Safety Matters

[Derby Tup]

Haha. What?

If you mean me pulling out of the Fellsman the year before last, for what its worth my clothing and gear were spot on. In fact I was carrying more clothing than asked for by the race organisers and thats a race reknown for its extremely strict kit rules and kit checks. I also put on all my clothing well in advance of getting cold and, in any event, the main reason I pulled out was due to badly blurred vision. Yes I was mightily cold (even though I was wearing a helly, another running top, my windproof and my waterproof all on top of each other, leggings, thick gloves and a hat ) but I thought that the blurred vision was something to do with early hypothermia. After the event I found out that most of the runners were suffering blurred vision down to the the extremely strong winds that we'd been up against all day. I also pulled out because, at that stage circa 45 miles in, we were at the teaming up stage of the Fellsman and I didn't want to become a liability to any team of four that I joined.

Talk of using a completely wrong example to try and prove a point! Many runners actually made the wrong decision that day and chose to forge on in very bad states and actually jeopordised other runners in the process and contributed I'm sure to the whole event being cut short due to so many hypothermia cases.

It was mightily cold though. It was also 61 miles long and not a FRA race either, most of which are much much shorter in length.

Isn't the whole point of this safety thing to get some proper kit , carry it, and wear it? Folks who've done a bit shouldn't get cold on the hill, unless they're injured. If you're cold, or piss wet through then you've either got the wrong kit, or you're slower than you'd like to think you are