Groovy Kinder Love Results

Kinder Provisional Results	Baby Provisional Results
2026 Results	2026 Race Report
2025 Results	2025 Race Report
2024 Results	2024 Race Report
2023 Results	2023 Race Report
2022 Results	2022 Race Report
2021 Results	2021 Race Report

Groovy Kinder Love Entry and runners’ information

Entry Information

I have decided to makes things easier, so rather than handling the entries myself I am using SiEntries

2026 entries are open in spring 2026

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Entry Lists

Groovy & Baby Kinder Love

I have added the option of running a shorter version of the Groovy Kinder Love with a totally uninspired name "Groovy Baby Love". Its details are below. As a BM it is still a challanging route. Both races start together and follow the main race route to the Pennine Way junction, where the route splits as the Groovy goes down Jacob's Ladder. At Broad Clough CP they split again. The "baby" crosses the ford and goes over the stile while the main race turns right to follow the Fence Line/Broad Clough for 30(ish) metres before going through a gate to climb back up to the three knolls path. The baby continues around to briefly meet the main route again at Benny's bridge/bottom of Sandy Heys CP, where the baby turns left to climb up to the Shooting Cabin CP while the main race climbs up William Clough. Both routes then meet again for the final descent from the Shooting Cabin CP to the finish.
I will just have a single entry for both races (so you just enter the Groovy Kinder Love). You can decide at race number allocation which route you want to run. My race limit of 200 then covers both races so I will not have 400 running. 

FRA Race Assessment Matrix

The Groovy race numbers will start low (ascending), while the baby will start high (descending). The notice board will hold the specific numbers on the day.

RACE DETAILS - Groovy Kinder Love

• Date & time: Sat 5 Sep 2026 at 11:00
• Start time info: Valley Road Electrical Substation
• Country: England
• Region: Peak District
• Category: AL
• Website: http://pennineridgefellrunner.blogspot.com
• Distance: 24.5 km / 15.2 miles
• Climb: 1270 m / 4167 ft
• Venue: Scout Hut, Swallow House Lane, Hayfield., SK22 2HB
• Grid reference: 034871
• Skills: ER, LK, NS
• Minimum age: 18

RACE DETAILS - Groovy Baby Love

• Date & time: Sat 5 Sep 2026 at 11:00
• Country: England
• Region: Peak District
• Category: BM
• Website: https://pennineridgefellrunner.blogspot.com/2019/12/kinder-groovy-love_3.html
• Distance: 15.5 km / 9.5 miles
• Climb: 650 m / 2130 ft
• Venue: Scout Hut, Swallow House Lane, Hayfield, SK22 2HB
• Skills: ER, LK, NS
• Minimum age: 18

ENTRY INFORMATION

• Entry on day: Yes
• Entry on day fee: £12.00
• Pre-entry: Yes
• Pre-entry fee: £10.00

https://pennineridgefellrunner.blogspot.com/2017/09/groovy-kinder-love-online-entry.html

CONTACT FOR RACE INFORMATION

• Patrick Barry
• 07770149757
• GroovyKinderLove@penninefellrunners.co.uk
• Race Organiser: Patrick Barry

The carpark is just past the scout hut through this gate that will be open on the day.

N.B: The Groovy Kinder Love and Groovy Baby Love are Fell Races that are run under FRA regulations. The details of these rules for both the organiser and competitors are available here: FRA Documents.

Groovy Kinder Love runners’ information

Start: Age limit: Records:

Saturday 11.00 am 18 Male 2021 02:14:40 Female 2021 02:51:03

Kit Check 
There will be 100% Kit Check.

Equipment
Competitors MUST carry at least all of the following equipment regardless of the weather on the day:
a)            Waterproof whole-body cover with taped seams, hat and gloves
b)            Compass and map suitable for navigating the course
c)            Whistle
d)            Emergency food

You will have to sign the FRA Consent on the Senior Entry Form (Online entry covers this requirment). Pens and forms will be available on the tables in the Scout Hut for those entering-on-the-day.  All personal data will be destroyed once the race is over.

