Marco, Do you fell race? Though some of your points are relevant you are becoming a bit dominant in this debate??
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Marco, Do you fell race? Though some of your points are relevant you are becoming a bit dominant in this debate??
Marco it's very generous of you to reference me in your last post...!
However, there is a slight inaccuracy.... i was never a "club runner" before joining the wacky world of fellracing (although i was already sub-40 for 10km on the road, so could be termed as a "vaguely reasonable runner!")
I actually joined Dark Peak around the time i entered my first fell race. But eventually came to realise that i needed to join a local club in order to improve and progress... hence transferring to Cov Godiva and becoming a "club runner" a good 18 months after i started fellracing.
I would say that my entry into fellrunning/racing was through my fellwalking background rather than athletics.
Sorry to pick you up on that minor point... :D
And i am just about to edit my location to reflect my "dual nationality..."
I seem to remember Marco explaining that his body would no longer tolerate being abused by fell-racing; and there are others in that situation on this Forum (Wheeze, and now IanDarkpeak, and I'm wondering how long I will last). But the Forum should be for anyone interested in the sport, even if they are unable to participate.
Actually, I am more surprised by Moley's confession that he is no longer a FRA member. I ran no FRA races between 1996 and 2013 inclusive, but still retained my FRA membership as a token of my continued interest in the sport.
It all sounds very serious and unfathomable to me.
I think it's time for a totally new forum.
I'm not gone yet and won't be until kicked out one day if things change. I'm a member of other forums (not running related) which are all clubs and closed to non members, it is no big deal. I was an FRA member for many, many years but just a few years back decided I was getting nothing much from it, I barely race and found the magazine had little in it for me, so I stopped.
I still consider myself a fell runner, though jogging and walking is more accurate now and I enjoy my time alone on the hills of Wales as much as I ever did; love it, but don't need to be an FRA member anymore to appreciate those things.
When I go, I go, I would miss the forum but plenty of Emperors with new cloths to fill my space.
You'll probably find that the vast majority of the 8000 couldn't give a hoot about a forum, new or otherwise. Not sure that means it should just be binned off though.
There also seems to be a bit of a contradiction to me, of asking everybody on the forum to be an FRA member, but yet wanting to encourage potential new fellrunners to visit the forum... if they can't access all the info then what incentive is there for them to even consider looking at the forum?
The "two-tier" option of needing to be an FRA member to access the full forum is an option... but i'm not sure this is going to be much incentive to new runners to either join the FRA or the forum.
Not to mention people like Molehill who are great contributors, yet for a variety of valid reasons (be they personal, political, whatever) chose not to be an FRA member.
Mostly Agree Graham. except 4, We should be welcoming to any one. I could live with 2 tier system though
We could start (if there isn't already one ) a carshare thread..makes sense to me.
The mentor idea did happen. We used to have forumite meets where you could share knowledge of routes, I remember offering to show some of my line on the Edale Skyline, I think 20+ runners and 2 dogs turned up. We did an epic HPM in winter..there was the Forumite xmas in the fells(thread), Many a BG reccie was organised, DazH,Marvin,Amex,Stanners,Sweep,Manhar,Mrs Stagger,EmmyLou,The navigator,Merrylegs,Big Compass+ a cast of thousands etc all became friends, I've run mountain and hill courses for years. With the FRA and from my own company.
Open to all but with restrictions is I think the logical way to go..
I met a few forumites over the years, purely through this forum and have stayed friends with them. Dominion came and stayed at our house once for a mountain biking event - he drank all my best wine in an evening 🍷, god knows how he rode the next day.
Many a friendship was forged on here and I hope many more are with future generations of fell runners.