New safety rules

[IanDarkpeak]

The "follow the number in front of you" mentality worries me too! I remember a langdale race in clag where people were coming in from all over the map , hours later, having followed the number in front of them into armageddon. Those are my kind of races, I can out navigate a lot more people than I can outrun.

I even took the time and trouble to explain in the car park to someone who had not yet done it how to navigate at sedbergh, explaining the critical part over the cols to checkpoint before the path up to the calf, even citing the key bearings and gave him a highlighted one page map. Yet who shall be nameless , followed a well known lady runner, straight up the wrong ridge to the calf one checkpoint to early , and retired failing to finish the route.

The problem with navigation in clag is , if you do not know where you are, working out what to do next can be a problem, and unless navigation is in the back of your mind at all times, you are not keeping tabs on where you are. That needs to be impressed on runners, keep checking the features you expect to see check off in your mind as you pass them, then at least you have some inkling on where you are , or were at the last known location.
More races run in pairs might be one partial answer to the safety concerns: they do it at county tops and on mountain marathons.

well said AI

We should all be able to get about most routes after the last edition of The Fellrunner Mag

But watch out, There should be no excuse after every one has read part 2 of my "navigation for fellrunners" appears in the next Edition. I give it 4 weeks for every one to go out and practice and then we should all be ok ....I wish

we've got a night race tomorrow. solo for competent navigators and pairs for those requiring some assistance.

[alwaysinjured]

'AI' could you clear some space in your inbox? I have a PM for you.

Done.

[Richard123]

Dave, your post sums up nicely the response I've been trying to formulate in my head for the past few days!



And I sincerely hope you get what you ask for. You've expressed a genuine and worrying concern and received some frankly shocking disdain in response. I think it's now time for a sensible mature response from those in the power, and I look forward to hearing one (though I might add that I'm loosing optimism that we'll get one).

Very well said Sam, sums up my view entirely. I think AI has raised some very valid concerns and it’s a shame these are not being more widely discussed.

[wjb]

If its over private land they're not

Ok but the majority of any given route will usually be on public land so say, for example, Ilkley Moor fell race was abandoned, could someone be disciplined for going for a run round the route anyway?

[IainR]

There should be no excuse after every one has read part 2 of my "navigation for fellrunners" appears in the next Edition. I give it 4 weeks for every one to go out and practice and then we should all be ok ....I wish
e.

Thats the main thing really.. people do a Nav course then think they can nav.. it then needs hours out in the hills just getting used to matching contours and landmarks, using a compass.. so its all second nature come a race.. most people don't ever practice.. run for 20 mins following people.. in no idea which way.. then get a map out under pressure in a race.. and have no chance of being able to relocate.. well thats what I do anyway.. :-)

[DrPatrickBarry]

Thats the main thing really.. people do a Nav course then think they can nav.. it then needs hours out in the hills just getting used to matching contours and landmarks, using a compass..

Due to a failed BG a couple of weeks ago I decided to make my own way from Wasdale back to Keswick via Sty Head, Angle Tarn, then north from there. I was very experienced in the mountains before starting a family - really comfortable with map/compass. I have had probably no more than 10 trips to the lakes in the last 13 years. (Daz's race last summer was my first lake district race) I could not believe how rusty I was on that trip to Keswick just simple things like relating contours to features on the ground was beyond me. I got to Keswick OK but most of the trip I had only a vague notion of where I was. Having a big target like Derwent Water to head towards helped

It is a case of if you don't use it you loose it.

[Stolly]

Pah! I work on the notion that the best way to get to know a particular stretch of hills is to get lost in them a few times first

[bigfella]

I think things have changed now.. you do get many incompetent runners.. many total novices.. its great more are getting into the sport but we've had a few there by the grace of god incidents.. Wendy Dodd was talking about one lakeland race where she found someone wanting to lie down, they were very cold, awful weather, they'd have been dead in minutes..

I was marshalling in the Elidir race in pretty shocking weather and I'd say 1/3rd of the field had no idea of the route.. nor had a map.. or couldn't have used it. It was a bit of an eye opener how much people think a race is a safe environment..

Statistically it is still low, and will remain that way but runners are putting more pressure on RO's.. so you can understand more rules and regulations.. I think their hand is somewhat forced there. As someone said it is down to runners to take responsibility for themselves, but unfortunately that isn't enough.

