Two weeks after a first marathon isn’t exactly the best time for another race. Ideally, you should be in a state of recovery, and injury prevention, in preparation for your next bout of training. But the Baslow Bolt offered an opportunity to experience a fell race which is fully marked and requires no navigation skills – the one thing holding me back from going full tilt on the fell racing scene. So I signed up, and decided to take it steady and not fully send it.
Baslow is in the east of the Peak District and, as hikers and trail runners will be aware, is the location of Baslow Edge, a rock climbing area with shear drops and a foot path running along its top. Of course, the Baslow Bolt takes in the Baslow Edge towards the end of the race, weather permitting. The course is labelled as being 13km long, with an elevation gain of 400m, giving it an average climb of 50m per mile, some 20m more than my recent marathon.
Having parked up at Nether End early, I had a jog through the Chatsworth estate as a warm up. I wasn’t feeling it, but then I never am during a warm up. I’ve grown aware of this over the years, and know that my legs will work come race start, so I’m never particularly concerned. I grabbed my pack and headed up the hill towards race registration to collect my number. Mandatory race kit is compulsory for certain categories of race in fell racing, but ‘at the race organisers discretion’ for the others. The Baslow Bolt falls into the latter, and I took full kit just in case but, upon registration, they informed everyone that no kit was considered compulsory today. I felt confident in the distance and elevation so headed back to the car to dump my bag, and then set off on the half a mile walk to the race start, which was in the churchyard.
I always struggle with knowing where to position myself on a start line, but even more so today, given that I didn’t know what my fell racing capability was, and also that I wasn’t planning on going particularly hard. I stood still, behind the start line, as the churchyard around me began to fill with runners. I accepted where I was and didn’t attempt any repositioning. A few words from the race organiser and a member of the church and we were away.
No more than 50m into the race and we ground to a halt, queuing to get through a gate from the churchyard onto the street. Not much further, same again, queuing to squeeze through a narrow gap between a poorly parked car and a wall. This was going well. There was a modest climb just after and a comedian behind me shouted something along the lines of “no one told me there would be hills in this race.” A couple of corners later and we were climbing again, still on the road at this point – “we’re still going up?!” Luckily, I dropped him quite quickly and didn’t hear from him again.
We broke through a gap and finally onto open land. There was a long train of runners ahead and you could see the hills approaching as the course snaked around the fields, hugging the boundaries. This is what I was here for. An instant smile spread across my face as I hit the short downhill hard before starting to climb through the field.
It wasn’t long before we were queuing again, this time for a stile. Now, I may be new to fell racing, but I understand that the etiquette is to queue for an obstacle in the order at which you reach it. Others, not so polite. There were a few shouts as a lady bypassed the long queue and ran down the side of it, heading for the stile. More shouts of disgruntlement for the bunch of runners that decided to climb through a gap between the wall and some barbed wire, around 50m along the wall from the stile. As one annoyed runner behind me quite rightly pointed out, it’s exactly acts like that that affects organisers’ ability to get land owner permission for their race routes. And for what? To save themselves a few minutes in a race that really doesn’t matter? We weren’t racing in the English Championships.
Over the stile, up through the field, a short road section and then a right turn into Bank Wood. This was a cracking narrow path through the wood, but it was difficult to overtake. All those runners who skipped the queue at the stile were now out of position, moving slowly with those behind wanting to move much faster and, as mentioned, it was difficult to get past. Occasionally, there would be a break in the hedge and the trees on the side of the path and I could pick up a quick sprint to make up a place. I wasn’t overly bothered. Today wasn’t a race for me, but there was one guy behind me who urged a lady to get a move on as she hiked up a short climb which he obviously wanted to run.
Once out of the wood, a steep downhill followed through an open field. I took the opportunity to stretch the legs and must have made up 10+ places in a short space of time. I’ve always thought of myself as a good descender, but I’ve never had anything (or anyone) to really compare myself against. This also wasn’t the best comparison, as I was quite obviously well out of position as to where I should have been in the race. Regardless, a few people did double take as I passed them at pace.
The course was well marked and well marshalled. Little red flags stuck in the soft ground lead the way. In reality though, there are so many runners about, you all end up just following each other and not paying too much attention to the flags. This worked to my detriment as I followed a handful of runners turning left, when we should have carried straight on. I didn’t realise at the time, but looking on Strava after the race, it became apparent that I added 5-600m onto my race distance. Disappointing, and entirely my own fault.
Aside from that, there were a few uneventful miles before we began the main climb of the race; a long trudge up to Baslow Edge via Curbar Hill. I’ve been up, and walked along, Baslow Edge before, so I knew where the end of the climb was and it couldn’t come soon enough. Sure, I might not have been racing, but this climb did take some effort. I wore a long sleeved base layer under my club vest and I had to roll the sleeves up, I was generating that much heat. And it wasn’t a warm day. But once at the top, it was a flat section and then a long, steep downhill to the finish.
I wanted to finish strong but my legs wouldn’t carry me along the edge as fast as I’d have liked. It was flat, but the terrain was a mixture of rock and mud, so it was constant big steps / jumps to get over the rocks, and it was tiring. Maybe the marathon still hadn’t left my legs. Once at the end of the edge though, I opened up similar to the way that I had earlier. I gave it everything and posted a 6:10 mile, a final 3:40 kilometer as I made up another bunch of places. A sharp left into the school, then a sharp right to the finish and I was spent.
1:17:10 for 8.4 miles and 375m of ascent, finishing in 101st place. Normally, I would have been disappointed with such a result, but today was more about having fun, and I certainly ticked that box.
“Free tea and cakes in the school after the race.” I’ve never seen such a large selection of cakes in my life, all of which were handmade. I grabbed myself a tea and had to check that the slab of granola flapjack that I had picked up didn’t need to be halved. I stepped outside, away from the chaos indoors, consumed my tea and cake, went back in for a second tea, made a donation to the school PTA as a thanks and walked back to the car.
My first experience of fell racing and I loved it. All this for £10! I need to get more confident at self-navigation (without GPX) so that I can get more involved. If the date falls favourably, I’ll definitely be back in Baslow next year.