Yes Timmo. I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timo Austino
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Yes Timmo. I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timo Austino
I'm not sure why you think i might be dishonest but the answers are yes and no. I also care about safety, both mine and everyone else's. Whenever i go for a run or walk in the hills i take a mobile with me and if a race organiser insisted i took one in a race i would have no problem with that. If the technology is there why not use it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dux de lux
I dont see what the objection is. You put the mobile in your bum bag and hopefully wont see it again until after you finished. On the other hand if you get in trouble or find someone else in trouble you have it to hand. Imagine if you came across someone who desperately needed help and you had no way to contact the emergency services. How would you feel if the time wasted going for help cost someone there life.
As for the rubbish about not getting a signal in some areas, you have a better chance than if you left the mobile back in the car.
Well, the extent of the reasoning Andy has shared with us is that:Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Head
A number of other people have questioned the extent that this is relevant or appropriate to a fell-race.Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyJ
I'd be more impressed by that argument if you also carried a full first-aid kit at all times. Arguably that would be more handy than a mobile phone?Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Head
I think the first worm, from a very large can, has just escaped.Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Head
Bet Pete bland's are just tying up their first contract with a service provider. The van will look great with an satalite dish strapped to the roof!!
I believe Timo turned back at Ringing Roger last year because he had forgotten his mobile phone.:D
I don't know what the excuse was for those who followed him!:rolleyes:
Mr Head, I think the issue that people have with your reasoning is simple. Today, it is mobile phones. Tomorrow it may be be GPS devices. The next day, a personal survival pack including automatic distress beacon, one man auto-erect survival cocoon, 24 hour ration pack etc etc. It is called drawing a line in the sand between what represents safe completion of a race and too much responsibility being taken from the hands of the competitor and placing it in the lap of the organiser. However well-intentioned the Edale edict may be, it could be the start of a slippery slope that makes it impossible for organisers and competitors in the future.
I wasnt out to impress you mate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mud
I was with a close friend when he passed away a couple of years ago and still get flash backs about the events that night. The one thing that has kept me sane is the knowledge that we did everything we could have done to help him. I hope the people posting flippant comments on here are never in a similiar situation
I don't have a personal mobile, never have owned one. So I couldn't run the event even if I wanted to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Head
But be a bugger if it was a championship race and I was in contention, wonder if top fell runners could get sponsorship from mobile phone companies. or perhaps the FRA could supply 'pool phones' to their top athletes :D.
(I have a mobile provided by my employers, which is not meant for personal use).
Well put Wheeze.
Which flippancy would that be?Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Head
Other than Swoop's which is funny.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
Whoops, think I just made one :o
Can't be arsed to check the whole thread but there are four on the first pageQuote:
Originally Posted by Chris
I thought the 2nd was quite good.
Yes, quite.Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Head
The point is you can get help much quicker in an emegency, If you carry a first aid kit you would be able to deal with a bumb or a cut etc, but what would a first aid kit do for a broken leg/trauma, hypothermia or a heart attack etc If you were missing it would give the MR/police a smaller search area there by getting to a location quickly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mud
It would also reduce the time on the hill looking for the missing runner who didn't report back in when retiring.
if you wanted to carry an 'extra' piece of kit that would make a difference try a foil survival BAG. small, light and could make a difference
Quote:
Originally Posted by molehill
Molehill surely your company would allow you to use the phone in an emergency.
Can I add that we all enjoy the hills in our own way and that there has been some useful debate on both so called 'sides'. Some I agree with and some not, but using expletives doesn't further either cause and certainly to me devalues that persons argument.
Merry Christmas Every one, and if you get a new phone for Christmas may I suggest you lend it to some one who would really like to do the Skyline after all this is what we really want, isn't it...?
Well said Ian. I would say that is an appropriate way to bring this thread to a close
Oh no it's not!Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Head
How Christmassy is that...?
Look if I really wanted to make fell running safe, wouldn't it be better to take the prevention is better than cure approach and stop fell runners running down hill, unless they are on a non-rocky, non-slippy, not too steep a path and have a safety harness attached to the trig point. Runs on open fell should be banned as the ground is far too dangerous.
The weather and the terrain and the race distance and the fitness of each runner have a huge impact on safety - a mobile on the other hand might help out on just a very, very limited number of occasions.
I'm sure the word.... overkill..???
must have been used already on this thread!!!
If not here it is "overkill"...
As a race organiser/runner,
(like many who air their views, in this place?),
I do have some sympathy... for the thoughts & aims & sentiments..
But, really this is just too much :confused: ?
(Advisory, perhaps? ...... Compulsory.... I don't think so:( )
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timo Austino
All competitors will be required to text the race officials from the summit to let them know that they have arrived safely and are on their way down;)
Richard, I am truly sorry to hear about your friend but that doesn't alter the wider issue here. In 1999 I fell over 100 feet from Sharp Edge and suffered multiple injuries. The most life-threatening of these was internal bleeding in the chest cavity (haemo-thorax?). A walker on the ridge called mountain rescue on their mobile phone and thus probably saved my life (I had almost a litre of blood in the thorax when I arrived by helicopter at the Carlisle hospital - a very-nearly fatal amount). Despite this I'm STILL opposed to the compulsory carrying of mobiles in fell races!Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Head
Adventure, self-sufficiency and an element of risk are central to this sport. Anyone (especially those who work in safety circles) knows that the very top of the hierarchy of risk control is elimination. So, if you want to get rid of the risk don't go out in the hills! Obviously, in our sport a balance has to be struck but I think the word used by Luv Shack is a good one - OVERKILL!
