Race date: 6 September 2025

Race distance: 15 mile

Race report by Matt Broadhead

This race had lots of sections that felt like they were never going to end, but that then ended. If I were a Prayer for the Day presenter I could probably get 5 early morning minutes out of that.

Groovy Kinder Love (with its small simultaneous sibling Groovy Baby Love) is the last race in the Hayfield Championships. I entered it because I needed an “L” race to qualify for the final table and most importantly the coveted t-shirt. It’s described on its (excellent) description page as “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.” It’s true that this is near the minimum requirements, and I didn’t feel as exhausted at the end as I did after the only other two ALs I’ve done, but this one felt more relentlessly mean than either of them.

Having cramped badly in my previous race and failed to finish, which left me fuming for days, I decided to be much more careful about starting off with enough fuel and salt in me. A potted dog sandwich (courtesy of Funk’s in Hillsborough), a banana and some Saudi Vimto (a thing!) sorted me out, and I was ready to pass the kit-check and hit the hills.

Following some locals towards the start I realised we were heading to Elle Bank, home of the infamous Mount Famine scramble-start. I braced myself for the brambles, but in a non-precedent-setting act of mercy, the organisers had decided to send us along the path, not perpendicular to it. From then on though it was no-more-mister-nice-race-director, because they sent us on a lower route toward Mount Famine, which meant a steeper climb to the top.

You drop off Mount Famine to a bridleway which climbs steadily. I knew there was a turn-off incoming to something called “Jacob’s Ladder”, but because I don’t know the area and had looked at the map without my readers on, I’d misread the contours and was expecting to be climbing up to some rocks or something. I also didn’t know which of the runners around me were doing the long course and which the short, which skips this little excursion. I spotted some people in running kit heading off to the right and was just checking the map whether to follow them when a bystander let me know I should carry straight on. A Chorlton runner who’d had the same problem then led the way to the real Jacob’s Ladder.

If you haven’t been to Jacob’s Ladder, don’t. It’s a pair of ridiculously steep footpaths, one stepped and the other covered in loose stone golf balls, that lead down to a historic pack horse bridge. We had to go down the golf balls and up the steps without any assistance from the pack horses, and then somehow keep breathing and run the rest of a fell race. At this point, because it was an out-and-back section, I realised there was quite a gap behind me and I’d best keep up with the people in front if I didn’t want to have to fall back on my ropey map skills.

Off we went, past a checkpoint at Edale rocks and on to the section that drops down to the bottom of Broad Clough. (I say these names because they’re marked on the race map, they could be anywhere.) There’s a route choice here, but we had been advised the longer route was easier/faster, so on to an endless set of steep stone steps we hopped, down to a couple of hundred metres of level ground, then an easyish descent to the checkpoint. Having had a short steep climb, the organisers decided we needed a long gruelling one, and duly obliged with an increasingly bouldery slog up to Cluther Rocks, a trek full of false horizons and isolation, as my world had now whittled itself down to a loose group of four runners: the Chorlton lady, a man in a very bright vest whom I’d initially taken for a marshal, a lady from Rossendale Harriers and me.

We hit the top and didn’t stop, instead contouring along a sketchy path. crossing a dry brook and heading along an edge toward Kinder Downfall. The terrain was rocky and tiring, a bit like running along the top of Stanage Edge, all ups and downs over big bits of stone. However, I did learn that Kinder Downfall is a waterfall, not the dramatic landslide scar I had always assumed. (I know, sorry. I don’t get out much.)

Somewhere during this, the Chorlton runner, who’d earlier told me she was very tired and recovering from an injury, vanished into the distance ahead, thence to be seen occasionally as a yellow and black blob on the horizon. The brightly coloured man had fallen behind, so it was just me and Rossendale rockhopping along a brief respite section before the next trial.

After a cheery hello from the marshal at checkpoint 9, we set of on another quad-bashing downhill, not too bad as these things go, but bad enough. At least we’d passed the 10-mile mark, and there was only one climb left if I remembered rightly.

It was a stinker though, following a stream up William Clough (no relation). The good thing about it was that some of it was in or across the stream, which meant I could dunk my hat/shoes/head. On the map William Clough doesn’t look too gruelling, but I think the heat, the lack of anyone except the runner in front, and the fact I was running low on drinking water made it all feel a bit forbidding. Although it only took half an hour (to cover two kilometres horizontally) it felt like I’d been there all my life.

Finally the top! A marshal told me we’d finished climbing, and my increasingly wishful mind told me I’d nearly finished everythinging, so I relaxed into what I assumed would be a steady waft down a hill and through Hayfield. A spring in my step, I resumed my attempt to catch Rossendale.

Christ, Leygatehead Moor is bleak, despite its excellent compound name. I was thirsty, the moor looked unhealthy, the paths were narrow and all that kept me going were the ideas of taking a class-war crap in a grouse butt and of bobbing into the shop for a bottle of fizzy water on my way through the village. I did not do either of these things, instead ploughing on toward the next heartbreak. It came soon enough thanks to Snake Path, which all of a sudden bore left and away from where I figured we were supposed to be going. It was almost too much, but I’d come too far now, and I knew if I stopped I’d still have to go tell the marshals at the end.

Hayfield passed in a slow blur, but eventually I staggered across the line and drank about eight glasses of water and a cup of tea. I met someone who told me they’d run up and down Jacob’s Ladder during the Dig Deep 50-mile race the previous week, so had “only” done the short race this week. Hardcore.

The race was won by Joe Mercer of Pennine Fell Runners in 2:12:00 and Joanne Mosley (also Pennine FR) in 2:48:10. I was 54th out of 67 in 3:54:12, 12 seconds behind Carolyn Tregaskis, the runner I had been trying to keep in sight. Not high up in the field, but also not low down in the dumps. And I was one place ahead of Graham Barnes, my V70 Nemesis in the three days in May. I so want to do this race again.

11 of us qualified for the final championship rankings, which were won by Josh Williams and Lisa Davies. I finished, um, 11th. But you know what, I’m fine(ish) with that. And I’ve got a nice new t-shirt.

Striders result