There will be a few whistles and compasses for sale at cost price (£1 and £4), along with  race maps that are in an A4 plastic sleeve.

Race entry details are above. The limit is 200 runners.

Registration
Registration CLOSES at 10.20 am.

Registration is at Hayfield Scout Hut on Swallow House Lane (GR035873), approximately 10 min walk from the start. A large carpark is available in-which cars are parked at owners’ risk and no liability can be accepted for theft or damage. Please allow plenty of time for registration.

Route
See the route descriptions at: Race Details and take note of the three hour-thirty (3:30) cut-off at the bottom of Sandy Heys I would expect the back markers to be no more than 75 minutes to complete the route from here meaning that everybody will be home in Four hours-Forty-Five minutes. I am happy for anybody timed out at Sandy Heys to join the "baby" route by continuing straight up to the Shooting Cabin to rejoin the race route for the final descent, which means they will only miss the William Clough climb.

General Comments:
Start Finish – please find the details on the race details page:  The last section is through the village centre, so be careful crossing the main street.
Much of Kinder is part of one of the 54 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in the Peak District National Park, which has considerable effect on events that can be held in these areas. Keeping the event on Public Rights of Way(PRoW) within an SSSI’s, considerably eases the process of gaining permission from Natural England (NE).  For this reason this event does have limited route choice with the main “off-piste” section being the difficult section from Edale Rocks, through The Three Knolls to the ford on Broad Cough and then back up to Cluther Rocks. The descent here is particularly difficult without any “trods” though the thick heather and rocks.
Jacobs Ladder, is a very busy walkers route so as a safety measure runners will be directed through the gate to follow the mountain bike track to the bottom of Jacobs Ladder.
The Checkpoint at the top of Jacobs Ladder path (CP4) is only active for runners descending.
The Edale Rocks checkpoint is on the South Side beneath the over-hang.

This is a Category AL race. The route does traverse high mountain terrain and weather conditions at this time of year may be hostile. Weather is often unpredictable. Competitors should have experience of this type of event and it is not suitable for novices. The route is a combination of marked and unmarked paths. Navigational skills are required, especially in mist, and prior knowledge an advantage - it’s all open to recceing in advance. The kit list is mandatory and if you don’t have the correct kit (including map and compass) please don’t try to take part.
If conditions are difficult on the day and/or you don’t feel comfortable or confident in being able to be safe – don’t take part or consider switching to the "baby" route.

Remember to be respectful of other people out on the hill and to look after one another. There will be other people out on Kinder so say hello if you can manage it.

This is a fell race and the course is not flagged for the majority of the race. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN NAVIGATION AROUND THE COURSE. You need to provide (or purchase on race day) your own map (and compass) and be able to navigate by it on your own even in bad visibility or bad weather.

Monitoring of competitors
At registration, you will be allocated a number which will be recorded out on the course, so please ensure it is clearly visible on your chest.

IMPORTANT!!!
If you retire at any point, after collecting your number, you must inform the race organizer and hand in your number at THE FINISH FUNNEL – YOURSELF, IN PERSON. This still applies even if you’ve told someone out on the hill or a marshal out on the course. If this is not done the mountain rescue (MRT) may have to initiate a missing person search. Do not drop out and tell someone else, thinking they will inform race control or take your number back for you. This has happened before and MRT were out looking for someone who was in their friends’ car on the way home!

Checkpoints!
Race numbers must be clearly displayed at the ford at the bottom of Broad Clough. There is a three-hour-thirty (3:30) cut off at the bottom of Sandy Heys. Anybody arriving after that time will be required to head back to the finish. Be respectful to the Marshals and Mountain Rescue Teams who are volunteering to support your safety on the hill.

I will still publish the category results as before.

Prize giving will probably be around 1430 in the Scout hut.

Patrick Barry - Pennine Fell Runners.