Agreed but carrying a phone won't stop any of that. Only the response time to help will improve if it all goes pear shaped.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trundler
I used to race dingies to high level and in a big wind this was very scary, but there were safety boats about. But it didn't detract from the potential danger of risk.
I'm sorry to hear about any accident but my wife has just asked what would your family think if there hadn't been a phone nearby after your incident. It's not just our lives it effects.
Of course that's true, and a lot of lives have undoubtedly been ruined by a loved one getting involved in something risky and subsequently being killed, but we cannot eliminate risk from life, we have to strike a balance.Quote:
Originally Posted by IanDarkpeak
Risk sports have been growing in popularity ever since the victorians discovered the thrill of fear and I think they are set to continue, despite the nannying of the Health & Safety state (of which I am a part). There is however a huge difference between being expected to take a risk as part of your employment and doing it, calculatedly, as part of your leisure activities.
You are actually MUCH more likely to be killed driving to work than you are running in a fell race but our families accept this risk as somehow justified or inescapable, when in actual fact it is those kind of risks we should be trying to eliminate from our lives - not the trivial risk of running in the Edale Skyline race!
And I apologise for this being a heavy subject for Christmas Eve :o ... I'm off for a pint (carefully) :p
after a few G&T's, a bottle of Red and some port.
I totally agree, threres no value to life with out the risk of death, and if you've ever seen the scene in Forest gump when they go out in to the hurricane in there boat then thats what I was like in my dinghy-come on bring it on:pQuote:
Originally Posted by Trundler
I still like to get gripped on an ice climb or on a big hill,but then I'm only responsible for me and maybe my crew/rope buddy not 500 runners.
Got to go now I can hear santa's sleigh on the roof and if i don't go to sleep he won't deliver. merry chrismas. ian
( First ever post - welcome all !)
It seems to me that making a mobile compulsory on fell races is completely against the spirit of self reliance that makes ours such a light-touch sport for individualists. If this goes unchecked, then they could become a standard item in kit checks and our sport would be the poorer for it. If you've ever talked to someone lost on the moors who haven't a clue where they are (in the unlikely event of a signal), you get some idea of the limitations of mobiles and an understanding of what 'false sense of security' means in practise!
As a long serving mountain rescue member I've noticed a growing trend where people who would once have got themselves out of situations (like being simply lost, in good weather) now rely on mobiles to call for help.
This situation looks like a knee jerk reaction to last year's extreme weather on the 'Skyline race , perhaps a better 'safety ' solution would be to alter races to suit the conditions eg bad weather alternative/ shortened courses.
Great first post Peateater!
Managed to sum up the nubbins of this thread very well.
Advisory yes. Compulsory no. Clear message there I think.
If anyone hasn't got a mobile why not wait until the mobile library comes round next week and borrow one?
Wonder if anyone dresses up as a phone at Rawtenstall tommoz?
:) A few years ago (maybe before the M60 became a full loop of Manchester), my wife rang me on one of her hugely dangerous solo car trips to John Lewis in Cheadle - she'd got onto 'a motorway' and hadn't a clue where she was, what direction she was travelling in and where she was going. I didn't have a clue how to help her either and really couldn't understand her garbled descriptions of where she'd gone, having left John Lewis (yes she'd got there okay, presumably guided by some kind of shopping homing beacon). She made it back eventually but no thanks to the mobile.Quote:
Originally Posted by peateater
FRA rules clearly state that in addition to stipulated mandatory kit, the organiser has the power to request runners to carry additional items as he deems fit.
I'm organising a couple of races next year where I will insist you all carry a fruit flan.
We will be kit checking at the start and finish.
SM
:D
Any particular flavour? :D
The future's bright........
;) ;)
Does this come under 9 (e) "emergency food (long races)" ?
The future's GRAVYQuote:
Originally Posted by stringman
Gravy flavoured fruit flan??? Eurghhh!!!!
They'd buy 'em in Yorkshire ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by dominion
To anyone who may be interested, as the organiser of the Don Morrison Memorial Edale Skyline Fell Race with Chris Barber for many years and as this is an open forum I can say (within reason) what I like.
This has bugger all to do with me and Chris and I think it is effin' ridiculous :mad:
Now, how do I change my username?
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Well speaking as the other organiser of last year's Edale Skyline and having watched this thread with some amusement, I think, hell, what's the big issue! If Andy wants us to carry one then that's fine by me and it ain't no big deal really. I would add that I had a few soiled undergarment moments during last year's race and genuinely thought that we had "lost" (in the fatal sense) one person. A mobile phone number may have helped alleviate the threat to the state of my undergarments and would have given the MR team somewhere to look. Fortunately they had the good sense to head of the hills into the valley but took some time to reach the nearest marshall. Also in the race two years ago, we lost 2 people for 3 hours after their expected finishing time and it was only when they found someone with a mobile near Hayfield (yes, I know...) that we were able to call off the MR team, they were pretty experienced fell runners who had a "headless chicken" moment in the clag after Jacob's Ladder, so it can happen to the best (and I could give numerous examples of when in DPFR, it has. We award the "Pertex Trophy" each year for this and it's always keenly contested!)
Just run the bloody thing and don't worry about "progress" and fair play to you Andy.
I got away with carrying a bramley apple pie at Giant's Tooth on New Year's Day.Quote:
Originally Posted by stringman
It was in a bit of a sorry state by the finish!:D
Its a perfectly reasonable request. Just omit the word 'compulsory' and non of this would have happened. It's been an important debate.
I agree Wheeze.
None of the arguments about how mobile phones would have helped in this or that situation or how many "near misses" there were last year alters the fact that a precedent is being set here and it's a precedent that has the potential to alter the nature of our sport in an important way. It's such a big issue that it NEEDs debating.