The British Champs series kicked off this weekend down in the Welsh village of Llanuwchllyn (pronounced Lan-oo-chlin). The race consisted of a gloriously squelchy 5miles up to the top of Aran Fawddwy, followed by a turbulent slip and slide straight back down. The weather provided a refreshing headwind on the way up, accompanied by clag and drizzle near the top, with C5 still fresh enough in the mind, the weather was wonderful. Looks like it’s going to be the last race for some time so thankfully the Carnethy lot produced some results to be happy with!
Sadly, there was only the one Carnethy lady in attendance, but Elizabeth had a storming run to take 22nd spot. However, there was hot competition for first Carnethy man with Sasha and Eóin both summiting in the lead group, though Eóin was all in for the team, even giving Sasha a push up the hill at one point. Eóin descended well to round off a Scottish podium in 3rd, lovely stuff. Sasha says he’s rubbish at downhill now and struggled into the finish with some “bacon” (this is Sasha’s favourite term for a graze) and 8th place. The rest of the Carnethy men also got a good grind on and ran well, with the V40 team (Andy, Elliot, Dessie & Michael) taking top spot and the senior men also claiming 2nd, excellent work all round.
Nice little side story here – Sasha, Gregor and I were feeling peckish post-race and frequented a chippy in Bala, it turns out the Manchester United football club had also frequented said chippy back in ’05, after some team bonding white water rafting. If you’re desperate to find out more about this visit (which I’m sure you are) then follow the link below, spoiler, Ronaldo got chicken and chips.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/4448327.stm
After scran, most Carnethy runners headed to Kendal for a wild one in Wetherspoons. The £2 pints were much appreciated, and it was nice to see the residents of Kendal taking COVID seriously as the place was rammed. President Hartree was on fantastic form, boasting about his 20th position (20th from last), getting rounds in, and even doing some recruiting.
The following day there were a few hobbles on the go and some creaky legs, Andy seemed unable to swing his legs past 30 degrees, though perhaps that’s nothing new. We were desperate for some more bog so headed to the Howgills with some other Scottish runners. The route was led by Sam Alexander and I’m not sure everyone was 100% loving the swampiness and freezing headwind to start off with, but once we got going, personally I thought it was very tolerable.
Overall, a fun weekend, and nice to get away from it all before returning to this strange new social distancing world that we’re living in.
Many thanks to Eóin for organising!
(Photos from Will Herman, Alan Renville and Mark Hartree)
Ali Masson