The HPM seems to be the traditional start to the ultra-running season. 42 boggy miles at night over some of the roughest terrain in Northern England: the peat bogs of the Derwent Watershed.
I was running in Team Vasque South, finishing in third place in around 9h31m. As we went through the checkpoints, we kept asking the marshals how close to the leaders we were and were quite often told that the two lead teams were neck and neck (and we were 20 minutes behind: hmm!). There was clearly some nerve wracking racing at the front. Team Vasque North pulled away from the second placed team (High Peak Rollerbladers) over the Kinder plateau and held it together to eventually win by an 18 minute margin.
The conditions overnight were somewhat trying. The main problem was that the tops were in the clouds, so the navigators had to navigate the featureless bogs with 20m visibility in the dark. This was not an easy feat. Tom Brunt and Tim Laney did most of the navigation for Team Vasque South while Martin Humphries and Martin Beale just got on with the running, switching to navigate-mode only when the path was lost and the team had to fan out to get back on track.
Team Vasque North looked like a collection of well honed athletes relaxing back at the event centre post race. They didn't look like they'd been out for a 42 mile run. I'm expecting great things from these runners this season!
Some of Team Vasque South looked a little more tired at the finish. We were happy with third place after having two teams get quite close to us at Bleaklow Stones. We must have had a good run from Bleaklow to Kinder as we finished comfortably in third place.
Team Vasque North were Mark Hartell, Stephen Watts, Steve Pyke and Matt Giles.
Team Vasque South were Tom Brunt, Tim Laney, Martin Humphries and Martin Beale.
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