Three Peaks Fell Race

Personally I don't understand the grading system at all. The A/B/C category seems to be used by people to indicate a tough race, one where safety gear is necessary, or that it's championship material - none of which are indicated by the amount of ascent / mile. Further, the S/M/L doesn't indicate how long the race is since it ignores ascent (e.g. some incredibly long Lake District AMs).
Personally I'd have rated races S/M/L according to Naismith - #miles + 1.5*thousands of feet ascent (very close to the old record time based system) - then used A/B/C to indicate severity/roughness/navigation involved/seriousness, with A=kit reqd, nav skills needed, or experience required, with C=any one can have a go.
Then 3 Peaks, The Ben, and Edale are all As... but so is (as should be) The Roaches by virtue of being held mid winter and needing kit!

That idea has merit Joe, but it would be extremely difficult to be objective about "seriousness". The weather (for instance) makes a huge difference!

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Originally Posted by Trundler

That idea has merit Joe, but it would be extremely difficult to be objective about "seriousness". The weather (for instance) makes a huge difference!

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There's hardly any objectivity in the current system is there ;)

I'm suggesting we don't worry about "must be Cat A to be a championship race", or "long cat As help you qualify for other races", or "this race must be better than that one 'cos it's an A".

I'm sure we'd need some guidelines, but roughly speaking "needs kit"=> A, "rough pathless terrain"=>A etc. If the race becomes serious in bad weather, and that's a likelihood => A.

Think about it, there are just too many contributing factors:

Distance
Climb
Descent
Steepness of climb
Steepness of descent
Terrain (in all its multitude of guises)
Weather on the day
Weather in the weeks leading up to the race
Time of year

When I ran the Edale Skyline route, admittedly without the first climb out of Edale, I found it a nice undulating route from an ascent and descent perspective, miles easier than the 3 peaks from that point of view. On the flip side though, the terrain was very hard going for two thirds of the circuit, miles tougher overall than that of the 3 peaks I'd say. Also with Edale you're running high for a long period of time so if the weather's bad, its going to be very, very bad.

They're both equally evil then ;)

How about atmosphere and excitement. Running or watching, Rivington is superb.
I'm sure there are some other such great races, not A rated or L. This is a BS and my favourite so far.
Still a lot to go at though.

Anything that's an 'S' is too painful to even think of running.

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Originally Posted by Stolly

Think about it, there are just too many contributing factors:

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I'm viewing A as a warning to entrants - obviously Edale is often a very serious race so would be an A. It doesn't matter if there's no hard line between As and Bs.

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Originally Posted by Witton Park

How about atmosphere and excitement. Running or watching, Rivington is superb.
I'm sure there are some other such great races, not A rated or L. This is a BS and my favourite so far.

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Agreed - the A/B/C rating has nothing to do with how good a race is, and shouldn't!

Given that the gradings are only supposed to be indicative who is this mythical figure from another planet who discovers there is an Edale Skyline race and its time and place and kit requirement but who doesn't know a single fell runner who can advise him and has never seen an FRA Calendar or read The Fellrunner etc etc?

This is becoming a "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" thread.

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Originally Posted by alias

Given that the gradings are only supposed to be indicative who is this mythical figure from another planet who discovers there is an Edale Skyline race and its time and place and kit requirement but who doesn't know a single fell runner who can advise him and has never seen an FRA Calendar or read The Fellrunner etc etc?

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:D I ran the 3 Peaks race three times before knowing a single other fell runner, having never before seen the FRA Calendar, having not joined the FRA, having never heard of this forum, having no idea of fell race grading systems or ever having read the Fellrunner.

I'm not from another planet but did 'beam' into Yorkshire from darkest Buckinghamshire in 1997.

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Originally Posted by Stolly

:D I ran the 3 Peaks race three times before knowing a single other fell runner, having never before seen the FRA Calendar, having not joined the FRA, having never heard of this forum, having no idea of fell race grading systems or ever having read the Fellrunner.

I'm not from another planet but did 'beam' into Yorkshire from darkest Buckinghamshire in 1997.

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Irrelevant.

And by the way with the Application Form you completed (and so did I in 1997) it made it abundantly clear to even someone from Buckinghamshire what the race entailed. It was spelled out in lots of words and not just a few letters like "AL" or "BL".