What is fell running to you?

This is one of Stolly's 'I just want to convince everyone that I don't take it too seriously' threads. Anyway in answer to the question I'd say fell running to me is Whooping (with a capital W) Al Fowler in the Auld Lang Syne race a few years back.:)

It has provided me with no end of entertainment since. Just hope he doesn't get his own back, I'd never live it down even though I might be 60 by then.

I use to play squash but I had to give it up because my back could not handle it, I was devastated. I started running (on roads) and done the Blackpool marathon, just training on my own. After that I was so sick or road running that I decided I needed to find something different. I found Pennine Fell Runners though Google and the rest is history. I will never be competitive but I just love the whole environment!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Al Fowler

"Im going up Winter Hill.Yes, in the dark".

---

For me in Stockport it is going up to Cobden Cross in the dark, all my non-running friends think I am completely mad

In fact that should be another thread, What have "Non fell running friends said to you?"

I haven't raced tons but do want to do more this year so long as I don't lose my race mojo. I've lived in Hathersage all my life, so surrounded by hills & yet until I started walking & then running, there was so much I hadn't seen. Still discovering new places 2 years on...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry

In fact that should be another thread, What have "Non fell running friends said to you?"

---

Most of my non-running friends are climbers. They're in no position to say anything!

ha ha ha...brilliant! Nope you aren't the only one, I have to say that cafes and tea shops play a large part in my fell running adventures and I don't turn down the odd bottle of wine that I sometimes win via the very generous Esk Valley Series races. I spend at least some part of the run dreaming of the food that I'll consume at the end and I also love the fact that when I am running regularly, I never have to think seriously about calories and dieting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jellybabyfairy

I am I the only one in this sport for the beer and cake?

The logic that leads me to fell running is:
1. I want to eat beer and cake
2. I don't want to be fat.
3. I hate swimming as it is the most boring antisocial godforsaken sport in the world
4. I want to spend as little of my potential beer and cake money as possible on my exercise
5. I do not want to breath in fumes or be shouted at by men in vans while running, and I live next to beautiful moors
6. If I enter fell races or go on club runs, I often get beer and cake.

Simple.

---

Ha ha! Yup. Today i had a big Sunday roast for tea. An hour later i cobbled the leftovers together for an even bigger one... Peeling peckish now..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by christopher leigh

This is one of Stolly's 'I just want to convince everyone that I don't take it too seriously' threads

---

Well I don't take it too seriously.... unlike some ;)

I think 'wilderness' is a state of mind in some ways. You an find 'wild' things anywhere if you look hard enough. Get right down and look at the bugs crawling through the long grass, it's like a massive forest to them and quite absorbing to watch. Well, if you've nowt better to do...:o
I can be out on Ilkley moor which doesn't really count as 'wilderness', but it can feel wild and free at times, with just me and my dog plodding through the mist and drizzle, watching for the well known landmarks of our usual routes to loom up out of the gloom.
I would like to do more racing, but I've got to lose a few pounds first, and get better at going up hills. And down them. Oh, and quicker on the flattish bits, too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by plodding bear

I think 'wilderness' is a state of mind in some ways. You an find 'wild' things anywhere if you look hard enough. Get right down and look at the bugs crawling through the long grass, it's like a massive forest to them and quite absorbing to watch. Well, if you've nowt better to do...:o
I can be out on Ilkley moor which doesn't really count as 'wilderness', but it can feel wild and free at times, with just me and my dog plodding through the mist and drizzle, watching for the well known landmarks of our usual routes to loom up out of the gloom.

---

Well said PB. I only used the term wilderness because it better describes the kind of places I like running - its not just the hills; valleys make for good wilderness too and moors and forests and pretty much any place where you can feel off the beaten track. Wilderness though is all the more real when you're out on your own miles from anywhere in a blizzard or horizontal rain, even if you're only 4 miles from Horton in Ribblesdale. And in anybody's book running/bog wollowing across Howden Edge or Featherbed Moss at 4 in the morning in winter, or even going up Whernside from Kingsdale in a blizzard last weekend, is about as wilderness as you can get :)