On the morning of the Scafell Pike race, the summit marshalls set off up Lingmell Nose - and decided that they weren't going any further. So the race became the Lingmell Nose race, with half the amount of climbing in about one-third the distance of the full Scafell Pike route. The steepness is similar to the nearby BOFRA race up Kirk Fell, which is the steepest race in England, but the length and climbing are about two-thirds of Kirk Fell. So a real lung-burster.

The rain had stopped by the time the race started, but the wind continued to give assistance on the way up - not that it felt any easier. Anyway, this short steep race gave me an excellent opportunity to display my descending incompetence: I lost 2m41s on the lady I was with at the summit, Emma McWilliams of Mynydd Du. Another Mynydd Du runner, Rhian Probert, put in one of the amazing performances that those who watch the Welsh fell scene are used to: she is now W55, and was second woman overall and ahead of all the M55 and older men. She took 30:37, while first woman Jo Hickman Dunne took 30:21. First man was Jack Walton in 26:04, and I took 40:46. I got my M65 winner's prize, and Martin Walsh, the only runner older than me, got his M75 prize, finishing last in 53:59.

There were 78 runners, maybe reduced due to a clash with Three Shires. There was an interesting post on facebook from Selwyn Wright, Three Shires RO, describing the conditions that runners and marshalls were enduring there. The Scafell Pike RO's decision to curtail his race must have been right, even though conditions had improved somewhat by the time the race started.