New Year racing...
Carl Bell chases Morgan at the Nine Standards race
Looking at some of the images from New Year’s Day, it seems that the conditions were pretty good for fell and mountain racing, and that came through with some of the performances on the first day of 2013 too…
Another great effort from the festive period came from Carl Bell. At the Nine Standards race the Howgill man chased down Morgan Donnelly on this 8 miler from Kirkby Stephen in the North Pennines, so hard in fact that the reports are of him breaking a nigh-on 20 year old course record (M. Fleming from 1993). Kim Collison was third.
Lauren Jeska won the women’s race again in 2013, ahead of Mel Hyder and Sandra Lewis. Results are here, and thanks to @FellRunninBrief and Eddie Dealtry for the pointers on this one!
A great solo effort came from top-Scot Finlay Wild, who romped away from the field at the Aonach Mor uphill race. The Lochaber man won by a massive two and a half minutes over the 4km course, and though without challenge finished just 1 second off Robbie Simpson’s 2009 course record.
Finley Wild at the Aonach Mor race
Full results are here with images by John O’Neill here.
Going in the other direction, was the downhill only Jubilee Plunge race on the 30th of December. A sneaky win for Ifan Richards, who claimed he hadnt run for 13 weeks (!), ahead of an equally well wrapped up Roly Stafford. All expertly covered by Martin Cortvriend on the WFRA and via lots of images and video on Al Tye’s Fell Running Pictures page.
Ifan Richards takes the plunge
Races of a more conventional format (i.e running up a hill, and down a hill, to a start and finish location) took place at the St. John’s Fell over on the Isle of Man, and Manx Fell Runners’ Mark Murphy tells the story:
A new record number of 176 competitors tackled the opening round of the 2013 Rentokil Manx Fell Running League at St Johns yesterday, an increase of about 30 to the previous best. There were some great fancy dress outfits out there with a few making the muddy 3.0 mile course a lot more challenging!
Lloyd Taggart took the win from Andy Cannell and Simon Skillicorn with Jackie Lee taking the ladies win from Rebecca Wallace and Rosy Craine. Full results are available here.
Finally, some lovely colourful images from Al Tye of the Morning After race in Church Stretton, convincingly won by Mercia’s Paul Jones in 30:57. Ali Lavender won the women’s race, finishing 9th overall and breaking her own course record, in 34:31.
Full results on the Mercia site here.
Paul Jones at the Morning After
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Reactions so far
Eddie Jan 3, 03:11 PM
Nine Standards results:
http://howgillharriers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/NineStandardsRaceResults2013.pdf
Matt MST Jan 3, 03:20 PM
Thanks for that Eddie, added to the piece!