On a beautiful, spring-like Sunday, Konrad and I took a short break from eating cake at my parents’ house to run the Edale Skyline race. This Dark Peak classic starts with an ascent of Ringing Rodger, and continues over Win Hill, Loose Hill, Mam Tor and Brown Knoll in an elegant 21-mile sweep around the Vale of Edale. With a runnable first half, and significantly rougher second half, the race attracts an interesting mixture of road/trail/fell runners, which dominate/suffer according to the stage of the race.
Despite (or perhaps responsible for) the fast start, Konrad and Jim Mann led the field up the first ascent, until they added an extra zig-zag, and found themselves at a dead end in deep heather… They were soon back on course, and well in touch with the leaders when I saw them at the out-and-back of Win Hill. In the heat of the southern climate, my scottish disposition was suffering somewhat, yet I couldn’t help grinning and even laughing at times – so wonderful was it to be running with a view and sunshine.
The atmosphere on the pull-up from Hollins Cross to Mam Tor was fantastic; families picnicking, friends out walking, paragliders taking off and swirling above us, and everyone shouting words of encouragement.
After that I went a bit wrong on Brown Knoll (which is rather embarrassing, given how many times I have run over it in the past), whilst well in front of me, Konrad was making excellent progress pursuing the three leaders.
After last week’s incredible dump of snow (which scuppered our HPM victory dash – but that’s another story), the path around the skyline to Grindslow Knoll was still wintery white in places. But only in places – for the most part the vast quantities of snow had melted, feeding the already magnificent peat bogs which lie in wait for people like me. True to form, I fell in several, but only required extraction on one occasion.
Konrad had a great run to finish third overall, whilst I came in almost 15 minutes behind him, in 10th overall (first lady). We collected an excellent spread of cheese, oatcakes and chocolate for our efforts, before heading back home to resume cake consumption.
Results here: http://results.sportident.co.uk/home/event.html?eventid=8e499fc6-88fe-4ada-9011-98567bd31040
Jasmin Paris