While I was still living in Burton, because I was fairly local to it, I knew all about the famous Three Peaks Race. This 23 mile fell race is also known as the marathon with mountains thrown in. It is run in unbelievable times. For example in 2018 the winner came home in 2hrs 49 minutes, which would be an excellent time for an ordinary marathon run on the flat with good surfaces. Can you imagine the extra challenge of having to climb and descend three extremely rugged mountains while you are doing your run? The three peaks in question are those of Inglebourgh, Whernside and Pen-y-Ghent, all in the North Yorkshire Dales National Park. While it is a much shorter challenge than was the Four Peaks, speeds are that much higher. It is, indeed, a very tough challenge.

The 3 Peaks Race has undergone various changes since it started in the mid 1950’s and even since I attempted it in the 60’s. The course had been made more difficult and even the start point has changed. When I attempted it, we started just outside the small town of Ingleton. It was at the height of my interest in the Fells and I decided to go across to Ingleton to test myself against real Fell runners. I didn’t officially enter because I didn’t actually consider myself to be a Fell Runner. I was more of a mountaineer who just enjoyed going fast up mountains. I thought if I started a few minutes after the race had begun, I wouldn’t interfere with anyone and, as company, I took my dog, Beannie, an English Setter, with me. I was not dressed for fell running. Indeed, I didn’t want to appear to be one of the competitors and I looked like any other spectator.

As planned, a few minutes after the fell runners shot off, I began walking towards Ingleborough. No one was near me when I began my ascent so,
making sure Beannie was keeping up, I put my head down and began climbing. I quickly began reeling back the tail-end fell runners and by the time I reached the summit I was well and truly among them. I tapped the check point and started down again. I had probably descended halfway down when I became aware that Beannie was no longer with me. Indeed, she was nowhere in sight. I called and whistled but to no avail and all the time the runners I had overtaken ran past. Eventually, I was alone on the hill but still with no sign of Beannie. I was forced to return to where I had least seen her, which was at the check point on the summit. And there she was, crouching next to the summit cairn, frightened and completely lost. She had somehow lost sight of me when I had closed with all the fell runners and hadn’t spotted me beginning the descent. That was my first and last attempt at Fell Running. The truth was, my speed of ascent was not matched by my speed of descent. I would never have made a true fell runner.

The Guides Race, Grassmere

Around about that time, I attended the Grassmere Sports with my family, this time purely as a spectator. The Sports are great fun and as well as running events There are all sorts of other events including tug’0’war, wresting and many other challenges. I was particularly interested in the so-called Senior Guides Race as well as the Hound Trail.

The Guides race starts in the games field just outside Grassmere village. It then goes across a road into a field opposite before beginning the steep ascent up the 800 feet Butter Crags to a check point at the top before returning to finish in the games field. The entire race is in clear view of the spectators in the field and is quite a spectacle.

The race, which is 1.6 miles long with 800 feet of climbing, takes a mere 13 minutes to complete. It takes the best competitors just 11 minutes to reach the check point and only a further, hardly believable, 2 minutes to return to the field below. To see the men running down that steep slope taking huge strides and bounding over rocks is astonishing. Many fall heavily and painfully having made a slight misjudgment. I would not have disgraced myself on the ascent, but I would have been completely outclassed on the descent.

The Grassmere Hound Trail

Hound trailing is a sport peculiar to the Lake District. The dogs seem to be a cross between English Pointers and Fox Hounds and are incredibly fit. You see them being walked for hours along roads by their owners who feed them better than they might feed their families. Nothing is too good for those dogs. They even shave most of the hairs off the dogs to help keep them cool while they are racing.

A trail of a mixture of paraffin and aniseed is laid over a distance between 5 and 10 miles of rough, difficult terrain including all types of obstacles including gates, walls and streams. The dogs complete the course in between 15 and 30 minutes depending on the distance. It is a special sight to see the dogs streaming across the side of a fell at high speed. They run regardless of danger and often arrive back quite badly bruised and cut. Well worth seeing if you ever have the opportunity.

Bernard Gallivan

February 2019