British Fell Running Championships

Fell Running is a minority sport shrouded in mystery. Some of the best fell runners stay forever in their discipline, performing incredible feats up in the lonely hills where no one can see them. They seem happy in their obscurity, as if they’ve found something up there, that the rest of us have lost. 

The skill and craft of fell running can’t be learnt, or even articulated, in any guide book or glossy magazine. The only way is to get up in the hills and find out for yourself. 

Coming from a track background, where everything is intensely organised, and scrutinised. I found it infuriating trying to break into the fell running scene. Finding the race for a start! Postcodes replaced with word of mouth directions, or grid references. Try entering those into your satnav.

I have got lost in about half the fell races in which I have competed. Sometimes going from first to last, sometimes ending up hours from the finish line. I’ve fallen and cut myself more times than I can count. 

To someone on the outside, it all sounds like a lot of hassle. Why not just book yourself into a nice road 10km? It’s hard to answer, the why. I could say the views. But then, often the races take place shrouded in fog and cloud, you can’t see 10 meters away. But let me have a go with the ‘why’ anyway…

For those of you who don’t know, which will be most of you, including me, to be crowned British Fell Running Champion you have to complete a series of races. There are 4 British Fell Running Champs each year, one in N.Ireland, Scotland, Wales & England. They all have to be different distances, and your best 3 results count. 

This year, the Welsh leg of the British Champs falls on my doorstep. And when I say, ‘on my door step’, the race literally runs right past my house. I have done the event before, coming 1st and 2nd, but now it is a ‘counter’, with the best fell runners in GB descending on our humble little town, I am going to be in new territory. 

I’ve been running fell races for about 6 years, but this will actually be my 1st British Champs. I am trying to cram for it in the 2 weeks training I have after London Marathon. I run the route 4 times, I start off twisting my ankles a lot, but gradually start to remember how to do it. 

On race morning, it feels really weird. I amble down to the Rugby club last minute to pick up my number. There is no journey to use to get myself psyched up. After a quick warm up, I go home to get changed into race kit. I still have 10 minutes before I need to go back out there. I find myself clearing away the kitchen table. I have to slap myself around the face. The truth is, I am nervous. I am doubting myself. And this house business is making it worse. I could just close the curtains, crawl into bed, and let the big bad world go to hell.

I down a coffee, listen to some Beyonce, and start to feel much better.

The race starts. First mile is pretty flat, I am in third place. Then there are a few little uphill kicks, and I am down in 8th. We climb climb climb through the quarry and I’m not doing very well, slipping behind. Then we get onto the mountains proper. Ras Yr Moelwyn is a 10 mile route, incorporating 3 hills, each hill smaller than the one before. This first hill is a bitch. I keep telling myself, ‘let your body do the work’. Don’t fight, don’t go too deep into lactic. It’s so easy with a climb this long to overdo it, and then it is impossible to recover whilst still running uphill. I find my rhythm and stick with it. I am doing better now, holding my own. I can see Gareth not far ahead of me, very good fell runner, so I’m pretty happy. 

Then, as soon as we hit the first summit, Moelwyn Mawr, the race explodes into life. It is as if the Spirit in the Sky just chucks the chess board in the air and all the pieces scatter every which way. There is a very difficult and dangerous traverse to get to the next peak. Rocky and steep, with no obvious path. Everything is obscured by thick cloud. Runners are zigzagging across different routes, appearing and disappearing into grey blanket. It’s brilliant. I get to the top of the next hill ok, having maintained my position. I’m growing in confidence. I am not getting shown up as a fake road runner. There is then about a mile of flat path, right through the mountains. When I say flat, it is actually a rocky horror show of potential ankle breakers, but it’s more runnable than anything else we’ve been doing. I am chasing down one guy, while GB International Andy Davies is chasing me. We are really moving. This absurd gauntlet, taking place in the middle of nowhere, I love it. 

Andy comes past me on the final climb, I get to the top in 11th place. I am really hoping for a top 10 finish, and I think to myself, this is game on. The last descent is by far the easiest, a mile of soft grass down the mountain, and onto trails for the final mile. I have been really enjoying this in training, and I am fully expecting to do some serious damage here. 

I slip and fall into a bog. Like a deep, sticky, sludgy bog. It takes me to a complete stop. Andy Davies flies away, and another guy comes past me. I get up and almost immediately slip again. Another guy runs past. I lose confidence, lose momentum, and completely lose my head. I manage to fall another few times. I am like a golfer who can’t stop hitting into the bunkers. 2 more people come past me, including Rob Hope, ex GB Champ, I can’t do anything about it, except fall over again.

I finally get to the finish line relieved for it to be over. I have made a pretty good account of myself, less than 40 seconds away from the top 10, but I am annoyed at an opportunity missed. Satisfied to be able to walk away uninjured, and what an incredible race. 

Gareth has run fantastically well, coming 4th. It is great catching up with everyone in the rugby field after, lots of beer and water being handed around. The locals and Hebog fell runners have done a fantastic job, with BBQ, cake stall, bouncy castle and music. Highlight of the whole day for me is chatting with Andy Davies after. So cool to hear his stories about London Marathon, where he is going through the same human stuff as everyone else, but running 2.15 all the same. Such a laid back, down to earth, nice guy. 

I have a really sore belly that won’t give me peace, maybe from the belly flopping in the mud. There is blood dripping of my arm. My legs are killing me. That race takes strips off you. After the presentation, where I do very well, 3rd for Wales, and 1st local, I go straight home and hit the sofa, moaning. But then I think of something, and start laughing.

I have remembered a conversation I had with a man before the race, he has come to watch his son run, he leans in, as if to tell me some important secret;

“Between you and me…”

(pause for dramatic effect)

“if my boy just did some training, he could win”

Fuck me that’s easy to say. There I am, bent over double on the sofa, legs cramping uncontrollably; all those tens of thousands of miles run, all the nose bleeds, the infuriating injuries, the anaemia, the fog of fatigue, the despairing defeats, the hundreds of books read, the schedules, the discipline, the early nights, the sensible diet, for decades at a time…and I only came 15th!

Non-Running Highlight Of The Week:

I fitted a shower that works. 

Best Thing On The Internet This Week:

Story of crazy talent, success, depression and redemption. 

Thing I’m Digging This Week:

You’re Not Getting Enough Sleep, And It’s Killing You

https://www.wired.com/story/youre-not-getting-enough-sleep-and-its-killing-you/

I couldn’t agree with this more. People today are so into paying for hack stuff; super-vitamins, memory foam mattresses, nutri-bullets. But people don’t want to switch off their phones and go to sleep. 

The CloudVenture Peak does me proud. There couldn’t be a much bigger test than Ras Yr Moelwyn. Rocks, wet slate, steep grass, streams, bogs and roads, it never let me down. 

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