DARK PEAK NEWS - Dark Peak Fell Runners

Dark Peak News October 2007 page 25and is on a main 192 bus route out of Manchester city centre. It also starts at the verycivilized time of 12.00 noon on Saturday. It is always the first Saturday of September.There is sleeping space available and finishing in just over 12 hours means that I had adecent kip, a bit of breakfast and got back to Nottingham just before lunch on Sunday.The organisation was brilliant, even down to waitress service at the end of the race.There was a lot to eat and drink at the checkpoints with everything from Cliff bars anddoughnuts to hot dogs and soup. I would to say that the scouts run these events reallywell indeed. The course might not suit some fell running purists and you would certainlynot want to run it in a pair of Walshes. It is 56 miles and takes in a real mix of terrainwith quite a lot of extremely hard, rocky tracks. The route goes out from Hazel Grovethrough the Hope Valley to Castleton. From there it is down to Miller’s Dale and EarlSterndale. Then the course heads to the Macclesfield Forest and back to Manchester. Imust say that I found the whole event this year a lot more pleasant than the previous yearand did manage to finish two hours faster. However, this might have had something todo with the group I was with and also the ridiculous quantity of Energy Source Xtremethat I drank.These long races can be very sociable events because you are out for a long time andrunning at a pace that allows you to have a chat. This time I found myself in a groupwith three other runners at Earl Sterndale and I ended up enjoying their company somuch that I stayed with them until the end of the race about four hours later. We goton really well, were spot on with the navigation and really helped each maintain acracking pace right up until we finished. We all came in together at 12.36 am. I wouldcertainly recommend the Bullock Smithy, but choose your shoes carefully. Last year Iwas wearing a pair of Montrail shoes that are almost bomb proof. This year I went outin a pair of much lighter Mizuno shoes that have left most of my toes looking black andfrost-bitten.RatingsCourse (the minus point being the road sections)Value for money (loads of free food and free accomodation)Organisation (really efficent)Overall rating Dominic FletcherLongshaw, Sat September 8thNice weather for running on the hills: no rain, not much wind and a tad cool. No recordstoday though. Unfortunately, about an hour before the race, a helpful soul was walkingthe moors and cleared about a mile of “litter”, i.e. all the tape that the course markershad put out the previous evening! What can you do?!