The Trigger

I elected to give it a miss this year, as had XC on the saturday. Alas the XC was cancelled, and i woke up on sunday morning wishing i was out there...

I like the previous route round the edge of Kinder, but must say the new route across did look interesting.

The route across direct to Sandy Heys, then direct to Edale, was the original trigger route (no restrictions in route betwwn Marsden - Black Hill - High Shelf - Sandy Heys - Edale) route. I've never run it in that configuration though.
The edge makes it a bit of a different race, you can move quickly over it if you've paced well, and there's much less chance of getting lost. Of course in 2017 it was ankle deep slush and icy drifts every 50m and was purgatory.

Yes, 2017 was my slowest time by a long way. I vaguely recall the snow and general conditions on Bleaklow being really tough.

The winner has just put his route on Strava.

He was in second place at Higher Shelf Stones but in first place by Snake Summit.

His route clearly goes through the out of bounds area to the south of Higher Shelf Stones.

An obvious advantage gained.

The results are now on the FRA website...

https://races.fellrunner.org.uk/resu...5-f79242261020

So, uh… having not raced for quite a while and not being up tondate with all the ins and outs of rules… if there are other runners who also took the line from higher shelf through the out of bounds area, what happens?
Do they get disqualified? A telling off? Some other sanction?

Or is it merely that they took an unauthorised line and that’s the end of it as far as the race or the fra is concerned?
If so, that is pretty rubbish.
Im not all that bothered about places gained or lost, but am much more concerned about the potential permission issues that this kind of behaviour might raise.

Any thoughts on this?

I think Nicky and the officials at the Trigger race have been pretty hot in the past on dq'ing those who have broken the rules by using the road in Edale valley.

Ive found his strava, Ive not checked the exact out of bounds but i know it was to avoid erosion on the descent to the waterfall and along the fence path which he has avoided. He may have drifted south but the ground down there is rough and he climbed north from the dike to get back on track..thats definitely rough with extra climbing, I'll send it on to RO but knowing the ground I see no advantage. has any one checked strava of second place runner? not my decision, way above my pay grade..

So are we saying that if a runner gains no advantage from going through explicitly out of bounds areas then it's fine?
That seems remarkably inconsistent.

The perils of sharing Strava routes.