Three Peaks Fell Race

With a wild bunch of Fifers ( really pretty nice actually) I travelled to Yorkshire for the grandly named World Mountain Running Long Distance Challenge held over the long established Three Peaks Race. What awaited most of us for the first time was 23 miles of trail, rocks, limestone pavement and 5300 feet of climbing up the peaks of Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough. For me it was the chance to run one of the classic fell races and the lure of being Westies World Champion if I was lucky enough to be the lone Westie, shame on you Gordon Robinson for spoiling my fun! Picturesque Dentdale was our home for the weekend and what a cracking area this is - rolling hills, drystane dykes everywhere and full of great pubs and tea shoppes. I behaved the night before, restricting myself to only 2 pints of the lovely local ale in The George and Dragon in Dent village. Topped up the next morning by a cooked breakfast it was off to Horton in Ribblesdale, where we were greeted by a very well organised event that had to cope with almost 800 runners and hangers-on. After trying to out-psyche the Russians and top Brits with our extensive warm-up routine of lounging around and gossiping away and, of course my tartan lycra shorts, Gordon, me and the few other Scots were off up the wee lanes and onto the hill for a 4 hr blur (well more a sort of trudge, plod, walk and gravity-assisted plunge) of blood, sweat and tears. The field split up quickly on the runnable climb up Pen-y-Ghent, where we had to be careful to avoid the mad leaders descending past us. We then had miles of track and trail leading to the famous Ribblehead railway viaduct, before a steep "on all fours" climb up to Whernside. A pretty tricky descent for a few miles led to the equally steep final climb to Ingleborough, where I spied Gordon a few minutes ahead of me at the summit. Trying to stay ahead of long-time rival Wendy Dodds, and maybe seeing if I could make up time on Gordon, I hared off (sort of) down the tricky descent taking about 40mins to the finish, ungraciously out-sprinting a lady just on the line. I was well please to take 4h 14m and finish in 320th place, easily in the top half of the field. Gordon was easily ahead of me, and in a fantastic performance fellow Scot Jethro Lennox of Shettleston Harriers was ahead of everyone.

1st Jethro Lennox (S.H.I.T.) 2:53:39

32nd Anna Pichrtova Czech Republic 03:14:43

295th Gordon Robinson 4h 10m 04s

320th John Donnelly 4h 14m 07s

754 starters 685 finishers

My photos

Race website

Grough race report

Posted by John Donnelly on Mon 28 Apr 2008 | 4 comments

Category news