Tafese and Clayton take Inter Counties
Swinburn and Tafese go hard on the early climbs at Settle Hills
Ethiopian Wegene Tafese and Yorkshire and GB international Emma Clayton took the honours at Sunday’s UK Inter-Counties Fell Running Championships in Settle, and both had to work hard for their victories…
The race was held as part of the Settle Hills fell race in Yorkshire over a testing 7 mile route, with conditions pretty good for fell running. Tafase won the mens race for Scotland West just ahead of Nick Swinburn, with Tom Adams over two minutes back in third.
Tom Adams - a solid third
After a great winter of XC Clayton continued her good start to the fell / mountain season as she led Yorkshire to a 1,2,3 with Victoria Wilkinson just behind and Katie Walshaw making up the podium. Yorkshire laso won the men’s team crown.
Alastair Weymouth was first U23 man and Emma Gould was first U23 female, as European junior champ Annabel Mason and Max Wharton were U18 winners.
After her battle with Vic Wilkinson, Clayton told us:
“With the Inter counties being only a week before the European Trials, it was important to use it as a good final training run, whilst also saving the legs a bit for next week. The plan was simple, I knew I needed to hit the climbs hard in order to get one final work out before the trial race.
“Along with that I know at the minute i’m not as strong on the descents as I once was and didn’t want to get into a race on the descent. The realisation that i’m more of a European Mountain Runner than a fell runner is quite sad. With over a mile on the flat into the finish I was confident that if needed i’d have some speed in the legs to get me out of trouble.
“That’s pretty much how the race panned out, I felt strong on the climbs and managed to build quite a big lead by the top of the first climb. I relaxed on the descents so that I wouldn’t kill the legs and worked the next couple of climbs. It was on the final descent I started to feel the presence of Vic Wilkinson, it was a pretty steep descent and my main aim was just to get down to the bottom in one piece.
Vic chasing Emma at the Inter Counties
“Approaching the last stile with 50m of the descent to go Vic came flying past and I thought for a minute i’d lost it. I steadied myself on the flat approach, almost to make sure my legs were still there but then kicked on a managed to take Vic and open up a small gap.
“Hopefully the legs will recover quick enough before the big one next week, where by all accounts the field will be stacked”.
Race results are here, with a great little race video via athletics here and some excellent images here and via Woodentops here.
