Wales's oldest fell races

[anthonykay]

Anthony

The entry in the 1979 FRA Calendar (and 1980,1981) gives the record as 28.02 (D Francis 1977). However the race was not listed in the 1977 or 1978 Calendars (I have not checked the Fellrunners for either a listing or results) but clearly a race there was before 1979.

I did actually see one web page that said that the Machen race has been going "since the 1970's", as well as one where 1979 was quoted. I have just looked in the Fellrunner magazines from 1977 and 1978, and there is no mention of Machen; however, I do remember seeing the name of Dave Francis (Westbury Harriers) at the top of results lists in the magazine around the time I started fell running, and a bit of googling reveals that he was the winner of the inaugural Snowdon Race in 1976.

The Autumn 1977 magazine actually has a good write-up of the Cilcain race, including the suggestion that it should only be Category C despite having 1000ft of climbing in 4 miles, due to too much road; which is interesting in the light of the Calendar data that you reproduced here.

[Graham Breeze]

I did actually see one web page that said that the Machen race has been going "since the 1970's", as well as one where 1979 was quoted. I have just looked in the Fellrunner magazines from 1977 and 1978, and there is no mention of Machen; however, I do remember seeing the name of Dave Francis (Westbury Harriers) at the top of results lists in the magazine around the time I started fell running, and a bit of googling reveals that he was the winner of the inaugural Snowdon Race in 1976.

The Autumn 1977 magazine actually has a good write-up of the Cilcain race, including the suggestion that it should only be Category C despite having 1000ft of climbing in 4 miles, due to too much road; which is interesting in the light of the Calendar data that you reproduced here.

Ah well doing fell races for many years with a Garmin has illustrated my long held view that Calendar distance/height data should not be taken too seriously and there are several reasons why not, including "race status".

When the Calendar was metricised it was suggested that RO remeasure their routes but hardly anyone did and so we now have listings to 0.1km. Really?

The great and lovely Dave Parry did once remeasure all his races and found an "8 mile" race was actually 6.5 or something. I think the record time had rather suggested the Calendar distance was optimistic - and did it really matter?

As for races with more road in them than the Calendar rules allow - well I have raced in a few of those and that is another issue!