Race report by Tony Marlow:
Saturday saw Josie Greenhalgh and myself travel to Rydal Hall to take part in the 2026 edition of the Ambleside AC organised Fairfield Horseshoe Fell race. The weather was fair and dry for the 213 starters as we pushed up the steep climb to the first checkpoint. Its never really worth pushing too hard until cp1 in this race as this part is narrow and often single file meaning any excess effort doesn’t result in many places gained. Once past CP1 the route opens up into a glorious route around the classic lake district round. Climbing over Great Rigg the clagg closed in to make visibility ( and navigation) tricky over Fairfield and Dove Crag summits and some runners saw more of the lake district than they should have done! From Dove Crag summit the route decends along the ridge past high and low pikes down to Sweden Bridge and I managed to hit all the best fell running lines to overtake numerous runners. The race finishes with a awful 1k ‘sprint’ along the track back to Rydal Hal but I was buzzing having finished the 10 mile 3000 feet with a PB (by 18 minutes!) of 1hr 56mins 30sec and Josie not far behind with 2hrs 9mins 08 sec.
