The British Fell and Hill Relays Championships race report
The British Fell Relays took place on 18th October hosted by Meirionnydd Running Club at Penantigi Isaf Farm, Dinas Mawddwy, Powys – a far flung corner of rural Wales.
There is a limit of 200 teams with a portion of those being clubs who qualified for a place. The rest are allocated on a ballot system where clubs can apply for a particular category. MAC had an open men’s team who qualified for an automatic place, we then were lucky enough to get a V40 men’s teams and an open ladies team.
This year’s event was widely considered to have the most challenging courses in the events history with gradients of 75% to ascend and then inevitably knee shattering descents. With HQ being in the bowl of the valley runners could look up and marvel at the behemoth of landscape they were to take on.
Leg 1 was billed as 4.2km with 513m of ascent. This is a solo leg taken on by Dan Haworth, John Thorpe and Becky Curtis Hall. Once the ascent was tackled those of us watching from the valley could see tiny dots moving along the ridgeline before seeing them clattering down the side of the hill to the handover area. Dan, who was in 1st place off the ridge gave the men a great start coming in 3rd place. Becky, who had to retrieve a lost shoe midway, also took a tumble right at the bottom of the descent but looked fantastic giving it her all to the finish. She was just 30 seconds behind John Thorpe who caught her just at the bottom. He too put in a brilliant shift on the short but punishing course putting in an impressive sprint finish to put the V40 team in a super position.
Next for the men on the paired long leg were Toby Gill and Joe Oldfield, with Cherry Moger and Amy Jones taking over for the ladies (a little frantic changeover with Cherry still in the loo queue as Becky came in!) and Peter Wilmott and Simon Hoggart for the V40’s. This was 11km and 715m of elevation. Toby and Joe came in first with Toby looking cool as a cucumber and Joe bearing the signs of a few tumbles but having given it everything – as did most runners! An excellent run from them keeping the men in the top 10. Cherry and Amy, who had never even met before the day, ran as if they had known each other a lifetime and came in looking strong and measured. Cherry finished buzzing from the experience and looked like she could go and do it all again! It must be mentioned that Amy is still on her way back to running after welcoming her daughter and brought little Eve along so she could still feed her! What a lady! Peter and Simon tackled this challenging leg brilliantly with Simon leading the pair in striding into the finish. Peter, who has done the event several times, reported that it was without a doubt the toughest fell shift he had ever put in. Just two minutes separated our ladies and v40 gentlemen.
Next it was the 11km, 715m paired navigational leg where runners are given a map moments before starting with a number of checkpoints to navigate their own way to before ending back at HQ. With no set route it’s up to runners to use their skills to determine the best route. For this we had an exceptional men’s pairing of Harry Holmes and Max Wainwright, the mighty Christine Howard together with orienteering wizard Ayako Yokoyama for the ladies and the experienced Richard Bradbury and Chris Caunt. All made it back to base having ran and navigated valiantly across the valley. Ayako even lost her shoe in the bog just before the finish and simply carried it over the last 200m! The ladies came away with the accolade of worst changeovers of the day after Cherry and Amy came in to find neither Ayako or Christine there – another unfortunately timed nervous wee from Christine – which the commentator took great pleasure in announcing to everyone over the loud speaker!
The final leg is a solo effort across 4.8km and 513m of elevation. The wind really picked up and the temperature was dropping. With gazebos being blown and even the finish gantry falling over and needing to be held up for the remainder of the race, it was clear these runners would have the worst of the weather to tackle. Sam Thompson had the job of bringing the men home, Sally Hale for the ladies and Scott Thompson for the chaps. The ladies managed to change over just before the mass send off for leg 4 (any remaining leg 4 runners are all sent off together whether their incoming runners have arrived or not to ensure the event doesn’t end up going on into the evening). Another lung busting leg which sees runners ascend from the opposite side of the mountain but repeats the final stages of the descent from leg 1. Sam anchored the men with an awesome sprint finish to a fantastic 10th place. Scott delivered a super leg for the v40 chaps for a 29th in category finish. Sally Hale, who finished so fast that I felt her brush past me and only glimpsed her from the back before crossing the line gave the ladies 29th in the open category. With just one of the 6 being under 40 the ladies had to run in the open.
Thank you to the family members who came along to support our teams and John Thorpe for making the entries and handling all the admin for the day. Thank you also to those who made themselves available as reserve runners. It was brilliant for the club to have 3 teams. After much discussion amongst veteran club members on the day, we think that this may be the first time that the club have ever entered a ladies team. Which is fantastic and we hope this continues into future events.
Congratulations to all our runners who gave it their all on such a tough but beautiful course.
1. Dan Haworth 00:30:23
2. Joe Oldfield/Toby Gill 01:04:11
3. Harry Holmes/Max Wainwright 01:07:38
4. Sam Thompson 00:33:52
Open men and overall 10th 03:16:04
1. John Thorpe 00:51:19
2. Simon Hoggart/Peter Wilmot 01:34:35
3. Richard Bradbury/Chris Caunt 01:12:31
4. Scott Thompson 00:53:34
Overall 129th and V40 men 29th out of 33 teams 04:41:59
1. Becky Curtis Hall 00:51:53
2. Amy Jones/Cherry Moger 01:36:15
3. Ayako Yokoyama Nichols/Christine Howard 01:46:10
4. Sally Hale 00:46:36
Overall 152nd and open women 29th out of 40 teams 05:00:54
