From Rachel Carter…
The Kentmere Horseshoe, a FRA championship counter, was dedicated to Pete Bland this year (in honour of his dedication to fell running and specifically to being race organiser of this race for many years). It sold out with 600 entrants and was attended by lots of key figures of the sport. Despite COVID, the registration field felt pleasantly back to normal on a warm, dry day with runners milling about before and afterwards. After a few words from Pete’s family, plenty of applause and three cheers, the race was underway – women at noon, followed by the men 15 mins later. The race is a (long) AM category – 12.3 miles and 3300 ft of climbing (and descending!).
I ran intending to ‘get round’ in one piece, which I did. My lack of descending skill was blatantly highlighted amongst the experienced fell runners in this race, plus I found it hard to race when I didn’t really know what was left in terms of terrain, ascent and descent (i.e. a recce would have helped!). It was a beautiful day, but I barely looked up for fear of tripping (I did see Haweswater and Windermere) – unlike Peter who stopped to indulge in the view and take a photo or two.
The course record was broken for both the men’s race (Jacob Adkin) and the women’s race – with Hannah Horsburgh of Keswick AC taking an amazing 11mins off to finish in 1:29:30!
A few Harriers made the journey up the A65 (including Geoff Howard supporting), with Dan and Nathan both on excellent form.
From Peter Shelley…
After 18 months without racing, other than local virtual ‘races’ and a socially-distanced Ilkley Incline, I felt ready for a fell race, in so far as that is ever possible, and decided it should be Kentmere. I had mountain biked through Kentmere village and over the Garburn Pass and thought it was a beautiful area worth revisiting. The race seemed to offer a slightly better pleasure-to-pain ratio than Wasdale or Langdale Horseshoes, is a bit shorter and in a reasonably accessible part of the Lakes. I was pleased to see that a number of other Ilkley Harriers had had the same idea, and travelled over with Rachel and Jon.
After a nice chat in the car on the way, we would have settled for a picnic in the field by the Church, but no, 19km and 1,000m of ascent awaited, preceded by the usual kit dilemma: what to wear, what to carry, would wind chill be a problem, or sunburn, or both? Take the jam sandwiches and save the peanut butter sandwiches for later, or vice versa? As part of the 2021 English Fell Running Championship, the race had reached its 600-competitor limit in advance. On the day, only 478 turned up due I suspect to a combination of pan- and pingdemic.
Competitors were split into women and men with 15 minutes between starts. Despite this there was still a bottleneck as runners turned off the bridleway from the village and onto the single track beneath Buck Crag. Here it was a case of single file only apart from those suffering early race enthusiasm who took on the surrounding bracken and lost.
At this stage, the slower pace was no bad thing as most of the race ascent ensued over the next 9k to High Street, interrupted only by a short tricky descent off Ill Bell, which marked the first of three control peaks where runners had to ‘dib’. The endless climbing, including a fair bit of walking, left plenty of time for the inner monologue ‘Why are you doing this when it’s so horrible? You are too old/confused/unfit. You should stick to shorter races/longer races/flatter races/cycling/knitting’ etc.
The views from 800m were fantastic, and at one point the tourist in me overcame the racer and I stopped to take some photographs of the Kentmere reservoir and valley below. I now wish I had taken some at Nan Bield pass as well, which offered great views east to Haweswater and west to Kentmere.
Most of the second half is descent, much of it on runnable grassy slopes with the odd rocky or muddy surprise. I slipped a couple of times, avoided falling, but in the last 2km got cramp in my left calf and tried a variety of unorthodox running techniques to try and get to the finish. I finished 10 minutes within my estimated time of 2hrs 20m for a profoundly average result of 269/478 overall and 21/41 V50, held back I believe by carrying all the mandatory FRA kit which I never needed, a particularly heavy mobile phone which I used to take photographs that wasted further time, and additional time spent searching for a sandwich in my backpack which I later discovered was in my car. There may have been other impediments I have yet to remember.
Some great performances by younger Ilkley Harriers:
Results: Here
(1. Jacob Adkin, Keswick AC, 1:20:22)
20. Dan Dry 1:32:59
26. Nathan Edmondson 1:35:28
100. Jonathan Denniss 1:49:53
185. Paul Howard 2:01:55
243. Rachel Carter 2:07:51 (36th female, 4th FV45)
269. Peter Shelley 2:10.19
478 finished.