Race Report 2025

That is No. five finished and the hightest 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 Organisers facebook group to be informed that twenty percent no-shows from online entries is pretty typical. I was dissapointed 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 actually started each race.  It was only at number allocation that people stated which race they were running so that 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 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 champsionship. 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 made a couple of donations to Kinder Mountain Rescue and the National Trust
I paid a bit extra to Hayfield Scouts £70 and £100 to Hayfield Paris Council for the carpark.