We've seen it on here, people will advise people to do races if they cant get around a route solo.. which is just staggeringly incompetent.

I do agree with Wheeze that fell running should have as few rules as possible, but unfortunately thats just not the way of the world anymore and its not enough.

So we create a new sport, leave fell running for the numpties with loads of rules and regs to stop them killing themselves (or others). Then the rest of us do what we enjoy doing with low key races, low entry fees, and like minded experienced individuals doing what they enjoy.

[Witton Park]

So we create a new sport, leave fell running for the numpties with loads of rules and regs to stop them killing themselves (or others). Then the rest of us do what we enjoy doing with low key races, low entry fees, and like minded experienced individuals doing what they enjoy.

we all had you down as one of the numpties

[alwaysinjured]

Would it not be beneficial to request a meeting to sit down and chat about all this? All sides are doing it all for the good of the sport, unless we iron out issues all this typing will be pointless.

None of us are perfect, no one has made any mistakes on purpose if any has been made, but surely to god we are able to sit down round a table and iron it out??
Just a thought?

Amex, I am all for sorting it out.

But there are several separate conversations going on, not all can be sorted out by group discussion.

There is minimal races, vs more infrastructure and support, and in essence that discussion has moved on. Guys like wheeze hanker after the old days of someone in deckchair collecting a quid, saying "off you go lads" I guess I am getting old, I preferred those days too. So in building terms, should it be big, or should it be small? Wheeze prefers small, so do I . times have probably moved on.

There is then discussion about rules, whether they are done and dusted.

Here is my take on that, using the same analogy.
A group of people decide to build a building, the FRA project manage the build, the RO have to live in it, so everybody gets a say on what they would like to see, draws a sketch. Some get accepted some do not, some rejected. Some say big, some say small, In the end the FRA are charged with deciding what it should look like, and that consultation has gone, but all agree it has to withstand some weather battering from outside sources.

The next thing that happens with a building is you get an architect to turn the chosen sketches of what you want, how big and what the rooms do, into rigorous plans and check with building regs and do structural calcs to make sure it really can stand a gale outside, snow and ice, and earthquakes and the architect will tell you what it can do as it stands or how to change it to make it more bombproof. Then it is built, and if it blows over - the architect is to blame. The architect is not usurping anyones influence on what they want. Just making sure it does what you say you want it to do.

I get the uncomfortable impression we have built the building from the set of draft sketches, and there is something that doesn't look right compared to other stormproof buildings. I am not trying to change what we want, or anybodies picture of the building, or telling them bigger or smaller, and I am really not qualified to say what shape the building should be to work well, they all know more about races than me, just trying to say, from experience, it does not look like it can withstand a gale - so asking whether an architect seen it? - have we really checked it Do we know how resilient it really is if an earthquake happens? Please- please get an architect to look over it.

No amount of meetings of ROs can fix that knowledge of how resilient the building is, unless we wait for a storm big enough for it to collapse. Once we know how sturdy is, maybe a meeting of RO will tell you whether they are happy with the strength, or whether they want it more bombproof, or whether smaller and bombproof is better than bigger and less so. We need the architect to look over it first and make sure it is fit for purpose.

Another analogy even more pertinent.
It would be funny, if it was not true! Really really embarrassing.

I once wrote a letter to a german client of mine about a contract for glass manufacturing equipment. As a mark of respect, I got it translated into german. I wish I had not. I made a mistake. The one I chose to write it and translate it - someone fluent in german, who happened to be working in the company I ran, from the set of notes I gave him, wasn't as good as I thought at German when it got too technical. I rang the customer, and he laughed his head off for the next five minutes, with german expletives flying. My first exposure to the word flick. I digress. In the end he let me into the joke. What should have said something about "snapping equipment" and we all thought it did - was a lengthy description of "snapping shrimps". I should have gone outside to get someone fluent in technical german. I tried to do it with a wellmeaning employee who knew some german but it turned out, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Fortunately in that case, no reall harm was done ,except to my pride. The client let me off having to supply him with four metre long snapping shrimps, and settled for the snapping equipment instead.

We have to get the legal "snapping shrimps" out of our rules....make sure they r say "snapping equipment" instead. Make sure they say when translated out of legalese, what we meant to say. I am not convinced they do. A group meeting will probably not help that. Only a qualified opinion.