First Fell Run

I went for my first ever run up a fell last weekend and had a great time, despite giving myself the worst case of DOMS I've ever had. I ran from Grange in Borrowdale up to Hawes Gate, along Maiden Moor, Narrow Moor and High Spy before heading down the quarries underneath Dale Head, back behind Castle Crag and into Grange.

Unfortunately I live down in Essex, so the fell running's going to be an occasional thing, but hopefully with a bit of luck I might make it to a race later this year. Any advice on training or for a first race would be much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance,

Gaz Morris

Good on you Gaz, and welcome to the forum.

I'd offer advice, but at best I'm misguided and at worst downright stupid. Probably best you don't listen to me.

Have a peruse through the training sub forum, the search function can be quite handy. Especially if you go into 'advanced search' and set it to 'titles only'

Hey up Gaz!
I believe running may help with your training;) Good luck.

well done on your trip up the fells!
Sounds a lovely run. The obvious thing about training for a race is to run hills, and plenty of them. Not sure how you'll manage that in Essex, but good luck with it!

Welcome! Training specifically for the fells when you live on the flats is a bit of a challenge (I know, I currently live in the Vale of Aylesbury). If you're really intent, it probably means running up and down the same few hills a lot, which isn't the most exciting. If you can find some rough terrain as well, so much the better (not much of it here). Throw in some tempo and speed sessions, which is always good but I find even more important when not able to get out on the moors regularly.
As for a race, I'd say just choose an area you want to visit/will be visiting (Pennines, mid-Wales, wherever) and look at the calendar. Choose a BM or BS or anything C that takes your fancy. Look at a map, check the organiser's website/this forum for further info. and advice about its suitability and then give it a go. - If it's anything other than a Short category, do be sure you know how to use your map and compass, but I'm guessing from your description of your first run, that's not a problem.

Springfield Striders are, I believe, 'Essex's premier Fell Running club', seen them on weekend trips to races in the Peak District, Lakes and Long Mynd over the last few years, may be useful for finding likeminded people to share lifts with?

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Originally Posted by GazMorris

Any advice on training or for a first race would be much appreciated.

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Research the route.

I'd choose a race that captures your imagination and will get you out the door and take it from there. If that's a Cat A race then great (although some seem to be checking for experience these days so worth confirming).

I never train on 'felly' terrain so have the same issues as you, but I find that covering the same distance as the race you plan to do, on as undulating ground as you can find, generally does the trick. The pace will be faster at home over a shorter time, and gentler when you race over a longer time.

Hope that helps.

(Forgot to say, a recce is always useful to make sure you're not dependant on following and that you aren't slowed down on the day by having to think about navigating too much.)

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Originally Posted by ba-ba

Springfield Striders are, I believe, 'Essex's premier Fell Running club', seen them on weekend trips to races in the Peak District, Lakes and Long Mynd over the last few years, may be useful for finding likeminded people to share lifts with?

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Indeed, I had a chat to some essex chaps at the Cardington Cracker so you are not alone, Gaz.
I live and train in the midlands and so have to put up with what I've got nearby most of the time. Thankfully have a couple of small hills down the road so putting in loads of short hill reps with some longer runs over undulating terrain seems to do the trick.

You can build up fitness quite well on the flat. Shorter sharper reps will help a bit but to improve at the 40min lakeland climbs it's best to get out on longer ones. Either that or do a load of squats and walking up stairs...

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Originally Posted by ba-ba

Either that or do a load of squats and walking up stairs...

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Yep - working on the 8th floor has its advantages!

Thanks to all for your welcoming and helpful replies!

I (re)started running about a year ago at 37, having not run at all since I left school. Initially not terribly serious about it, I got convinced to run a half-marathon at the start of this year by an ultra-runner friend and quite enjoyed training for and running in it in a way that I never did when I ran cross country at school. I go on holiday to Borrowdale every Easter, and have visited there at least once every year since I was about 5, so with the newfound ability to run more than 100 yards without coughing my guts up it seemed an obvious next step to go run up a big hill and back down again. I've done quite a bit of hill walking and some winter mountaineering in Scotland and the Lakes, so I'm an OK-ish navigator with a map and compass, but could probably do with a bit more practice.

I run reasonably regularly at the moment, probably four times a week on average, with a few short runs in the week and a longer one at the weekends. Most of this is done on the flat, but there are some places nearby where I can find something a bit steeper and rougher to train on. I've also been trying to run more on public footpaths than on pavements/roads to avoid knackering knees and ankles. More generally I need to start upping my mileage from about 20 miles per week to something a bit more meaningful, but need to do this gradually.

On the race front, I'd really like to do the Borrowdale Fell Race at some point, having seen the start a couple of times as a kid and looked at the race results , but that's well out of my league for now! I'll see if I can find a BM or similar race at some point to recce first and then enter later in the year (summer is a busy time for me.)

Cheers!

Gaz

The more time spent on your feet running off-road the better and of course any hill is better than no hill when it comes to training.
My local ones are only around the 1000ft mark and the longest continous ascent you can do is probably only about 400ft. That said, with a load of reps on ascents from as little as 75-100ft you can easily clock up quite a total.

There's quite a few races in the autumn and early winter that would make a good first race. The Cardington Cracker springs to mind - deservedly popular but plenty of range in ability and navigation is not really an issue as its largely flagged anyway.

Where do you live Gaz? Springfield Striders are based in Chelmsford and travel most weeks to the hills. We even have the Welsh V50 Fell Champion in our club. ba-ba is right you need to practice on long hills which we obviously don't have but we have some good terrain for training and polishing your downhill technique.

I wouldn't get too hung up on practising the long climbs. It'd be ideal to be able to, but if you're in good shape with what you're doing then you'll manage the long climbs, and probably make up ground on the more gradual stuff that's more similar to what you train on.

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Originally Posted by L.F.F.

I wouldn't get too hung up on practising the long climbs. It'd be ideal to be able to, but if you're in good shape with what you're doing then you'll manage the long climbs, and probably make up ground on the more gradual stuff that's more similar to what you train on.

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I'd agree with that and of course any climbing is better than none. Over my small local hills, I can rack up 1500ft of climbing per hour if I put my mind to it albeit with no individual ascent more than 400ft. So for a long 2 hour run, that's quite comparable to a BM - well it is for us lesser mid-pack mortals anyway!

Thanks once again for the support folks.

I may have found the right run: I'm going to be spending much of late July and early August in and around Glasgow, and I've got Saturday 2nd August currently free which is the date of the Creag Dhubh hill race in Newtonmore. It's an AS race at just under 4 miles with plenty of fences, a road and a river crossing thrown in for good measure, which sounds like good fun.

I live just over the Essex border near Bishop's Stortford but travel around quite a bit for work, which gives me opportunities to run in different places but also makes joining a club difficult (I also have a young family.)

Cheers,

Gaz