this week; so more strength work and core stability and this week some single leg squats to build up strength.

On Friday I travelled down to the lovely city of Bath, where I was working that day, and Saturday. After work I used the hotel gym for an hour. I did a half hour hill climb on the treadmill. It was the first time I had been on one in a while, as I normally hate these things. Why would you ever want to run on a treadmill when you can run outside? I also did half an hour strength, and more core stability on the exercise ball.

Work didn't go as well as expected, so I ended up working a 12 hour day on Saturday, and not getting back until 8pm. I just had time to pack my rucksack for the next day and the 25 mile LDWA Peakers Stroll event.

The map, hill profile and speed profile are below.



I travelled to Peak Forest just to the North East of Buxton in Derbyshire. It's only a 35 mile drive, but takes in some of the twistiest and statistically more dangerous roads in the UK, so the journey was almost an hour. I arrived with barely 15 minutes to spare before the start of the event. I quickly signed up and got my route description. Normally they are very descriptive and on several pages, but this was just a single sheet with a 50k route map on the back; see here for the route and here for the map. It was pretty obvious that I really would need to use a map, so I decided I would try and copy the map onto my PDA and use GPS to support if I got lost. It was at this point I noticed a sign that said walkers start 9:30, runners 11:30! I figured I would copy the map and then start a little late, and hopefully give the checkpoints time to open.

I carefully copied the map and did a pretty good job I think. Only 20 minutes had passed since everyone had set off, but I was planning on setting off anyway. Then a lady who arrived late asked if I minded if she could walk with me until me caught a few of the others up. So instead of starting out running, I did the generous thing and walked with her. I took this about a mile or two into the route.



We actually took a couple of wrong turns early on, and lost another 10 mins, but eventually started to catch up the stragglers just after the first peak; Mam Tor.



We caught up a very elderly lady. I would guess at mid to late 70's! They joined up, and I bid them farewell and started to run. This was just after 4 miles so already I knew my time for the day would be hit badly, but still at least I knew the checkpoints would be open when I reached them.

From the top of Mam Tor the route follows a ridge line over a couple more peaks to the highest one to Lose hill, which is just out of shot further to the right in this photo.



This was taken from the top of Lose Hill.



There was then a long and very welcome descent to the checkpoint at Kil Hill Bridge. The sun came out on the descent and I stripped off the waterproof trousers I was wearing. I had long walking trousers on underneath, as I was expecting rain and rough undergrowth in places. Straight after the checkpoint begins a very long ascent up to Twitchill farm, straight after the climb gets steeper.

This is about half way up the whole ascent looking back down to the Farm, road and town where I had come from.



Here is an idea of how steep the climb was. This went on for quite some time!



Finally the summit in sight!



The view from the top, one shots shows the next checkpoint at Ladybower Lake.




There was food at this halfway checkpoint. I filled up my water bottle and added electrolyte and grabbed a sandwich to eat on the move. A guy was just leaving too. He was walking and had a huge rucksack. I asked him what he was training for and he was climbing Kilimanjaro in 6 weeks. Instead of running, I walked with him for a mile. It gave me time to eat my sandwich and have a chat. He had climbed lots of peaks, Mont Blanc, one in Tanzania (can't remember the name), etc. I finished off my sandwich and ran on to the next checkpoint at the end of the lake. It started to rain heavily, but I didn't put any waterproofs back on. After the checkpoint, the route turned left and rose up on a very rough stone path.



After quite a long climb it then descended briefly into a valley, before another sharp climb out.



On the next section into Edale another runner caught me up. He was a fell runner, who had turned up. He told me the 11:30 runner’s event had been cancelled due to insurance reasons! Oops, didn't look like I should be running after all. Anyway, he had decided just to run the route and not sign onto the event at all. I picked up my pace a little, and he probably slowed down a touch and we ran together into Edale's checkpoint, and then up over a very tough climb up Hollins Cross before a steep descent down into Castleton and the next checkpoint. We'd probably run togther for about 6-8 miles or so and had a chat as we went which passed the time. The final climb on the route was out of Castleton up a pretty gorge called Cavedale.



There were lots of tourists here. I took this shot from near the top looking back down.



Event at the top of the gorge there was a steady climb, before it levelled out briefly and there was a lovely long descent right to the finish.

I clocked the distance at 22 miles, and not 25. There was also 1450M (4800ft) of climbing, so it was a pretty tough route! I finished in 5hrs 54 mins. Taking into account I walked the first 4 miles, a mile later on by the lake to have a chat with the rock climber, and also the hilly route I was pleased.

I got a couple of small blisters in the usual spot on the outside of my big toes, but nothing serious. There was nice food on offer at the finish, but I just had some soup and a slice of cake before setting off home and having a nice Sunday roast!

So, it was a good session carrying 6.5kg of weight, which I felt totally comfortable with. I will likely use around that weight for these events for the time being I think.

[I did this event again in July 2008 and did it in 4:44, a considerable improvement, despite awful weather].

Catch up next week.