Braithwaite served as a picturesque location for this year’s British Fell and Hill relay organised by Keswick AC on October 21st. The courses took in a large section of the Coledale Horseshoe positioned over the Wainwight Fells. A squad of Shetts made the journey south to take part in this event, considered to be one of the highlights of the hill-running calendar.
Our 3 teams braved some tricky but varied terrain: soft, grassy, boggy lawns, sharp ascents and scrambly rocky steps amidst some treacherous bracken.
Our ladies team put in an excellent performance finishing in 8th place overall. A fantastic achievement to break into the top 10 after finishing 11th in both 2022 and 2021. Matilda Cornall on leg 1, left CJ and Gemma barely time to get their kit checked due to her speedy finish. Gemma Griffiths,a relative newcomer to hill-running was put in the safe hands of CJ MacPhail, to guide her round a demanding leg 2. Bryony and Myrtle embraced the challenge of leg 3, Bryony making the usual excellent nav choices based on her extensive orienteering experience. Returning from injury, Zoe Barber had a strong finish on the final leg amidst a barrage of support from spectators and friends.
This rounds up a very successful year for Shetts Ladies. In the Scottish Champs CJ MacPhail took silver and the team finished 3rd overall. With a record number of women attending Coach Malcy’s training in recent weeks, next season looks just as promising!
Ian Pender reflects on leg 1 of the Shettleston Men’s A team as ‘being a bit of a blur.’ In reality it was a mere 31:44mins! It began with one big climb straight out of the start field up to the summit of Barrow before swiftly dumping runners into a gap on the way over to Stile End, only to see everyone return from Stile End summit back to roughly halfway up Barrow before a fast and relatively spongy descent to the cheering crowds assembled in a mercifully dry field. With a high-five, leg two runners Dan and Harry were on their way in 33rd position, with plenty of catching up to do.
Dan Dry reports that ‘Leg two was a challenging 12km paired leg with just over 1000m of elevation and it was Harry Pulham and I who were tasked with consolidating a strong start from the ever reliable Iain Pender. Harry and I had been closely matched through the year and were confident of a solid run as a pair. Hopefully we’d keep it together at the end of a long hard racing season. Harry set a solid but sustainable pace on the initial gradual climb and we set about hunting down the teams in front of us, steadily picking them off one by one. We worked up to, and past, the Westies pair knowing then we were beginning to approach the sharp end of the race. At Coledale Hause the Keswick duo were dangling just a few hundred meters in front of us and looking mismatched in pace, so we cracked on with the aim to close the gap on the steeper and more technical slopes up to Eel crag and over to Sail. We hit the descent hard and dropped fast out of the cloud onto the runnable terrain towards Causey Pike, where the tough course began to bite and on the last small climbs up to Barrow, gaps began to open between us. Harry’s fatigue following a truly monstrous 760km mountain bike tour had begun to tell. Thankfully the lad’s hard as nails and we hung in there to finish 9th fastest on the leg and move us up the overall standings from 33rd to 9th. The course was fantastic, with an excellent variety of terrain and we all agreed it would make a stunning hill race-course in its own right.’
Leg 3 saw Joe Symonds take some very direct lines over rough ground. Thankfully Tom Owen’s ankle survived the ordeal…just! A foaming Jethro Lennox brought the team home on leg 4 to place the men in 16th position overall.
After a big effort by the Men’s B team leg 1 runner, Alec Clarkson, Ross Cruickshanks and Andrew Shields tackled the challenging leg 2. With over 1000m elevation, the 13km loop provided the runners with a bit of everything: steep climbs, technical descents, fast runnable sections, and even a small river crossing. It proved to be a good pairing, with the boys pushing each other hard to tumble across the finish line in 1 hour 38 minutes. The Men’s B leg 3 runners set off in good visibility with a long line of runners in front of them, which made navigation a lot easier (to their great relief). In a reversal of last year’s form, Mark Thistlethwaite had a storming run, while John Connaghan did all he could to hang on. They handed over to TJ on leg 4 having made up 13 places and in 50th place overall for leg 3.
It’s always a long day when you are on the last leg at the relays, but that didn’t curtail TJ Pringle’s enthusiasm. He describes leg 4 as a ‘cracker’, taking in Stile End, Outerside, and Barrow. ‘It’s a tough but (almost) run-able slog up to the top of Stile End, and then a nice fast descent off the back and down through some bog before heading up a scrappy climb to the top of Outerside. There is then a flagged route down to the mining track, which is a bit rough and rocky underfoot but fast enough going. It’s then a pretty fast climb up to Barrow and then you can let rip with all you have left down the ridge and on to the finish.’
Credit must be given to travelling hero Rodrigo Reis for supporting the squad as first reserve. Your dedication to the team was very much appreciated. Thankfully this year the teams remained injury free and there were no last-minute hiccups. Not to forget Olive and Rowan Lennox for their enthusiasm and big cheers at the finishing line!
A large group of the Shetts decided to make a weekend of it and ended up at a Derwentwater Hostel for some dodgy pizza and more terrifyingly, a Sunday morning dip in the lake before a slightly disappointing murky social run round the Coledale horseshoe. Not that the weather prevented anyone from enjoying themselves!!
I would like to thank everyone for their unbridled support for each other at an event like this. The Shetts men’s and ladie’s teams showed their usual talent and determination. There is a strong sense of togetherness which makes me proud to have been this year’s captain. Roll on 2024 for new challenges and even greater participation.
Susan
Full results here
