Peak District Ultra Challenge 2025

28th June: 54km 12hrs 10mins

My 7am alarm was pre-empted by a battle between AC/DC and a chiffchaff at 6am.  I think the chiffchaff won.  Either way, with the music blasting out from the start zone and the announcer giving a pep talk for the earlier starters, I couldn’t really get much more sleep and so I wandered over to the food marquee for breakfast.  There had been a steady buzz from people getting ready in their tents and campervans around me, matched by the low hum of a generator, at the Bakewell ‘basecamp’, with a feeling of energy being held back, ready to be released.

Anticipation building

My time to warm up came just before 8:30 and I had a brief chat in the starting pen with a girl called Becky who was also on the two day, 100km course.  It was warm enough to only need a tee shirt and was forecast to get warmer so I set off at a gentle pace, letting others come past me as they wished.  A few of the heavier-set walkers were soon blowing hard on the steep climb up to Calton Pastures until we reached the open spaces above Chatsworth House and we could catch a little of the breeze.  I had chosen the ‘solo challenger’ option but there were plenty of couples and groups all around me, so I’m not sure it made much of a difference – except it meant us soloists set off later than most two-dayers.  I did get to chat to a bloke who had been camping along the way from me.  He was doing it as a corporate event – they even had a beer tent at the end – but he didn’t know any of the others, so was just walking on his own.  Down near Calver a young couple, who were jog-walking the route, came past.  She was the only one with a backpack so when the lad needed a drink he bent down to her chest and suckled from her supply in an eyebrow-raising spectacle.

Crossing Calton Pastures

Chatsworth House

There was a rest stop at Calver where I ate some of the food and packed some more snacks into my bag, also filling a bottle with electrolyte drink.  Given the sweatiness of the day, I expected I would need it.  The next section, climbing slowly up Combs Dale, was certainly sweaty, being out of the breeze.  I passed some people and a chatty group of lads in Christie’s Hospital tee shirts passed me.  It was a relief to emerge from the trees as the valley opened out and to feel the wind again as it stirred up the dust of the path.  Near the highest section we passed a field of llamas.  Well, the announcer had said to avoid any livestock with young, whether they were ‘cows, sheep, llamas or dolphins.’  The walk was cetacean-free.

Llama

Just outside Wardlow, Becky was greeted by some of her family with a good luck banner, which was sweet.  We then dropped into Cressbrook Dale, with the usual struggles of people unused to rough, steep descents.  Tansley Dale didn’t feel too hard a climb, despite the heat.  I took it steadily but hurried a little near the top as there was a glut of people ahead and a tricky stile to negotiate, which I wanted to be over before them.  There were a lot of folk supping outside the Red Lion in Litton, including the Christie’s lads (doing the half distance).  Fair play to them.  It was Tideswell Wakes weekend so music was echoing out from the village as we got closer to the village and a carnival float passed by as I walked up the main street to our lunch stop at 25km.

Cressbrook Dale

Litton well-dressing

It was a relief to get the boots off while I was stopped, keeping out of the sun in the tent, and to put some fresh socks on for the second half.  Nevertheless, it took a little while to get back into my stride again, walking up roads between fields of hay being mown or gathered in.  As the paths tilted downwards I found my pace and settled down to ‘ride the rhythm’.  We crossed the sun-dappled River Wye just by the Angler’s Rest, towards which I gazed longingly (one of the best pubs in the park), then marched up to the Monsal Trail for a brief period.  We dropped back to the river again by Chee Dale before facing the toughest climb: a short, sharp pull directly out of the valley.  Many people were taking breaks, or plodding slowly, taking their time.  I made sure I held myself back, not wanting to charge up and burn myself out.

Haymaking at Tideswell

River Wye and the Angler's Rest

Steep climb out of Chee Dale

The climb didn’t really let up after that, rising through Blackwell and a little more steeply again to Five Wells.  More and more people were stopping by the wayside to get their breath back but I was trotting along very comfortably.  At the top I said to a woman sitting by the gate, ‘It’s relentless.’  She said, ‘You look fresh as a daisy.’  The endorphins were really kicking in as I started to feel I was enjoying myself, thinking how glad I was to have booked the full 100km and not chickened out at 50km.  The long, punishing tarmac trek to Taddington soon kicked this jolly mood out of me.  It’s only 3km but it feels like forever.

