Edale Skyline 2010

After running the Edale Skyline race last year, I had to do it again. This year we encouraged some of our friends from the Peel Road Runners to take part. Five of us started the race, Richard, Paul, Mark, Andy and myself.

The weather was fabulous once again, which was good because this was Mark’s first fell race – we wanted to introduce him at the deep end!

To recap on the race, it is 21 miles around Edale. The race goes along the edge of Kinder Scout, up Win Hill, up Lose Hill, along the Mam Tor ridge, along Rushup Edge and then over the bog that is Brown Knoll back onto Kinder Edge again and back to Edale. Officially the route incurs 4500 feet of climb, although Paul’s watch clocked it as 4192 feet…. quite a lot! There is a cut-off half way through the race at Mam Nick; you have to get there in 2hrs30, otherwise you are not allowed to continue. This is a tricky cut-off, I made this in 2 hrs 20 last year… It is particularly tricky as the first half of the race is rather undulating and so there is a fine balance between going too fast and making the cut-off, but being knackered for the second half and the alternative, which is starting too slow and not making the cut-off.

The first disappointment of the race was seeing Richard drop out because his knee/hip/ankle was still hurting. Dropping out is not easy, so I’m proud of him for that.

I made the cut-off in 2hrs 10 this year… at least 10 minutes quicker than last year! The second half also didn’t feel quite so hard and I was very happy to finish in 4 hrs 13 minutes (according to my watch), which is 23 minutes quicker than last year! That’s quite a lot!

I arrived back at the finish and was met by Richard and Andy, who had also dropped out because his back was not right. Paul came in soon after; he’d also had a rough time. Mark ran in a hour later after a pretty fabulous run considering that it was his first fell race! I think it’ll take a few weeks before he’s ready to sign up for the next fell race, but he should be pretty happy to have made the cut-off and finish the race.