Email GroovyKinderLove@PennineFellRunners.co.uk

Groovy Kinder Love

                 

Groovy & Baby Kinder Love 05 Sept. 2026

I have added an option of running a shorter version of the Groovy Kinder Love with a totally uninspired name "Groovy Baby Love". Both races start together and follow the main race route to Jacob's Ladder Top CP 4 (the baby bypasses the down-and-up to Jacob's Ladder Bottom CP 5) and splits again at Broad Clough ford CP 7. The "baby" crosses the ford and goes over the stile while the main race turns right to follow the fence-line/Broad Clough for 30(ish) metres before going through a gate to climb back up to Cluther Rocks and the Three Knolls path. The baby continues around to briefly meet the main route again at Benny's bridge/bottom of Sandy Heys CP 10 (3:30 CUTOFF), where the baby turns left to climb up to the Shooting Cabin CP 12, while the main race climbs up William Clough. Both routes then meet again for the final descent from the Shooting Cabin CP 12 to the finish. There are instructions in the attached "Baby" PDF and and some route notes at the bottom of this page.
The stats for each race are:
Groovy (AL) 24.5 Km 1290m
Baby    (BM) 15.5 km    650m

There is just a single entry for both races (so you just enter the Groovy Kinder Love). You can decide at race number allocation which route you want to run. The race limit of 200 then covers both races so there will not be 400 running. 

Google Drive link to a PDF and PNG of the full race map.

Groovy Kinder Love race map PDF file

Groovy Baby Love PDF file

GPX should be available here. PlotaRoute GPX

You can watch a YouTube video showing a little dot doing the entire course in about two minutes here.
It makes it look very long😅
Interactive 3D video: Groovy Kinder Love recce

Click here for the 2021 Winners Strava Plot

This will make for an ideal first AL for anybody wanting to give this category a go as it is right down near the minimum acquirements for this category.

Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)

This area is a SSSI, which does limit where the race can go. Hence there are a lot of checkpoints, to stop people going "off-piste", which would endanger getting permissions for future events.  This is the route details that have been agreed with the NT and have been submitted to Natural England

Route Detail

This is a fell race to there is little or no route marking. A number of people went badly wrong in 2024 because of heavy route marking for a trail race that also went through the area.

The two races split at three different locations. So be careful at these three locations that you do not blindly follow somebody on a different course.

1    CP4 Pennine Way Jnc. / Top of Jacob's Ladder

2    CP7 Broad Clough

3    CP10 Bottom of Sandy Heys/Benny's Bridge

Groovy Kinder Love Start Valley Road, Finish Scout Hut

Start to CP 1 (Christine's Gate)

CP 3 South Head has been retired so ignore that CP.

                                         

N.B. CP 4 Split One: Pennine Way Jnc/Top of Jacob's Ladder.

Jacob's Ladder to Edale Rocks & Broad Clough

The consensus seems to be that the longer way is actually faster.

N.B. CP 7 Split Two: Broad Clough to Kinder Downfall. 
This is the second split. A number of people went wrong here in the past so be careful.

N.B CP 10 split three: Kinder Downfall to William Clough Climb CP10 (Sandy Heys bottom - Benny's Bridge)

N.B There is a 3:30 cut off at this CP.

William Clough, Mill Hill, Leygatehead Moor

Shooting Cabin, Snake Path

Snake Path Down to Kinder Road

Route Notes

Note 1 Start to Pennine Bridleway: Start Electrical Sub Station on Valley Road

The start is in front of the electricity substation on Valley Road

Descend off Mount Famine and turn left onto the Pennine Bridleway and follow it until you see the green footpath sign. A few metres after it, you branch left to head over to Brown Knoll. If you start to descend steeply on the Pennine Bridleway you have gone too far!  Likewise after leaving the bridleway you start to bear left and descent then you have also gone wrong.

Note 2 Pennine Bridleway to CP4

You now have a long flat section to CP4 (Pennine Way Junction)  This is the first location where the routes split. The Baby (Short Course) just continues straight up to Edale Rocks; while the Groovy (Long Course) turns right to descend to Jacob's Ladder. 

CP 4 Kinder Green. Baby Yellow

Hopefully the marshall will have one of these signs stuck in the ground to remind you which way to go.

