Saturday 30th April Andy and I ran The Fellsman. It’s a beast of a race with 60 (ish) miles and 4,175 meters of climb across the Yorkshire Dales. 21:31, 92nd of 135.
This was my 3rd Fellsman and Andy’s 4th. Back in 2011 this was the race that Andy and I started together as friends, he’d never done a race this long before and I’d not recced it so we planned to help each other. 49 miles in when it was dark, I was tired but being fuelled by Andy’s fruit pastels he pulled me to the trig point on Buckden Pike and kissed me. I was hooked.
We started at 8:30 Saturday and I was soon struggling with the heat as it was so warm over the first three massive climbs which all come within the first 13 miles. We had a wonderful lift from seeing so many Pacers getting ready for the 3 Peaks racers along the route between Ingleborough and Whernside but then we headed west up Gargareth and then on towards Dent. The checkpoints on The Fellsman are well stocked and you don’t go for too many miles before the next one so I was topping up my water bottled frequently, I use Precision Hydration electrolyte drink mix and I was getting food including soup and pasta but I was carrying too much sweet stuff, which I was eating between checkpoints and I started to feel sick.
The day started to cool as we left Fleet Moss checkpoint we regretted not putting our waterproof trousers on so both stopped to do it, Andy has his on backwards so had to take them off again, I was grateful for the long zips to make it easy to get them on over our shoes. It was a new route from here down to Yockenthwaite on the road. The checkpoint self clip here was broken and other runners were still trying it. You have the famous Fellsman tally circle to clip on this but having trackers for the first time meant we didn’t waste time and kept moving. I was keen to make use of the last few rays of days light before we climbed up to Middle Tongue not knowing how easy it would be to find this checkpoint. We were lucky with seeing other runners torchers plus just going with the GPS line to find the tiny tent easily.
Visibility was tricky as night fell; I couldn’t see where I was putting my feet as the mists & rain bounced my head torch light back. Was it bog or solid ground? Andy was amazing with his navigation, we had GPS as back up but even that played up a few times turning us in circles! I really felt like dropping out at Cray checkpoint at 47 miles but I wanted to repeat that kiss so had to get up Buckden Pike. From there it was his love and navigation skills that meant we finished as always together but those last few miles were very slow and tough.
The Fellsman has been going for 60 years but is traditionally a walker’s route and you have 31 hours which is plenty of time to complete it as a runner. It’s organised by the scouts so safety is high on their list. They have a strict mandatory kit list and check everything in your rucksack before the start. It includes 5 long sleeved tops and an emergency hooded, foil hypothermia poncho, as well as 300g of emergency food which if eaten means they will pull you from the race! Not sure if they ever check this!! I can’t wait to be back on the start line next year if anyone wants to join us, kissing at gates is optional.
We took 21 hours 31 minutes, just 4 hours slower than we’d hoped for!! 204 started, we were 92nd and only 135 who finished. 315 entered but 71 didn’t start.
One week later and we were racing again at the Leeds half marathon!
Making lifes adventures - Sarah Norman 