Hi everyone
Time for another piece of typical Shropshire brutality on the English Champs... Just a heads up that we have changed the date from Sunday 26th to Saturday 25th in response to comments that were passed to our contingent at the dinner. I hope this proves to be more convenient than the Sunday for those of you travelling some way.
Just to clarify for everyone, the race will be run twice next year. Once on its normal date (likely the first Sunday in February - awaiting confirmation from the RO for that race who is away at the mo) and once as a Championship race (which is what this thread is about).
The last running of the LMV as a Championship race was back in 2011 or 2012 IIRC. You need to be aware that the course has changed somewhat since them - notably most now take a different route out of Ashes Hollow and there are changes to the checkpoints on the way back in over the big hills. The new route has now been run three times. If you are a map hoarding type, I suggest you chuck the map you had last time and invest in the new Harvey map available from Pete Blands. This has a suggested line (not probably the best though) and a route description which gives details of some of the options.
By all means come and have a reccie, but PLEASE stay off any areas where you could cause significant erosion - I'll post a map showing these and alternate routes for reccies when entries open on 9th January. The boggy areas in the bottoms of side valleys and shallow re-entrants are particularly biodiverse - please avoid these. The "normal" route does not cross any of these areas - there's a good trod in most cases which is to one side or other of the wet areas and is faster anyway.
For those who haven't done the race before it's basically a two trick pony. There's a nice runnable fell race which is about seven miles long - wise runners treat this as the warm up. Then, at the "start line" at the bottom of Minton Batch it turns into something hideous. From here on in there is no level ground whatsoever. You're four miles and four climbs from home and it's going to take you pretty much the same time as the first seven miles. Think what the Six Summits would be like with heavy legs and potentially in crappy conditions. When it was last a champs race I passed a bloke on the last climb who was having a bit of a sit down. And a cry. On the new route that last climb is considerably worse than it was on the old route. You have been warned.
The last running of the old route was on a day of high winds with heavy rain in the valleys which fell as wet sleety snow on the hill tops. Many runners were chilled by the time they finished, and hypothermic minutes after they had stopped. We have since taken some measures to limit this, but, as the race could be subject to this weather again, we will be providing a bag drop close to the finish and somewhere to change out of wet clothes. In addition I suggest you refer to Ben Mounsey's blog on last year's Lee Mill Relays. If you're getting cold, stop and put some extra kit on, even if you're racing at the front.
There will therefore be an entry requirement of having completed at least one comparable category AM or AL race in the last three years, or evidence of a similar or greater level of experience. This data will be collected via SI and we will carry out some spot checks of the claimed experience.
The entry cost is a bit higher than we would have liked, but we have to cover the cost of SI providing dibber timing with a relay of the data from two checkpoints to enable us to track runners round the course in real time so we can identify any potential issues early, and also to cover additional infrastructure (e.g. the bag drop, changing facilities, parking etc.)
Anyway I hope this is a good taster and a prompt to add the race map to your next Pete Bland order: we look forward to receiving your entry and seeing you in March.
Jim
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Originally Posted by noel
