Doesn’t look like anyone has put up a report from the FRA relays yet so here’s a quick report from inside the (ahem, “victorious”) M50s team*.
After a last minute team hitch (well it wouldn’t be a relay without one) Mark James stepped in to lead off the V50s. A superb run from Mark put us in the top 40 overall, neck and neck with the Dark Peak and a minute up on Clayton le Moors V50s.
After the slightly chaotic takeover Harry and I set off on leg 2 at a decent lick through the woods and up the Beinn Dubh race route. Swapping places all the way up with faster teams coming through and overhauling a few slower teams, Harry led through the mist to dib at CP1.
Along the ridge to CP 2 at the Graham summit we were all overtaken in one of those ‘wow’ moments as a herd of deer hinds came out the valley and lept effortlessly across the path just in front of us before disappearing again into the mist. Our comparatively pedestrian squelching through the Luss bogs had a familiar pattern as Harry would pull away on the climbs as I caught up on the descents (have to say the ridge descents were really enjoyable despite the clag, wind and rain).
The drop down into the glen was a slithery slidey affair (not helped by an uncooperative shoelace that was flapping around but knotted in place and impossible to retie). The climb back up to the summit was about 1000ft of eating grass and heather (think of the climb out the glen at Stuc and double it). Harry chasing after the Shett’s B team left me floundering in his wake (need to work on my front crawl), but once over the top another fine descent beckoned us back down the hill together. Quick sprint back through the woods to hand over to Mike and Steven for the nav leg, despite dropping us to 47th we just maintained a lead over the Clayton Le Moor V50s, and just as importantly over the Carnethy B team :>).
Despite one minor glitch the boys did very well in the very challenging conditions of leg3, turning in an excellent 25th place on the leg, and pulling us right back up the rankings, coming in neck and neck with Clayton and just behind our B team. Credit due here for all the Carnethy teams on this leg – Iain and Konrad were 6th, Alex and Mike 17th, Jasmin and Helen 29th and Antony and Matthew 57th.
Stewart now had two challenges, first was to maintain the lead over Clayton, and second to catch Liam in the B team. Both of these were achieved in style, recording the 24th fastest time of all, fastest M50. Indeed 2nd fastest O40, pulling the team up to 23rd place overall, and securing first V50 team (and 5th over 40 as a consequence).
A big thanks to the rest of the guys for a great team effort on a good tough day out in typical West coast conditions. Organisation by the Westies was superb and the marshalling top notch on a very inhospitable day – take a bow too the yellow shirts.
Full results here – perfect for statistic freaks… http://www.sportident.co.uk/results/2016/BritishFellRelay/index.html#fell_relay
also http://bfhrrc2016.westerlandsccc.co.uk/#results
*I’m sure the others can put a different slant on things though.
Bruce Smith
Leg 3
Waiting in the pen for the change over as the rain came down I felt fairly relaxed though the effects of my warm up were fading rapidly. My first shot at a Nav leg, I would certainly have been nervous with the poor conditions and rumours of a course set at the limit of what was considered acceptable for the event but with Steven as my partner for the leg I knew I was in good hands . My plan was to let Steven do all the Nav, my job being to keep up with him…….In came Harry and Bruce and we were off. The route up to the first check point was fairly straightforward on track then path then faint path, the conditions underfoot though were very wet. I felt comfortable on the early part of this section running within myself and thought perhaps I would cope this well throughout….no chance, Steven put in a burst and went past as we hit the fainter path frequently going off the path to go past teams which we did regularly up to the first check point, still I felt ok. Check point 1 to 2 and the fun really began, the initial ascent to a minor top was ok, here we had the option of contouring round a ridge but decided to take a more direct route to pick up an obvious stream/ravine at the head of which was the next checkpoint, we set off down very rough ground to the valley bottom, crossed the stream and here Steven came into his own, 300m ascent over 500m distance , scrambling directly up the gully, I struggled to keep with him at this point and had to put in more effort, overtaking another couple of teams in the process. Checkpoint 2 to 3 was straightforward, faster running following a fence until it turned for a 2nd time then a bearing to CP3, no problem, I started to relax, this game is easy mmmmm. Perhaps not, we set off at pace to CP4 but fell into the trap of following a couple of teams in front rather than trusting the compass and after a while realised we were not quite where we thought we should be, a bit of faffing around checking for features and reviewing the map and we headed off on what we thought was the right direction, this confirmed by coming across Mike and Alex in the B team and we ran with them to CP4. CP4 – 5, rough ground but again a reasonable running pace to take us to a CP “between two hills”, not an easy one to find but we heard voices and out of the mist it appeared, all down hill from here the pace picked up and suddenly we appeared out of the cloud at soon hit CP6. Very fast slippy downhill running from there took as back to the finish and we came in not far behind Alex and Mike and neck and neck with Clayton V50’s. and Stewart took off. A great feeling to have got round a tough leg in 25th place overall. Looking at the results some good runners struggled on that leg in those conditions.
I can’t recommend the relay events enough, this is my third time and for me it is the most enjoyable form fell running takes, if you haven’t tried it you should.
My thanks to Konrad and Jasmin for organising the Carnethy teams, my team mates and Westies but particularly the Marshals who endured some horrible weather on the day.
Mike Andrew