21st UKA Fell and Hill Running Relay Championship -Sunday 18th October

A big thankyou and very very well done to those who represented the club at the 21st UKA Fell and Hill Running Relay Championship today.



Today saw one of the best performances by the club at the event in some years: Keswick AC ladies came away with medals for a super team performance to claim 3rd! -An amazing achievement for a club of our size up against some of the bigger fell running clubs from across England, Wales, Sotland and Northern Ireland, and a credit to team Captain Jo Gillyon and all the girls on the team.



Following our great run at the Ian Hodgson, the open men finished in a top 10 position again, competing in a high class British Championship field -the UKA relay is a prestigious event; Sale Harriers from Manchester brought a strong team along that included GB runner Gareth Raven who raced at the IAAF World Half-Marathon Championship last week (in a time of 66:51!), and Bingley a team that included former English and British Champions Robb Jebb, Ian Holmes and World Champion triathlete Alister Brownlee. The Keswick AC Open team's 3:48:16 (9th) saw us highest placed Lake District club behind Borrowdale Fell Runners who won the event, and is a performance to be extreemly proud of -one that is only achieved by all the lads on the team putting in a lot of hard work, and a lot of lads not on the team also running hard all year aswell. The relays are real fun too and it is such days that make it all worthwhile.

Keswick AC also fielded full MV40 and MV50 teams; the V40 team got off to a good start from Rob Wynne who ran some good lines around Blake Fell and Burnbank (after some exstensive recce sessions with myself) to take the team into 62nd place (from a total of 149 Open, women and Vet teams). Dave Prosser and Craig Smith had a flyer on leg 2 making up 20 places and handed over to Nick Ogden and Colin Valentine for the nav leg. The nav pair to had a super run gaining 11 places with the 39th fastest leg 3 time of the day. Secret weapon Dave Birch took over the the final leg and posted the 15th fastest leg 4 time of the day and 5th fastest V40 time to bring the team home 5th V40 and 25th overall. This was a great result in a competition that, as descibed above, included some very talented athletes from the best fell running clubs in Britain.

The MV50 competition is a new category introduced at this years event. 10 MV50 teams took part, 4 of the Keswick team were over 60 -V60 Dunc Overton posted 53:16 for leg 1 7th fatest V50 time, and handed over to Dave Spedding and Keith Loan for the 6.7m/2500' leg 2. Dave has been putting in a lot of cyling miles recently, and gave Keith a hard time on the big climbs. The pair arrived back at the showfield in a time of 1:34:24, with poor Keith head to toe in mud, looking like he had been dragged around the leg by his feet! By the time leg 3 pair Patric Gilchrist and Jim Downie set off low cloud and rain was falling. Despite the best laid plans the pair who had somewhat reluctantly agreed to undertake the navigation leg a few days earlier were one of 4 teams that struggle to locate CP 5 in the mist and rain yet this didn't stop them from returning to the showfield wet through but with smiles on their faces. Dave Owens (another who deserves a mention for his commitment in the last few weeks to recce the course) set off on leg 4 a man on a mission and returned to the showfield via the steep final descent from Knock Murton in a time of 52:23 which was the 2nd fastest V50 time of the day! Also the 12th fastest of all the V40 and V50 teams (from a total of 42).


A big thankyou to everyone involved in these teams for your enthusiasm to get involved both before and on the day, and to Pete and Pat Richards who provided excellent logistical support and moral boosting throughout.