Totley & Barbrook

Totley bleeds into the Peak District and its easy to forget that. The paths and roads running up from the pubs and the cricketing fields can all be followed out into the Peak, most without leaving them or changing course. Totley Moor is bigger than you think and the way up to it is steep and rocky.

I’ve run races around here several times and they’ve all been great events. For some reason, races organised by Totley AC seem to attract very good runners and I can never get anywhere near the top quarter of the score boards. Today however we’re not racing. Jawad, Tony and me are trying to get our mileages up for the Nine Edges in a few weeks and keep our injuries under control.

From the car park we run up onto Totley Moor, through the bracken and the rocks on the main path and up to the fields where the sheep spend most of their time and where the hillsides to the east look creased and filled with ferns and grass.

The sky is grey, but it has inviting islands of blue, bright between the thunderheads and glowing in the distance. The sun seems to be where the blue is and nowhere near the morning grey that we’re toiling through. Its hard going but its beautiful and its a good way to get from the urban residues of Totley to the controlled Peakland moor of the Longshaw Estate.

From the Grouse Inn to the start of the Edge, the ground is broken and wet and it wears on muscles, injuries and bones. Its a joy to run along though and for 2 or 3 miles we’re all lost to the details of technical trail and Peak District vistas.

We turn left at the end of the Edge, which is something I’ve never done before. This route takes us down through more ferns and across the landscape on a twisting, tight trail that peters out in a soggy profusion of bright green and morning sunshine.

A river sneaks though the landscape beyond the curtain of plants and there’s a trod or a water course running up the embankment opposite us. Jumping over the brook, we reach it and scramble up onto the stony trail and finish our 7th mile at Barbrook Reservoir. The sun isn’t on us properly, but we get into the cold, glassy water anyway and swim a circuit with a few other brave souls and some ducks. The cold water crushes my breath completely and it feels like it’ll never come back, but it returns to me around halfway around and the swim becomes a bona fide pleasure, making me aware of my body in a way that running simply doesn’t do.

The cold water seems to anaesthetise my various injuries and pains. My Achilles goes numb and ceases to ache and the ever-present tenderness and bruised sensation vanishes from my heels.

As we leave, the sun comes out and I’m reminded of my friend Tim, who on a trip to the Lakes some years ago drank beer in the morning and declared to his wife on the phone that the sun shone on the righteous. I think that perhaps sometimes it does and that its a good, uncomplicated notion to have in you as the British landscape passes underneath you and is swallowed by your efforts.

Our efforts are taking us back toward Sheffield and cows block the path and they have calves with them so we quickly take the decision to climb a fence and go around them. We’re still drying off from the dip in the water and the sun has gone in again so the impetus to keep moving is strong. The animals don’t look like they will move either; in fact they’re queueing up – as the inhabitants of Britain love to do – for several hundred yards and to fill the space in front of our stile. We navigate ankle-crunching hummocks and hidden streams to get to a low section of barbed wire fence and cross it with minor injuries and navigate the same landscape again to return to the path back to the car. There’s no one else here.

The moor looks dark and yellow against the sky and we run upwards towards it, tired and much slower than when we set off. Eventually we get to the top of Totley Moor again, but a different section to the one we started in. I recognise this area from various fell races at Totley AC and from running the Sheaf Watershed.

At the crest of a hill above the car park, we start our final descent at around mile 10. The going is hard on Jawad’s knees but Tony takes off and goes quickly into the shrub, leaving us both behind for a while. The effects of the cold water have almost worn off by now and I can feel my Achilles and heels complaining again. The descent speeds up and control becomes harder but then we’re back in the car park and looking at the sun shining over the tops of the foliage to where we’re standing and trying to catch our breath.

Totley & Barbrook