High Peaks Marathon

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High Peaks Marathon

What is frozen, dark and 42 miles long? Answer: The High Peaks Marathon.

This is an event for teams of 4, mens mixed or whatever, and starts at 11pm(ish), runs through the night over very un-Scottish terrain and finishes with daylight and buns.

I put in a non-Westies team of adventure racer types and we gradually overtook all but one of the 42 teams to finish 2nd overall, and 1st mixed in 10:33hrs. I'd recommend the event to those that like the distance. The running is pretty soft and a good navigator helps.

The whole experience of running thro the night in foreign terrain, often in very sub zero temps was great, with stunning silhouttes and views of torch processions behind. But maybe Westies would feel awkward with the torches?

There were many other familiar faces. I just need to ask Pete and Keith and Co. how they went.

Gary Thompsett

next follows a reply from Jane Robertson - ed.

I read Gary's description of this event with amusement.

I too had 'fun' in this bizarre event but being in the slower end of the field with nobody in our team with much navigational experience we didn't make it back in time before the moonlit night disappeared and the snow and blizzards started during the day. In fact we hadn't made it half way through the course. Feeling chuffed getting as far as the Pennine Way, we thought we had it cracked - just follow a motorway with Pennine Way markers all the way surely..oh how wrong we were. Just let's say we passed the same walking team several times and took some rather interesting detours - all on paths, just the wrong ones.

We did get back to near Edale where the whole event started, 15 hours later and not having seen a damn thing of the Pennines as it had either been dark or a whiteout, only to be told we were timed out. We still had 2 checkpoints to get so all agreed to carry on only to get lost again and sucked in to a bog. We reckoned somebody up there was telling us to quit so we abandoned the last 2 checkpoints and limped back 17.5 hours later...nobody around to welcome us back and the hall being shut up.

Definitely an event to be experienced though strictly speaking we were lucky with clear, frosty overnight conditions. There were at least 2 cases of hypothermia and that's conditions being good. Never got back in time to see Pete and Keith but heard they did 12hours 20. Another Carnethy mixed crew did 11hrs 20.

By the way, I was running for HBT as Dick Wall....I should have known better...

Jane Robertson