We headed over to the Middleton Fells, the venue for this years FRA Relays, at the crack of dawn to get there in time for registration and a team lineup change. It had been an eventful last 24 hours with Tony Heron, my planned leg 2 partner, coming down with illness and us having to draft Tom in at the last minute. We got there with plenty of time to spare and tucked into some much needed bacon sandwiches. The weather forecast was for high winds and heavy showers but they had yet to materialise and wouldnt until the drive home. Soon enough the race start time approached and we all headed up the hill to support Giles on the first leg.
Leg 1 – Short – Giles Hawking – 50:52 – 76th on Leg
By Giles Hawking
No pressure, well that’s what I was trying to tell myself on the journey to the relays, but the butterflies fluttering in my belly were telling a different story. I gave myself a bit of a talking to on the way across to the starting line, a week after the Yorkshire Marathon I should try to run a sensible leg, get round safely and try to give the lads a good foundation for the remainder of the race. The start was a mad dash across some boggy fields, in the early stages 150 or so runners all trying to get through the a gate and then a boggy stream crossing made for some ruff and tumble before the field opened out on the long gradual climb.
It was on the climb, staring at the long string of runners ahead of me that I feared I had been a bit too cautious, a quick look over my shoulder eased my worries a little as there were as many behind. I tried to push on and managed to claw my way up the field a little, but the battle was now against the terrain as much as the other runners.
Giles heading down the steep descent
The grassy slopes of the Howgills make for some wonderful running conditions, never more so than when downhill, the relative absence of rocks makes the inevitable tumble an entertaining barrel roll that barely slows you down and causes no injury.
Fell and descent dispatched I now had a stream to cross, a steep scramble out of the ghyll and maybe half a mile to the finish. My legs were now feeling quite leaden, but nothing focuses the mind like being in a relay team, another close encounter with the ground as I failed to pick my feet up enough, a sprint and battle for position amongst the group I had descended with, another mad fumble with the dibber and I was very relieved to be handing over to Chris and Tom.
You can see Giles in the video below from around 8 minutes in:
Leg 2 – Long Pairs – Chris Roberts & Tom Ratcliffe – 1:39:28 – 82nd on Leg
By Tom Ratcliffe
Chris and Tom heading out for Leg 2
Having been asked to come along to the National Fell Relays for the A team as a replacement at the very last minute, I had the formidable task of trying to keep up with Chris on the long pairs leg.
Giles, who ran a cracking first leg – especially considering he had run the marathon the previous week, tagged over to Chris and I and we were off, on to the Middleton Fells.
We started off pretty well, bounding up the mud and heather filled slopes and cunningly taking a short cut over a stream which quite a few of the teams missed out on (even Jonathan Brownlee’s pair).
The hills then started to grow and grow and the terrain became less run-able and we had a long steady climb all the way up to the cairn at Castle Knott.
There was then a rolling up and down bit to the course with Chris shouting motivational words at me and telling me where we were actually going. I think my responses were mumbling noises rather than actual words at this point.
After checkpoint 3, we started to descend pretty quickly but then had to put our brakes on as we hit a really sheer descent where I thought sitting on a bin bag would be much more appropriate than actually trying to run down it (might be worth including in the kit bag next time).
What followed the steep descend was the inevitable very steep climb up to Calf Top, which sits at just over 600 metres. After probably a good solid 15 minutes of climbing, that brought back memories of Whernside and the Three Peaks, we got to the top of the fell where the weather turned quite sharply and the wind and mist really started to sweep in.
Fighting against the weather, we headed across the top trying to avoid being blown off the side and we headed down rather suitably named ‘wrestle gill’ to checkpoint 6.
Tom trying to hang on to Chris towards the finish of Leg 2
We then made a last push for the final two checkpoints; racing against a few other teams whilst trying to avoid collisions with leg 3 runners who were starting out on their leg.
Chris dibbed us in at the final checkpoint and we passed over to, a raring to go, Simon and Neil.
Overall we came 82nd on our leg in a time of 1.39.28 and lost a few places. I was pretty shattered at the end whilst Chris probably could have run the leg again.
It was a privilege to take part in the National Fell Relays and the cake was mighty fine at the end.
You can see Chris and Tom in the video below from around 5 minutes in:
Leg 3 – Navigation Pairs – Neil Stabbs & Simon Collins – 1:17:09 – 56th on Leg
By Neil Stabbs
Having sat around for a few hours and taken some photos of the action, it was nearly time for Simon and me to do our bit. We took our chance to watch a few of the quickest teams coming back from leg 2 (including a tired looking Jonny Brownlee, who was struggling to keep up with teammate Rob Jebb), before heading for a warm-up, kit check and into the holding pen.
All too soon, we sighted Chris and Tom heading down their final descent and we were off through the fields. On the navigation leg, no map is available until a few hundred metres into the run, so no chance to recce the route beforehand. This makes the leg a bit more of a lottery, especially in bad conditions. However, visibility was still pretty good, so it was all about picking the easiest line between the checkpoints.
We received our map at the first gate (very tricky looking at maps while running over rough ground and not falling over!), which confirmed my suspicions that the route would be based on the northern portion of the fell since none of the other legs ventured up there. We picked off a few teams on the first uphill leg, before losing a bit of ground after missing a good track to the next checkpoint. Following this, generally good paths allowed us to stretch out for a mile or so, battling with a couple of teams of a similar pace.
A tricky descent down to a stream set us up for the climb to the last checkpoint, where a good line across the hillside took us past another 4 or 5 teams. It was downhill all the way from the final checkpoint, with Simon taking the lead and me trying desperately to hang on. Some quick descending saw us past another couple of teams before a circuit of the event field, handing over to Harry in 55th place.
Unfortunately due to the nature of no one knowing where the Nav leg would be going there are no photos or videos of Neil and Simon.
Leg 4 – Short – Harry Holmes – 51:22 – 50th on Leg
Harry giving it everything on the descent towards the finish
Harry set off with his usual enthusiam up the first hill on a course that was the reverse of the first leg that Giles had tackled. A steep climb followed by a quick down and up across to the other hill and a long headlong descent to the finish. After he had disappeared off into the distance we headed into the catering tent for our free meal. A check of the standings so far showed that a good run from Harry could see us finish in the top 50 overall. We all went out to support Harry on the run to the finish. He ran a great last leg but there were some very strong runners around him which meant we just missed out.
You can see Harry in the video below from around 2 minutes 30 seconds in:
Overall – 4:38:51 – 57th / 217
Overall we did really well, finishing higher than we thought before the race started and we will definitely be taking part again next year. A reshuffle of the team pairings may have helped us improve slightly but not by a great deal.
If you are interested in getting into fell running contact either Chris Roberts (Men’s Captain) at mr_croberts@hotmail.com or Nik Vogan (Ladies Captain) at nikvogan@gmail.com. The next race in the Esk Valley Winter Series is Guisborough 3 Tops on Sun 2nd Nov.
Photos courtesy of Woodentops and John Leech Wedding Photography
