Event Manager’s Report
The Peak District Challenge is supported by a team of volunteers, many of whom are regular annual supporters. Thanks to those who sent nice messages praising their enthusiasm and energy on the cold night shifts, and to the entrants who’ve already said they’ll be taking part in the event as a volunteer in 2025. If you’d consider joining the volunteer team in future years, we’d love to hear from you.
This was a fast year! While it was cold overnight, very little wind made for good conditions, and warm sunshine on Saturday daytime was ideal. Route tweaks were well received, with even those who risked the known swampy section approaching Lockerbrook downplayed the difficulty when questioned. We saw more variation in the routes chosen this year than in others; partly down to navigational hiccups, but also more teams are engaging with tactical route choices to eke out small advantages. This year, we also saw an unprecedented finish rate, with zero DNFs on the daytime events. Our approach over the years has developed to encourage runners to drop down to a lower challenge level when appropriate, and therefore record a finish, rather than persevere to the point of failure. This seems widely well received, and I hope it shows our approach to supporting achievement, rather than being the most competitive event out there.
This culture was perfectly in evidence on the Silver challenge, where the three podium finishers paused to line up in front of the finish line, and walk in as a trio. The difference in their starting times provided the ranked positions, but the three three athlete’s cameradie was in some ways more notable. Well done to Russell Baughan (1st: 12:41:53) Second was Mariusz Bury in 12:44:15 and third in 12:58:05 was Jan Bukszynski. Fastest woman was Antoinette Wintin, who was also in the fastest silver team, with Doug Hobbs.
Courtenay-Elle Crichton-Turley was fastest woman on the 100km Gold Ultra, and fastest overall was Javier Monllor, covering the 100km Gold Ultra in 13:24:34. Of the overnight entrants, 11 of the 34 solos were women, and we’d encourage women who’d like to take part in a friendly event to join us in future years.
If you really loved the event, I’d really appreciate if you’d write a public review. It’s one of the main ways new entrants hear about us, so please consider a sentence or two on Facebook Reviews, FindARace, LetsDoThis, or RaceCheck. If you have any negatives or points of feedback for us, please get in touch – we’re here to help.
The 50km Bronze winner was Jordi Barbarroja Claramu, recording 05:00:58 The winning team entry was Alex Gallagher and Annan McGlade as members of 299 Club, and Gesine Carter was the fastest woman (and also second-place team!)
Jade Kelsall was fastest woman at the Copper 25km distance, in a team with James Sands. In a time of 02:30:53, Chris Horkan came within a few minutes of Darren Barnett’s course record at this distance, but had to settle for first place. Also of note, our youngest entrant Calum Wymer completed in 03:27:33, in a team with father Rob.
Those entrants who were raising sponsorship estimate they’ve raised over £18,500 for charity at the time of writing.
We certainly hope to see you back in future years. This year we tried to improve our food offering, and try new areas of the Dark Peak – we hope we’re moving in the right direction. Our current list of ideas for 2025 includes working to recruit more female entrants, and technology investments to improve the reliability of tracking devices. We’ll also revisit the southern part of the course, to see where we might explore without varying the mileage too much. If you have other requests, please let me know.
Thanks to our generous Supporters
Balmy Fox – From surfers to sailors, walkers to runners, skiers to climbers Balmy Fox has created a full range of skincare products. Balmy Fox prize bundles will be available to win at the Peak District Challenge www.balmyfox.co.uk
The Banff Mountain Film Festival – The best new films from the worlds most prestigious film festival. Providing tickets to one of the UK showings. www.banff-uk.com
Wilderness Development– Providers of outdoor skills, development and training courses throughout the Peak District, they will be supplying outdoor adventure experiences as prizes for the Back Before Dark event. www.wilderness-development.com
Made to Move Sheffield – Made to Move provide a new standard of care; to enable you to not only learn about the reasons why you are limited in your ability to exercise pain-free, but also provide you with the ongoing support and guidance to rehabilitate a new or existing injury and improve your current performance. https://made2move.co.uk/
GoOutdoors Hathersage Branch Located just a few hundred meters from event HQ, Go Outdoors is a great spot to pick up any last minute event supplies, and to pop in for a browse on Sunday morning after your efforts. Thank you for donating a prize to be awarded at PDC23.
Swizzels – We are delighted to be partnering with Swizzels sweets who are based in the Peak District. They provided some tasty treats for all the entrants in their goody bags. Whether you’re first or last, everyone gets a little treat from Swizzels. https://swizzels.com/
Clif Bar have great environmental and ethical credentials. Clif work with suppliers and third-party certifiers to source ingredients. For example, 100% of their cocoa ingredients are either certified organic or sourced from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms. www.clifbar.co.uk
A Hathersage institution, Outside shop and cafe has all the gear and equipment you might want for your adventures, and is a great place to browse for art with a coffee in the famous upstairs cafe. www.outside.co.uk
We’re grateful to Compeed for providing Blister Plasters for use at the event. Hopefully you didn’t need them – but we are grateful to Compeed for supporting the Peak District Challenge with blister plasters – just in case! www.compeed.co.uk
We’re delighted to be offering Tenzing energy drink at checkpoints. Tenzing have superb ethical credentials, from their carbon-negative business, to their rainforest-alliance certified ingredients, to their tree-planting programme. Visit teamtenzing.com
MapMagic offer an advanced route planner for hiking created by outdoor enthusiasts for outdoor enthusiasts. We’re grateful for their donation of Pro memberships for our winning entrants. Look out for the team at the event finish line, and visiti mapmagic.app
And you? We’d like to hear from new Event Partners for 2024 and onwards. Please get in touch