One of the highlights of the fell running season is the British Fell Relay Championships, this year held out of Grasmere in the Lake District. 18 of Buxton Athletic Club’s finest “flew the flag” for their Club last weekend, competing against la crème de la crème of the fell running world.
The event is split into four legs, all over rough & tough Lake District mountains and moors, and demands varying degrees of navigational skills, along with strong and fearless ascent and descent expertise. These skills were much in demand, more so with the clag down and hill fog setting the runners a major challenge just to get round the four courses. Leg 1 saw Bryan McKenna, Jason Bennett and Helen Thornhill finish the 5 mile course in 71st, 93rd and 99th placing. Leg 2, a 6.7 miler, with 2,800 feet of ascent, tested the teams of Alasdair Campbell/Ben Light, Nick Jones/Nigel Jeff and Tania Wilson/Debbie Hope and their 17th, 125th and 219th positions respectively were very pleasing results. The navigational 3rd leg needs exceptional skills, and Tim Aldridge/Dan Latham, Rob White/Jon Sewell and Joanne Cudahy/Samantha Willis finished in 64th, 76th and 209th places, solid results. A mere 4.3 miles with 2,000 feet of climbing for Leg 4 gave Jacob Winfield, Lauren McNeill and Andy Lidstone food for thought, and their results of 37th, 83rd and 218th demonstrated the effort they all put in. Overall, the Senior Men’s team was 37th, Vet Men 110th and the Ladies Open 175th – from a total of 245 teams – excellent results given the quality of the competition.
Billed as Britain’s toughest half marathon, the Hellrunner Half Marathon in Delamere Forest boasts “Bogs of Doom”, “Hills of Hell” and “Lakes of Mud”. Running to raise funds for The Thomas Theyer Foundation was Buxton’s Jason Bennett, and from a huge field of over 1300 runners, Bennett’s 5th placing was a truly magnificent result.
Tracy Gregory competed in the Thoresby 10, a 10 mile trail run through Thoresby Estate and finished in 1:39:25, which is a new PB for her at the distance.
Prolific racer and record setter, Alan Talbot took part in the rural and scenic Farndon 10K over in Cheshire, and produced a fine result by triumphantly returning with the 1st Male Vet Over 65 trophy, in a very respectable time of 46.18, 97th overall from a field of almost 700 runners.
A round-up of Parkrun results from the weekend saw several course Personal Bests. Over at Macclesfield, both Ross Martland and Pete Bailey ran course PBs in 22.22 and 23.49 respectively, whilst at Bakewell, returning to form Heather Fryer-Winder finished in 27.42. Gill Thompson, again returning to form after a lay-off, ran 28.31 at Glossop.