Note 3 Groovy Only - Jacobs Ladder
The Groovy decends to this cairn at the top of Jacobs Ladder where you turn right to descend the Mountain Bike track. The bike track is very rough with a lot of loose stones so be careful on that descent. 

Kinder Only Jacob's Ladder Cairn

Once you exit the gate at the bottom of the bike track turn left to ascend Jacob's Ladder. You do not need to visit CP4 a second time - you can bear right to follow the Pennine Way up towards Edale Rocks.

Kinder Only Bear right here to miss CP4 and continue along Pennine Way

Note 4 Edale Rocks

Keep Left by the cairn to stay on the Pennine Way

Follow the stone path up to the rocks and look out for the trod breaking to the left just before reachng them. The CP is below the rocks on the left hand side in the picture.

Edale Rocks

Look out for the trod just before the rocks

Note 5 Kinder Steps

Leave the CP and continue to follow the trod to the Kinder Low End Flag Stones. 

It is your choice now: 

1    follow the easier/longer way along the flags to Kinder Low End steps below or

2    leave the flag stones early to cut a straight line over rough ground to Broad Clough                                            

Kinder Steps

Descend from Kinder Steps to the gate and turn right

Ignore this gate - Continue straight on

Note 6 Broad Clough

Once again the race splits at CP7 (Broad Clough). Both races cross the ford; the baby then goes through the style and climbs up through the field. The groovy follows the fence line/Broad Clough to the right for 30ish metres before going through a gate and then climbing the Cluther Rocks track up to CP8 (Red Brook). 

Baby (yellow); Groovy (green) through gate.

"Baby" over style. "Groovy" follow fence line.
 

Kinder Only Note 7 Red Brook 
By this rock the trod goes to the left to bring you to the top end of the Red Brook scramble. Ignore it just keep climbing here to quickly pick up trods that lead to the Pennine Way at the top of Red Brook.

 

If Red Brook is dry it is very easy so not a disaster if you end up doing it.

Kinder Only Red Brook Scramble

After the CP just follow the Pennine Way to Kinder Downfall. With the early September date the River Kinder tends to be extremely low so it will be very easy to cross. After crossing continue onto CP 9 (Sandy Heys). Then the steep descent to CP 10 (Benny's Bridge).

Kinder Only CP9 Descending Sandy Heys to CP10

Note 8 River Kinder

Groovy Baby Love only - instructions for getting from river Kinder to Sandy Heys

After leaving CP 7 climb up though the field and pass through the gate at the top and turn left. Follow the track and then a trod around the moor to drop down to the kinder bridge below.

Baby Only River Kinder Bridge

Cross the River Kinder bridge and uphill to the wall corner on the the left. Follow the path towards the reservoir and onto CP10 (Benny's Bridge). 

Note 9 Benny's Bridge 

At CP10 the two races both go over the bridge. The baby (yellow) then climbs steeply to the left up to the wall corner and onto CP12 (Shooting Cabin) The groovy (green) turns right to follow William Clough back up to the Pennine Way. Turn left and follow the Pennine Way to Mill Hill.

CP10 Benny's Bridge (Groovy: green; Baby: yellow)

Baby Only Cross the Bridge and Climb to Wall Corner

Baby Only Shooting Cabin Asent. Keeping right here is a little bit shorter

Kinder Only cross the bridge (or not!) and then the last big climb

Kinder Only William Clough Top
Come to the post from the left and then turn left on the Pennine Way to Mill Hill.

Note 10 Mill Hill Groovy Only

Be careful here as from the summit cairn the red trod is actually the more visible one. But do not take it as it just disappears after a couple of hundred metres. You actually turn slighly back on yourself to follow the yellow trod that brings you all the way to the shooting butts.

Once at the butts/stream-bed follow that downhill until the path become more established/you can see the white cabins off to you left.  

Mill Hill

Note 11 Shooting Cabin 

From the cabins (groovy: green) just continue to follow the path to CP12 (Shooting Cabins) by the green sign below.  The baby (yellow) will be arriving at the same CP from the left. 