Arriving at Taddington

After last year’s experience, I knew I would need plenty of fuel for the final, longest section, so I forced down a Pot Noodle for the first time in about 25 years.  It won’t become a regular thing.  Again it was a struggle to get going again afterwards, perhaps more so than at lunchtime.  Slowly, passing the 42km mark, I got back into it again and felt good down Deep Dale and along Monsal Dale, positively flying up the very quiet climb to Monsal Head.  My mood was helped through Little and Great Longstone, knowing that all the difficulties of the day were behind me, just one more gentle rise to go.  It was evening and the shadows were lengthening, making me think of Eliot’s ‘third who walks beside me’.  There were a lot of tired-looking people but the mood was positive as we were so close to Bakewell.

The town appeared over the hill, glowing golden in the low sun.  There was just a short walk along the river to return to the showground.  It was an odd feeling approaching the finish line to applause but then turning off down a narrow, nondescript side-channel for those who still had more to do.  It was 20:40, the result of that late start, so I made myself eat some veg chilli before searching for a shower (adequate).  There was still time for a beer from the wagon, oddly parked in the supporters’ area not the participants’, before thinking of bed and my 5am alarm.  Not that going to bed helped a lot as the music blasted out right up to midnight, while walkers and runner drifted in.

Evening approach to Bakewell

29th June: 48km 11hrs 20mins

My alarm woke me, bleary-eyed, this morning.  I wasn’t particularly hungry but knew I should get some food down me at the dining tent.  People were still drifting in from the 100km continuous trek, as they had been at 2:45am when I got up to use the portaloo, a few smatterings of applause to acknowledge their effort.  There was no time to hang around as I needed to get my tent down before I set off for the day – a matter of bundling my gear into the back of the car rather than packing neatly.  Andy next door, also in the two-day cohort but jog-walking it, was just about ready to go.  He had gone much slower than he had hoped, completing the first half in 10 hours, and had considered not bothering with the second day, like his neighbour the other side.  Of the 40 or so people to drop out of the two-day event (out of around 150), half of them did so at the mid-point.  If you’re going to drop out, it’s the sensible place to do it as you are back where you started.

The starting area, when I got there at 6:15, was much quieter than the previous day.  There was a mix of us two-dayers, some doing the second half only, and a few who seemed to have switched from continuous to two days.  Just after 6:30 we were released from the pen and set off up the road.  The first climb came quite soon.  Becky, who I had bumped into again, complained, ‘My blisters haven’t even gone numb yet.’  On the walk over fields to Over Haddon and down the length of Lathkill Dale I walked in a loose grouping with her, a couple of bantering lads (‘I had a blister in my groin and thought I’d grown a third bollock’) and a bloke who turned out to be from Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire.  ‘You probably won’t have heard of it.’  Actually, my mother has lived there for the last 30 years, so we had plenty to chat about.

Misty morning above Bakewell

Out of the valley and around Monyash I found I had left the others behind.  The light smirr of mizzle of the morning started to turn to heavier rain as I neared the morning rest stop outside the village.  My back, which had been complaining the previous day, really started to give me gip, especially behind my right shoulder blade.  I was looking forward to getting under cover and getting my bag off.  The rain was still falling after I had eaten my fill of fruit and pastries, but it was so warm a coat would have only made you sweat.  If I had brought a coat, that was.  I had taken most things out of my bag, leaving not much more than a windproof and some water bottles.

Over Haddon well-dressing, part collapsed in the hot weather

The next section was going to involve 14km along the High Peak Trail, the old Cromford to Whaley Bridge railway line, albeit with a lunch stop along the way.  I hadn’t been looking forward to it at all, knowing I would find it dreary to walk a straight, level, unvarying track for the best part of three hours.  Because of this, I had brought earbuds so I could listen to music while I marched, something I very rarely do when out walking – I prefer to hear the natural sounds of the countryside.  Head down, music on, off I went.  The scenery, outside the cuttings, was beautiful, a burgeoning, lush green explosion, lit by intermittent sun now the rain had stopped.  But the trail was as punishing as expected.  My knees groaned at the pounding and my back was screaming, almost to the point where I thought I wouldn’t be able to carry on – a strange reason for retirement perhaps.  As I walked I stretched, twisted, fiddled with straps, concentrated on my posture, anything to relieve the ache.  The lunch stop at Pikehall (21km) could hardly come soon enough.  As I checked in, a girl who I had noticed behind me when I was passing through gates, came up and enthusiastically thanked me for pacing her over that section.  Like me, she had found it boring though she had originally thought it was going to be a doddle.  It was my pleasure to help someone through it (my time per kilometre varied by 30 seconds at the most over the first 8km to the rest stop, which was pleasingly consistent).

