Fellsman

What a fantastic event.

I had a bad patch just before Dent - I really struggled in the head wind up to Great Coum and then my hip went on the run down to Dent but a cheese & onion roll, some beans and a couple of cups of tea seemed to perk me up. From there I just felt like I got stonger and was gutted to arrive at Park Rash to be told that we had to stop.

The organisers and checkpoint staff did a brilliant job of looking after everyone and making sure everyone was returned back to Threshfield safely.

Looks like I'll have to give it another go next year - knowing the British weather it will probably be red hot, with blazing sunshine and everyone will be retiring with heat and sun stoke!!!

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Originally Posted by Twinkletoes

Not sure about some of the times on the Felltrack link as it is showing me not getting to Fleetmoss until nearly 8pm, Igot there at 6.50 and got away before the grouping thing started...

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as stated at the top of the web page
"Times shown are not the entrant's arrival time but are the times that the information was input by the checkpoint."

the list can only really be used as a rough guide.

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Originally Posted by Stolly

The guys at Cray were brilliant by the way - they made a right fuss of me wrapping me in blankets and foil survival blankets and even gave me a hot water bottle. The race doctor happened to be there too and he gave me a good once over.

EDIT: Oh and well done Hes for completing her first (of many ;) ) Fellsman. Not just a normal Fellsman either but a Fellsman with nobs and a half on!

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Well done and good call Stolly, and of course top effort from Hes and all those who made it round or nearly made it round.
A bit shocked at the Hot water bottle!! not exactly the gold standard treatment for a hypothermic person.

Dry clothes, sleeping bag, shelter, warm sweet drink but NOT DIRECT HEAT TO THE BODY SURFACE! surprised the doc didn't take it away how ever well meaning it was. Part of the process of Hypothermia is to take your blood to the core to protect your vital organs(this is why H victims go white and lips go blue etc) applying direct heat will cause the warm blood from your core to come to your skin flooding your core with colder blood and can put you in to shock.

I'm sure forumite DATT won't mind me mentioning that after falling in a deep bog on bleaklow during a Tankys Trog Race he got very cold and like Stolly made the good call to pack it in. He got himself to the Snake Inn where he called for a lift. in the mean time a cold Datt sat in front of the roaring fire where according to the bar staff he went a very strange colour! and they ran out to the MR parked in the carpark, Luckily it had a paramedic and a doc on board who took him away from the fire and put him in a cas bag BUT he was close to S3 Hypothermia and they were on the verge of calling in an Air ambulance. Warm Slowly not quickly!

Good to hear you are ok Stolly :)

I've long thought that we ought to have a thread on treatment of Hypothermia. It's probably the biggest problem we can face in the mountains.

Good call there Ian... would be easy to make it a "Sticky" thread at the top general Fellrunning Issues?

To act as a reminder wouldn't hurt.

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Originally Posted by AlanB

Just picking up on this point from P161 of this thread - like AndyA I'm quite shocked about this comment. Do we not think that point 6c in the rules is there for a reason ??

"Failing to maintain compact groups ... will result in disqualification of the WHOLE group"

Yes, the conditions on Gt Whernside and Buckden Pike were desperate and yes, we all felt way too cold but that's no need to leave one member of the team 30+ minutes behind. Like AndyA I ran with a Petzl Tikka (mine was probably the brightest in our group !) and it was perfectly adequate.

I don't understand why they inforce the kit checks so rigorously when something like this is overlooked. Compact groups should be mandatory, sorry - it's for the safety of ALL competitors and not just those who have got some life in their legs.

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Why do you say this is overlooked? The rules are clear, they say that all group members should be in sight and sound of each other. We can't tell what happens between checkpoints, but we would disqualify all group members if this came to our attention, as the rules say.

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Originally Posted by Twinkletoes

Not sure about some of the times on the Felltrack link as it is showing me not getting to Fleetmoss until nearly 8pm, Igot there at 6.50 and got away before the grouping thing started...

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The times shown are the time that the scores message was input, not the time you actually arrived. This time is recorded on paper, but not transmitted unless we need to dig deeper. This system is for tracking purposes, not for results. Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by AlanB

Just picking up on this point from P161 of this thread - like AndyA I'm quite shocked about this comment. Do we not think that point 6c in the rules is there for a reason ??

"Failing to maintain compact groups ... will result in disqualification of the WHOLE group"

Yes, the conditions on Gt Whernside and Buckden Pike were desperate and yes, we all felt way too cold but that's no need to leave one member of the team 30+ minutes behind. Like AndyA I ran with a Petzl Tikka (mine was probably the brightest in our group !) and it was perfectly adequate.

I don't understand why they inforce the kit checks so rigorously when something like this is overlooked. Compact groups should be mandatory, sorry - it's for the safety of ALL competitors and not just those who have got some life in their legs.

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I actually had an Alpkit Gamma; it's still a cheap torch but better than a Tikka. It's absolutely fine for what I'd call 'handrail' navigation; plenty of walls and fences to follow. I wouldn't fancy my chances with a proper night O event, need something like a Vision2 for that stuff.

I agree that perhaps the purpose of the grouping needs to be reinforced, maybe each group needs a preworded briefing read to them when they are grouped. It only needs to be 20-30 seconds long but it needs to be delivered with force! I have heard of groups getting verbal warnings at checkpoints for being too spread out so the organisers are on the case.

Generally I was extremely impressed with the event, having never done it before. The big queue for kit check was a pain but after that everything was well organised and seemed to run pretty smoothly. The hot showers were superb, as was the hot brekkie!

I suspect that the (relatively) benign weather during the day caused the main problem. Runners tend to dress for the conditions at the start, not for the finish, plenty will have had inadequately thick layers for an exhausted walk through a 2deg+windchill night section. I don't think the date change makes any difference; two weeks is nothing and think what it was like in March, we would have needed sunblock!

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Originally Posted by Stolly

Oh and well done Hes for completing her first (of many ;) ) Fellsman. Not just a normal Fellsman either but a Fellsman with nobs and a half on!

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LOL, what's a normal Fellsman?

I thought that too and we arrived together. Mind you it makes us look superhuman in the time it took us to get to Cray! ;)

Edit: Just read the rest of the posts and can see why the times are different. Mind you, I think we still made it across to Cray in good time even though we set off an hour earlier! :)

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Originally Posted by Twinkletoes

Not sure about some of the times on the Felltrack link as it is showing me not getting to Fleetmoss until nearly 8pm, Igot there at 6.50 and got away before the grouping thing started...

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Originally Posted by protodoc

Bad luck Stolly, sensible decision though. Hopefully we can all learn from your report.

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Sensible decision retiring, but it sounds as if bad luck had nothing to do with it. More like poor pace judgment, poor food intake (which I wrote about earlier but was largely ignored), and poor kit management amongst others. By taking personal responsibility and managing these factors I did not suffer any of Stolly's hardships and completed the event.