The Peaks Trip / Trace 07

First of all is the trip there. Me and Pete cycled there from my house. Only 51.2 miles and plenty of hours to do it in – easy? NAH! It would have been if it weren’t for the friggin’ hills! I anticipated many a hill but didn’t think about how the cities/towns we passed through were all set into valleys of sorts like a lot of towns/cities/settlements are. And of course our rout went through 3 and we had 3 difficult climbs out of them. However even this I could have coped with quite easily but immediately after climbing steadily for 5 miles out of Sheffield there was a very steep 3 mile climb over a hill/mountain into the Peak District. This killed me and we spent about an hour (including regular breaks every 10-15mins) getting over this thing. Once over the other side it was very enjoyable averaging around 27mph dropping down into the valleys where all the towns and villages were. Another 10 miles or so later we arrived at the campsite in Edale that had been reserved specifically for 120 traceurs :D
We set off at 5:20 in the morning and arrived at 11:30.

It was a bit manic to start with, with people already playing games on all fours and setting up tents. All I wanted to do was lay down and rest my quads. This never happened and after setting up camp I joined the rest of the guys already training. I didn’t join in for the first half hour but instead did loads of stretching and warming up. This helped a lot and I was able to do ‘some’ stuff when we all headed to a nearby playpark that was absolutely immense for training and so close to the campsite!

It was quite the scene – 120 guys all very focused on training and most of them doing what I consider to be good training. Lost of strength training and the drilling of a few movements, plus a few added challenges of irregular movements people spotted. That was it for the first day in terms of training and people were already saying it was the best place they had ever trained. Little did they know of what was to follow in the next two days.

The next day came and most of us managed to catch the train to Grindleford, the conductor gave up trying to get fares when over 100 guys got on and packed the train out for a few stops. Jason led a small warm up and then we ran about a mile up a steap path to Padley Gorge. Jin was Leading the way and I kept up with him all the way up but not knowing where the finish was stopped about 50 yards from the end for fear of collapsing (my quads were oh so weak and tired). I leant against a gate for a few moments to catch my breath and Ali along with another guy went by before I made my way to the finish. Ali did really well with his ridiculously sized bag, I didn’t have a bag on… But then the others didn’t do the bike ride the day before so I still take a lot of pleasure in knowing that I got up there much faster than most.

We then got split up into3 groups lead by different Trace Reps and headed to different areas. I got put with Danny Ilabaca and we stayed at Padley Gorge for the first bit of the day. The gorge is an amazing place and even better than I remember it from last year, the spot we trained on is a bunch of big boulders that a stream/river flows through and it also has some very nice trees around. The only problem was I was still very tired and lethargic from the bike ride, so I had my hour of adrenaline provoked training before retiring to much less movement. Our group did do a nice conditioning session though, which I really enjoyed and got into.

We headed up to Higor Tor (a big hill with one side completely covered in massive boulders) passing through some nice bogs and marshes on the way and also listened to Danny talk about what parkour means to him – good stuffs. When we got there it was much of the same for me. I got going for small periods but my legs were still very tired. We did (as a group) discover weaselling though *raises a brow*. Pretty much low scale pot holing, squeezing through tiny gaps underneath the big boulders there to emerge the other side. I got well into this and it wasn’t long before we had found a whole network of gaps to fit through taking about 5 minutes to reach the end – loved it :)
We then had the walk back to Padley Gorge and Grindleford again going through the marshes. We were late for the train but couldn’t run as Hollie’s ankle was still too weak so Dave kindly gave us a lift back to the campsite via the shop in Hope – thanks!

There was lots of eating, socialising, fun and a spot of training that evening at the campsite and playpark, lots of ninja activities :P

The third day was very much like the second but I had much more energy today! I accomplished many more a movement at the gorge and then we headed up towards Higor Tor. There was some confusion on the way and we ended up with a group taking a huge detour to avoid the bogs, us Leeds lads weren’t having non of this when we found out why we were taking such a long route as most of us enjoyed walking through the bogs, so we headed off on a more direct boggier path. Sure enough we went through the bog and ended up at a spot similar just smaller to Higor Tor, it was only a small group of us and we had a lot of fun up there. We could see the group we split off from in the distance and they had also found a spot on which they trained, they then carried on towards Higor Tor before finding themselves at the edge of even worse bog. This was great fun to watch as they had all been lil girls and walked about another mile to avoid the bog. Shane from Sheffield managed to sink into the bog right up to his upper thigh – great fun.

Once at Higor Tor again the day was very much like the previous and once again the main difference was my energy levels. I did lots of jumps, climbing, weaselling and finished off the day with a HUGE level arm jump to a rock with a slight over grip. The only problem was the first time I attempted it my right hand landed on the smooth bit of rock without the good overgrip (which I didn’t realise was there) and I fell straight back onto my arse on a big sloping rock which through me off sideways but I managed to turn and land on my feet comfortably – was quite the recovery :) I stuck the arm jump the second time of asking and I didn’t build up to it by jumping from closer positions like most did :)

Yet more ninja happenings back at the campsite and then a bunch of us went for a very sociable meal at the pub – great fun. We all got up and did some conditioning the following morning before packing up and catching the train home. Surprisingly I didn’t feel like cycling, but we cycled back from Wakefield non the less (this time with bigger bags). We had a couple of hours spare in Sheffield on the way home so I challenged myself to do the level cat pass - precision at the Odeon there, I stuck it after about a dozen goes.

Things that I forgot to mention are:
The entrance to the playpark had some very nice walls and a sizable cat pass precision there. I spent a lot of time training stealth (mainly barefooted) there and teaching others to, and I performed the cat pass very well first time.
On the second day back to Grindleford we ran down the hill we ran up on the first day there which was amazing. Very fast and aerobic running down a hill where you had to make sure of every foot placement – most of them were on rocks (or parts of rocks) not much larger than a football.
I did a very nice laché to precision by jumping from a rock to a tree branch to swing and land on a second branch about a yard of the floor.
A group of us played a very entertaining and tiring game with a medicine ball which involved standing on one leg for lengthy times and throwing the ball at each other trying to knock each other down.
We played many a game of tug of war before splitting the rope in two creating two big skipping ropes which were then spun around close to each other in opposite directions and we had to make our way through the ropes with getting hit. The first rope you could time a run or jump through but then you had to react quickly to get passed the second rope as it was impossible to time a movement through it. Much fun and many a variation of movement cropped up, the first dive roll used to get over the second rope was very impressive as it wasn’t planned but the guy just reacted in the way he thought best not to get hurt.

Reet, I believe that’s about it, sorry for not blogging this earlier, and now I have a blog to write about an 85 mile walk and another about a trip to Lisses but I will save that for another time.

Check out the video of the Peaks
Peace!

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