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On the Fells 2008      

Edale Skyline        21miles /4500 feet of ascent                     03 March 2008

John G. kindly volunteered to drive, Steve B., Roger and myself across the pennies to Edale. Due to intelligent route choice, we had a longer lie in and got a parking spot close to the registration station, unlike Mick Mack, Karen N. and Jim D. Willie G.who left Preston earlier than us and had to park in the late comer’s zone.

Those amongst us who did last years Edale skyline (Mick Mac, KarenN. and Steve B.) reminisced about the abysmal weather conditions they had to run in and made us feel grateful for the very windy sunshine that we were about to set off in.

The start was cruel, with a steep and zig zagging climb up Ringing Roger. The layout of the land started looking familiar as we approached Jagger’s Clough and Win Hill Summit, before crossing over Edale road to Hope – OF COURSE, our winning team of Jim D. Rog and myself beat our rivals (including Roy P. and Guru Gordon) in the BAe Peaks Challenge in September 2007 and won a beautiful little trophy each. Ahhhhh, happy memories put spring back into my stride.

Jim's Downfall

Robyn managed to get these pictures from the Dark Peak website. (To whom we are extremely grateful)

In some of the shots I think that the snapshotter was standing in a pit of jelly babies and slowly sinking with one foot in the grave (pit).

Anyway, the cut off was for 2 hours 30 at Mam Tor. Spurred on by the giant Bertie Basset handing out jelly babies (Jim’s downfall – where he lingered too long having happy snaps with the colourful hero, missing cut off by a few minutes), I pushed on, feeling good and enjoying the sunshine. Meanwhile, hubby Roger was desperately trying to retire from the race, having committed his jelly babies back at a marshal. However, the marshal was so encouraging and positive, Rog felt he couldn’t let him down, and pressed on only a short distance ahead of me (for a change). He must have been feeling poorly to be going SO slowly!

Cut off made in plenty of time – I began understanding the important lesson of “pace yourself”. Lord’s Seat to Brown Knoll was boggy, draining the will to remain upright from my cramping legs – with just under half way to go! I was gradually overtaken by runners who had sensibly started off slowly, modestly making the cut off.

Jacob’s Ladder was rocky but easier to run on than the boggy path we had just been on and my legs gradually began to recover. Grindslow Knoll saw me and another female competitor catch up a couple of lads in front of us, and soon we were back at Ringing Roger, the full circle complete.

The final descent made me feel great, what a way to end a race – none of those long, flat stretches where skinny people with long legs who were overtaken on the downhill, get their own back by  storming past.

Lots of fell runners break away from their original running clubs, mainly because they have no interest in track & field, fell running being their main interest. The fell running section of our club decided to have their own website, probably for the same reason. Now a V70, George Arnold is our oldest active fell runner. There are a few more of us close behind! One of our top female road runners, whilst marshalling recently at Chipping Show Fell Race commented on just how friendly fell runners are.