I’ve showered three times in the last 36 hours and my toenails are still caked in black.
(sorry)
I’m also still buzzing. What a bloody day. Four and a half hours, 36 (not 35) kilometres, 1300m elevation. Also – wind, rain, mud, rocks, blinding sun. And hordes of pokey tourists with giant backpacks and absolutely no peripheral vision or awareness.
This race – the Peak District Birthday Bash – was first held in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the forming of the UK’s first National Park, and it was so popular that they’ve made it a regular thing. The Bash is 70k, the Half Bash 35. It’s one of those events you keep hearing about. And April isn’t too hot. And I’m leaving the UK in May.
Not gonna lie, the leadup to this race was a goddam stress. The mandatory gear list was HUGE: survival bag, map, compass, seam-sealed jacket, waterproof pants, fleece, hat, gloves, minimum 400 calories of food, minimum 1 litre water, phone, power bank. And a pre-race gear check, which meant if you didn’t have every item, you weren’t running.
I spent a fair bit of money gathering all these items and blew a few arteries trying to cram it all into my tiny-tiny race pack, which I bought in 2013 and looks as battered as I do.
The night before the race was spent in an Airbnb in Chesterfield with a very pleasant host and a very grimy bathroom. I had somehow convinced my dear friend Rose whom I’ve met exactly twice before to join me on this ridiculous escapade, and she drove some 2.5 hours from Malvern after work to get there. Then drove us both to the race start. Rose is awesome.
Oh, and the race all self-navigation: i.e., you had to either use a map, or your phone, or your watch, because there was zero waymarking. I’ve never used my watch to navigate because a) I haven’t had to and b) I’m a technophobe and I don’t know or care about 70% of smartwatch functions. Rose literally showed me on the start line how to use the navigation option (thank you again Rose).
So why the f**k was I even here? I was undertrained for mountain running (London isn’t exactly highland), I’ve had glute/hamstring injuries for most of the past year, more so in the last three months. I did a 33k trail race in November, yes, but not quite the 4500 ft elevation of the Bash. And I’m old.
BUT. I’m leaving the UK in May and I haven’t yet been to the Peaks. And runners/hikers all over the UK always talk about the Peaks as if they’re on a par with oh, I don’t know, the Milford Sound. Though not as eyewateringly expensive to get to.
The weather in Castleton wasn’t looking flash that morning. A bit of sun then a bit of rain, then clouds, then sun again. Runners at the start line were in singlets and tiny shorts or full thermals and jackets. I was freezing so I set off in my jacket, and I also knew post-Wales that the summits can be a total blizzard.
But 2k in, we’ve climbed a bloody great hill and I’m sweltering. The sky is blue and the wind is zero. I manage to tear off the jacket (while running) and inelegantly stuff it into the elastic cords of my race pack. But I’ve forgotten that my phone is in the pocket, and for the next 5km it’s bashing merrily into my elbow every second step.
An American dude pulls in next to me and starts yapping away.
“Beautful out here isn’t it? This is my training ground. I do hundreds of hours out here.”
I mention it’s my first time in this area.
“Oh wow, really! Get lots of photos. I have hundreds of photos on my phone already. This is only a small run for me today, I did a backyard ultra two weeks ago, I did 79 miles, and I wanted to do the 70k today but I said to myself, no don’t be silly. So I’m just doing the short one.”
Why are men like this?
I keep running and he keeps wheezing. At about 10k I can’t hear him anymore. I manage to extract the elbow-bashing phone from my jacket and stuff it in my bra, where it will spend the entire next 28km.
The scenery really is f**king stunning. We’ve climbed up high over the Great Ridge to Lord’s Seat, heading towards the first checkpoint at 15km in Hayfield. The guy ahead of me misses the turnoff and comes racing back to take his place ahead of me again. He’s done it before, he tells me – and proceeds to take a shortcut instead of following the race route.
“Local knowledge, haha.” he says.
Dick.
Then follows about 6km of sluggish, boggy, rocky traipsing over streams and around hikers. God, so many hikes! Mostly large groups of Asians or young people, all moving at leisurely pace, all yapping away among themselves with their giant packs and hiking poles and dogs and sandwiches. Deaf to everything until you’re almost breathing down their necks.
The sun f*cks off and the wind and rain set in right as I’m climbing towards Kinder Scout. This is a fair climb – rocks and black soil, 2087 feet uphill, still winding around plodding hikers. But the view! Holy shit. It’s wild and manicured at the same time. Kinder Reservoir shining below. Hundreds of miles of neatly plotted fields and crops stretching into the distance. It’s really nothing like New Zealand, although the tussock and rocky outcrops of the summit could be similar to Waiouru.
We’re around 16-20k here, and I’m feeling surprisingly… good. Maybe it’s the view, or the fresh mountain air, or the rock-dodging, or just knowing that I’m already past halfway.
I manage to get a few photos and videos but just a second’s inattention to these nasty little boulders (and tourists) can be lethal, esp if you’re a clumsy git like me.
Start heading down Jacob’s Ladder, which is a 2.5 mile-ish vertical stone-stepped path that you can only descend gingerly. The dude running dressed as Forrest Gump (yep – chinos, checked shirt, cap, everything) crumpled over with leg cramp just as we were heading down. I chucked him some salt sticks and ran on (he wasn’t dying). By the time I reached the bottom of those steps my watch merrily beeped 28km, and suddenly it was all really, really hard. My entire glute region was tight as a violin strings and my pelvis felt like broken glass. And still 8km to go! And flat. And BORING. After all those dramatic views, trotting through sheep paddocks and down country lanes felt like the hardest part of all. I was wiped. And god my arse hurt.
But the 31k checkpoint had boiled potatoes, and even though someone said it was another 5k uphill to the finish (I was sure it was only 4k) I felt a bit better setting off.
No, I didn’t. Things hurt.
And there WAS a hill. A big one.
And my watch decided to play games. This way. No, that way. No, turn in a circle. FUCK. I hate technology.
I very nearly set off up another ridge when a guy wearing the same race bib came jogging up. With a much better watch and a much better sense of direction. Only 2k to go, painful as they were, we sailed down through those hills back into Castleton, where it turned out the finish line really did exist, and they gave me my finisher’s coaster and my legs completely gave way beneath me.
And then there was a huge vegan buffet of bean chilli, salads, cheese, and naan bread, and all the sugarfree fizzy you could drink.
(No beer but.)
It was while peeling off my mud-soaked shoes that one of the race organisers casually mentioned that he ‘thought’ I ‘might’ have won a prize, but he would have to check. He got busy with other runners and I got busy eating, but I wanted to know what prize this was. It turned out I had finished first woman. Neat! The really cool part was that the lass who finished second was equally thrilled and surprised, and we had a good natter about how bloody unprepared we had each been and how much our arses hurt.
Rose finished 9th female overall, which was bloody impressive considering she’d only learned about the race three weeks previously.
Would I do it again? Errm. This route, maybe not. Amazing, just too many f*ckn tourists.
But that distance, yes. That elevation, defiintely. Another race in the Peak District, YES.
Pending recovery.
a woman wanders 