Ignoring the MWIS’s warning of hail showers, I assumed the regular weather forecast for sunny spells would be correct and headed up to the Eastern Peak District moors for a long trail run from Baslow – my longest run ever, in fact, at 31km! I’ve signed up for my first marathon at the end of March (Covid rules permitting) so I’ll need to do lots more long runs in the next few months.
It’s always good not to have too many navigational breaks when out running, so I followed a route that was mostly very familiar from past walks. This started steeply uphill to Wellington’s Monument, then crossed the moor to White Edge, quite cold today with a strong southwesterly breeze.
The slight descent to Longshaw brought some respite before climbing back up again along Burbage Rocks and around to Overstones at the southern end of Stanage Edge.
From there, I descended via Higger Tor, Over Owler Tor and Millstone Edge to Grindleford Station, then ascended back up through the woods to the northern end of Froggatt Edge. That just left the relatively easy run along Froggatt, Curbar and Baslow Edges, with a bit of a zigzag on the final descent to get the distance over 30km!
A good day to be out in my local hills, with plenty of sunshine and no showers. The running was pretty hard going with lots of mud, uneven rocky ground, and around 800m of ascent and descent, so my pace wasn’t that fast and the 31km took me around 3h10, plus about 15 minutes of short stoppages for water, snacks and photographs.
My full photo album is available on Google Photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1whhkttG7uhyfW837
A map of my route is available here: https://www.plotaroute.com/route/1343744
You can see my run on Strava here: https://www.strava.com/activities/4342046421
David Pettit's photo blog 