View from the High Peak Trail

After a decent pulled pork toastie and a good deal of stretching, I waved goodbye to one of the bantering blokes from that morning (the other had pulled out at Monyash) and to Becky (checking later I saw she finished two hours behind me, so must have had a bit of a mare), and hit the trail again.  The stretches seemed to have done the job for my back but nevertheless I was glad to turn off the track at Longcliffe and get onto some decent, undulating paths again.  There was more haymaking taking place and we were diverted all the way round the boundary of one field as it was being actively mown (I waved at the farmer and got a thumbs up).  This was to be the longest section of the day at 17km so I had planned a stop along the way for a bit of food and time off my feet.  There was a handy bank alongside the dusty track of Blakemere Lane where I plonked myself down for five minutes amongst a lovely display of wildflowers – kidney vetch, bird’s-foot trefoil, yellow rattle, wild thyme, small scabious and lady’s bedstraw.

As there were fewer people on the trail, it felt like there was more camaraderie between us.  Everyone was very supportive and encouraging whenever you passed or were passed by someone.  A random bloke in the little village of Wensley even applauded me, as did some people outside a pub in Darley Bridge.  The steep descent through those villages was hard work and my knees were really getting secondhand.  Pounding pavements from the bridge to Darley Dale and our afternoon rest stop (38km) was very draining, and I felt myself flagging for the first time.  It was going to take an effort to get to the end.  The rest area was relatively minimal with a few leftover bits of food.  I didn’t fancy another Pot Noodle, so nibbled at what I could.  The tent was like a battlefield hospital with bodies strewn around, groaning and limping, bandaged and strapped up.

Moorhen and chick at Darley Dale

Just 9km to go, starting with another 4km of dull trudging beside the Peak Railway heritage line.  More aches in the knees and pain in my back.  A woman I had seen at the rest stop, nursing one of her calves, was sat down.  ‘A treat stop before the climb,’ she said.  ‘It’s a mental game now.’  And indeed what came next was 100m of vertical ascent out of Rowsley.  The sky was overcast but it was still very warm and very humid, so I was pouring with sweat, and plodding at a crawl.  It’s not a track I am very familiar with and I found myself slightly disorientated at the top.  What village was that I could see down that unknown valley (probably Baslow)?  It started to feel slightly unreal.  I was walking along, shaking my head, hardly able to believe that I had almost walked 100km over the last two days.  It seemed such a ridiculously large number, far beyond my usual distances.

Rowsley well-dressing

Just before dropping back to Bakewell

The route wound its way along, Bakewell taking forever to arrive, and I found time to get introspective and emotional thinking about what I had done and what it meant to me.  Not just taking part in a big event, which I love doing, and raising an amazing amount of money for the BHF, but the personal motivation too.  It could just be an act of defiance, less than three years after my heart attack; it could be proving something to myself about not letting that limit what I can achieve.  Partly it’s not wanting to let that define me – I’m not the kind of bloke who has heart attacks, I’m the kind of bloke who does tough physical challenges.  As much as anything it was a roar of anger against whatever led me to have my heart attack, a roar almost saying, ‘how dare you do that to me?’

Thanks to the 'Walking with Dinosaurs' fellas for this picture

Eventually I heard the familiar hum of the generator and re-entered the showground.  Dry-eyed, I crossed the line to applause and punched the air before receiving my medal and the rest of the bits and bobs to celebrate my achievement.  I was overjoyed, delighted to have made it, and very thankful to be able to sit down and not walk any further.  As I ate my post-event fish and chips, I saw the woman with the dodgy calf cross the line and burst into tears as her husband greeted her.  I went for a back massage (both painful and relieving) then headed to my car for the drive home.  The event was being packed away and at the far end of the showground, a funfair was waiting to take over for next weekend’s carnival.  Things were moving on but the experience will stay with me for a long time.

Made it!