SportsShoes Blog

Just returned from the lakes and competing in the Borrowdale Fell Race.

It was a British and English championship counter so it was even busier than usual this year with around 460 starters. Despite each athlete needing prior experience before they could enter the race, it still filled to its limit of 500 within a couple of days of the entries opening in May. There’s a real resurgence in popularity for fell running at the minute which I personally think is great for the sport.

What we need now is to somehow get more junior runners to take to the fells rather than the road or track. 

Anyway, after last week’s light training, I felt pretty good on the start line - I was just hoping the feeling would last. The start is quite quick as it’s flat for the first mile or so but then it kicks up sharply for the climb up Bessy Boot (yes that really is its name). After that it’s a long undulating boggy / rocky run of around 5 miles across to Esk Hause and Scafell. The rocks toward the summit of Scafell were slippy as hell and with the fog down, the highest place in England was once again a pretty grim place to be. The scree decent off Scafell is pretty exiting and then it’s a technical run across the corridor route to Sty Head at the foot of Great Gable. The climb up Gable is a real slog with a very cheeky false summit to raise then dash your hopes. From the summit it’s a very tricky navigation exercise to reach Honister pass and lots of folk get lost (including Rob Jebb who was leading the race until this point and eventually finished 15th after going the wrong way!!!). I managed to stay on track and toughed out the last climb up Dale Head before plunging down to the finish chasing and being chased by some of my Bingley Harriers club mates.

I finished in around 3 hours 41 mins (winning time was well under 3 hours!!) and was reasonably pleased as I’d felt pretty good all the way around.

After a quick wash in the river we partied the night away first around the BBQ, then in the pub, then the beer tent (to steel band music) and finally at a local’s house party. Crawled into the tent at 3.05am.

Think I’ll have a day off today!!

Finally, my mate Steve has started the coast to coast run today which he’s aiming to do in 3 days - I’ll report on progress soon….