Race report by Tony:
Saturday saw the Ambleside AC organised Fairfield Horseshoe fell race take place from the beautiful Rydal Hall in the Lake District. 5 intrepid ‘geen vests’ made the trip north for the latest round of the club fell champs. Advertised as 9 miles and 3000 feet of climb the race took place in sweltering 24 degree heat, pleasant for a stroll but a bit hot for racing! 218 intrepid runners crossed the start line and headed of up to the first of 8 summits and checkpoint 1 at Nab Scar. I had decided on the usual ‘not racing, just want to get round ‘ strategy, however that went out of the window (as usual) as soon as I saw Shutters just in front of me on the start line! I’d passed him before 100 metres were out of the way! From checkpoint 1, runners pushed slowly upwards along the ridge with beautiful views across lakeland over Heron Pike to Great Rigg and checkpoint 2. By now the field had started to thin out and fortunately a nice breeze now accompanied the runners. Pushing on over the highest summit of fairfield at 2800 ft the decent, over Hart Crag, high and low Rigg’s, unlike the ascent which loosely follows the main path is characterised by several fell running lines, avoiding the rocky sections and fortunately I managed to find most of them and passed a good dozen runners on the way down! Then about 1 km from the end, my recent bout of illness took its toll and all the energy disappeared. ‘Come on Marlow its only one km on a flat track into the finish’ I told myself to no avail as I ended up walking at least half of that but managed to find something to run over the finish line! A free can of ice cold pop was pushed into the hands of all runners as they finished, a fantastic touch on such a hot day. Despite the finish I was very pleased with my race and time considering the heat. Shutters was close behind me, with Amanda and Josie, who was carrying an injury finishing just in front of the intrepid Checkers. All in all this was a fantasticly organised race and the attention to detail for the welfare of the runners in such sweltering conditions was second to none.
Times:-
Tony Marlow 2hrs 14.22 107th 9th V55
Shutters 2hrs 17.45 117th 10th V55
Amanda Smith 3hrs 19.10 4th V55
Josie Greenhalgh 3hrs 19.11 13th V50
Checkers time not stated will update shortly
