Trunce PreviewSteel City Striders Running Club Sheffield

The Trunce was arguably the Striders success story of the 2014 season. Fixture 1 saw just 4 Striders take part, but by the end of the season there were 14 amongst the 250+ in attendance at each race.

For the uninitiated, The Trunce is an offroad race that takes place 9 times on Monday nights, 6:45pm throughout the year (March to Sept) at Oxspring, near Penistone. It really is a great introduction to fell racing bridging the gap between trail and fell.

The fell aficionados may well argue that its not a proper fell race, but as its mentioned in the classic fell running book ‘feet in the clouds‘ it will do for us. You can call it trail, you can call it fell, but regardless Its a great taster into offroad racing.

The course is just 3.8 miles comprising of farmers tracks, trails, 3 river crossings, over hills, down through woodland and even some tarmac to keep the road boys and girls happy.

Its well marshalled, well marked and almost impossible to get lost, making it great for newcomers. You can just follow the crowd.

You can view the course and profile on Strava.

Kit requirements: At a push you could run the race in a scraggy pair of road shoes, but trail shoes are recommended and sometimes fell shoes when the course is very wet.

We would also recommend taking a spare pair of shoes, socks and a towel for the drive home as you will probably end up with wet and muddy feet.

We enjoyed The Trunce so much last season that we’ve brought it into the 2015 Striders Fell Race Championship with your single best time from this season counting for the purpose of the championship. So if you run it all 9 times you get 9 attempts for a great time with your best counting. But running just once gets you a time and those all important 10 bonus points for running. Note: running 9 times does not get you 9 x 10 bonus points. Just a single 10pts.

Parking is more than plentiful on the playing fields next the Waggon and Horses pub (S36 8YQ) with toilets facilities available in the pub. Not to mention the opportunity to grab some food and drink afterwards. As you approach along Sheffield Road, the turning (red line into the small car park) comes upon you quickly, so be careful.

Finally, the best thing about The Trunce? Its just £1.50 per race to enter. Talk about value for money?

You can just turn up and enter on the night and if you’ve never entered before you are asked to register when you pay. You will be allocated your Trunce number and this number is then yours for evermore to bring to each Trunce race you enter, so keep it safe. In future races, just bring your number and show it when you pay your entry fee. All very straightforward.

For more information, please see The Trunce website where they keep their own results etc and even hold a season long competition involving bonus points for finishing positions and PBs.