Pilsley Fell Race is a much harder race than I was expecting. The route is largely within the grounds of Chatsworth House and has undulating hills throughout. It boasts an impressive 274m of elevation gain over 9.7km for a seemingly flat course.
Running Pilsley Fell Race
I ran the race with James Moor, a friend who’s also recently developed an interest in running. We both felt the burn from the subtle climbs whilst running the race. On later inspection, we found there is actually more elevation gain throughout Pilsley Fell Race than the Lakeland Trails Cartmel fell race, another race that James and I ran earlier in the year.
Luckily I’d opted for fell shoes to run the race, the first opportunity I’d had to take the new Inov-8 X-Talon 200 shoes for a spin. They performed as expected, slightly lighter than the first pair of X-Talon 212’s I had and they definitely allowed me to ‘Get a grip’ on a very slippery course. Being the lightest variety of the X-Talon range Inov-8 make, I really appreciated the feather weightedness of the shoes.
After the race, I caught up with James who had worn less grippy shoes and really struggled around the course. I think he may have run twice the distance with the amount of slipping he did on his way around.
The course has a record of 36:40 set by T Austin in 2004 remained unbroken. I managed to get around the course in 48:27, finishing 66th out of 295 runners. I’m already looking forward to racing this course again next year and hopefully getting a PB.
