Report by: Will Worboys

IT was a tale of two fell races last weekend for the Ilkley Harriers. There were big contrasts in terms of distance and setting, but each would certainly be described as challenging by the runners that took part.

The penultimate race in the men’s English fell championship took place on Sunday in the form of the Sedbergh Hills fell race. This punishing 14-mile clockwise tour of several peaks in the Northern Pennines includes over 6,000 ft of climbing. Ilkley’s Ben Rothery showed his versatility on the fells, again having an outstanding race and finishing 3rd. This ensured he maintained 2nd place in the overall standings. Unfortunately, however for Ben, Sunday’s winner was Billy Cartright of Matlock AC who also happens to be leading the current FRA standings.

There was only a minute and a half separating the first three finishers with Rothery coming home in a time of 2 hours 05:56. x

It promises to be a thrilling championship finale next month at Shelf Moor Derbyshire, with several athletes including Rothery still in with a chance of claiming this year’s title. Two other Harriers, Gavin Lamb and Paul Calderbank also completed the race, finishing 118th and 222nd respectively in a highly competitive field of 342 finishers.

Closer to home and a touch shorter than Sedbergh, the Burnsall Classic fell race took place in Upper Wharfedale on Saturday. The race is one of the oldest known fell races in the world with the earliest record of it having taken place being from 1903 and many legendary runners have participated over the years. Just 1.5 miles long in total but taking in a massive 899 feet of ascent, this race is one of the steepest, with the runners’ times reflecting the difficulty.

Ilkley’s metronomic Gawain Moore followed up his 10th place finish at Arncliffe last week to impressively finish 10th again this week. While Catherine Crawley braved the highly technical descent to finish 68th and was the 13th lady home.

Ilkley’s runners again graced the country’s parkruns with some fantastic performances. There were first place finishes for Beth Massey at Barnsley, David Foyston at Roberts Park and Yasmin Cunningham at the extremely challenging Whinlatter near Keswick. The Coy family dominated at Whitehaven with Steve and Gaenor both coming 5th in their gender category in addition to Nathan coming first. At Chevin Forest there were course PB’s for Lizzie Reilly and Fay Walsh with the latter being the 5th female finisher.

Meanwhile at Woodhouse Moor in Leeds, the highly promising youngster Jake Norris finished 3rd out of a field of 501 in a brilliant time of 18.17. In Cornwall two more up and coming Harriers, Harry and Max Stead both had superb runs at the Eden Project to finish 11th and 47th out of 547 participants. Finally, Andrew Smith was the pick of the performers at Skipton, slashing over a minute off his previous course best to finish in a time of 23.09.