CP12 Shooting Cabin (Groovy: green; Baby: yellow)

Note 12 Final Descent

From the CP follow the path to Hayfield (not Glossop).
N.B. there will be about five gates to go through before hitting the road in Hayfield. People have not gone through the first gate and ended up in Little Hayfield.

CP 12 Footpath sign by the Shooting Cabin

Down Snake Path then turn right onto Kinder Road

Straight on here (not left)

Come down by the blue car and stright across Market Street to go down the track beside Shaws

Path Under bypass into Finish Field

This is the same path you came through when going over to the start.

Race Report 2025

That is No. five finished and the highest number of runners to date with 133 pre-entry and 17EOD, but 24 "no-shows" brought the start list down to 50 Baby and 76 Kinder. I was amazed by how many no-shows there was and asked about it on the FRA Race Organizers Facebook group to be informed that twenty percent no-shows from online entries is typical. I was disappointed by only having 63 runners last year for the first attempt at hosting the two races. But after this one I am glad. I did not appreciate just how much time it would take to clearly identify who started each race.  It was only at number allocation that people stated which race they were running so that it had to be cross referenced against the online entry list and then the 17 EODs as well had to be included. Abbi and I were still deep into cross checking our start list to be informed that the Baby winner had arrived.  In 2024 the baby was won in 1:45 so I estimated that taking Jacob's Ladder out would knock 15ish minutes off that so maybe 1:30 winning time.  Josh Williams came home in 1:12 and nobody was there to meet him. The first aider came in to tell me the winner was here so we had to get Josh's time from him and quickly get the finish-tunnel manned. At least three clubs had the Baby on their club championship. Glossopdale obviously had some top runners out with taking five of the top six positions, with only Dark Peak's Laurence Piercy in third spoiling the Glossopdale party. My son Tim (3rd in the Kinder) is doing his sales job over in Sheffield and in 2024 got the Kinder winner Tom Perry over. Tom came over again but things did not work out for him but his car passenger Abbie Walker did the job coming home female winner and seventh overall.

The Marshall only barely got to the Shooting Cabin before Josh

So bar the mishap of Josh being too fast the baby went very well and I got a lot of very positive feed back about the course. So pretty sure the baby will continue to live.

Groovy Baby Love 2,1,3

Glossopdale party time

Groovy Baby Love Winner

I am going to have to rethink the computing. The baby finishers were coming in so fast I was flat out inputing the data. I was totally ignoring the WatsApp group so had no idea what was going on out on the course and there was a lot going on!  As it turned out I had an excelled group out there and it was only when things were finished that I could read though the entire conversation history. The volunteers were fantastic in the way they kept track of what was happening and took care of the runners who switched races and retired, which included going back down the course to find runners and walking them to safety.

First and First

Groovy Kinder Love 2,1,3

I have to say the phrase "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink," comes to mind. My race blog is full of route information and how the race numbering works so it is obvious from your number which race you are in. But still I had the winners of the two races racing each other to CP4 where they realized they were on different races. I had some runners take in South Head. Others went anti-clockwise around Edale Rocks despite the correct path being flagged and the marshall shouting at them. I believe someone fancied having a look at Park Hall before changing their mind (the blog does say their are five gates to go through descending the Snake Path).  I had others mess up the finish as they missed the path under the bypass. That is the same path they walked though in the morning going over to the start. There is a photo of it on the blog.

The Long Climb up from Jacob's Ladder.

Getting a well earned cool down at Benny's Bridge

I have mentioned in reports from earlier years that I have been dissapointed by the number of female entries. The creation of the baby was partly to address that. Last year the baby was almost evenly split between male and female. It was also very good this year with a M/F 31/23. I am especially pleased with having 22 women on the Groovy.

I have made a couple of donations to Kinder Mountain Rescue and the National Trust
Following a suggestion by one of the volunteers I also made a £100 donation to the Manchester Outdoor Education Trust that helps young people experience our great outdoors.

I paid a bit extra to Hayfield Scouts £70 and £100 to Hayfield Paris Council for the carpark.