Actually even the old ways often weren't as people remember them...Originally Posted by Yorkshire Thug
Fellrunner report of Fairfield Horseshoe 20 May 1973 ie 35 years ago.
" Although the rain through the night was heavy enough to make the committee think of postponement...when race time arrived....Fairfield was almost clear of cloud".
Well there's none so blind as them than will not see ...
What I'm saying is that, having created this situation whereby MR Teams look after our butts (as they did for several of us last year on the Skyline) why start squawking when these guys want to make their lives a little bit easier?
I wish we could go back to the old days (like when we had 20-30 running and you HAD to navigate!!) but we can't.
So .. just put up or shut up. It's 2008. It'll still be a good race.
YT
PS I've got an O2 and although I don't get much of a signal around the head of Grindsbrook, it's fine for the rest of the course.
Ta
Well, I did say OBLIQUE personal insults. "gobbers" sounds like an insult to me, and "some on here would go back to roadrunning" - now that's definitely an insult!!
Thuggy - "put up or shut up" ? What exactly would 'putting up' consist of in the context of this debate?
Oh, and Stolly, believe it or not, rumour has it that Yorkshire Thug is female...
Hang on a minute! (With the locator beacon thread in mind as well.) It suddenly occured to me; what the heck do we think we're all playing at?!
Running around the hills in bad weather with hardly any clothes on, having to be rescued by teams of volunteers with high tech equipment. What on Earth is it all for? Shouldn't we be ashamed of ourselves? The MR, organisers and marshals get nothing from all this except maybe a longer/colder day than the racers. Shouldn't we keep our sport where it belongs: in the valleys and fields where it's safe and the main danger is from crossing a road?
If anyone starts spouting about adventure I say "what adventure?"
This reminds me so much of the way climbing has gone. First there was a furious debate about bolts, then there was climbing and "sport climbing", now it's climbing and "trad" climbing which is what Joe Brown and Whillans used to do.
Maybe fell running will split into two branches with people doing both as the fancy takes them ie "sport" fell running, where the emphasis is on pure athletic prowess and phones, beacons, GPS, anything new which makes the game safer are allowed and "adventure" fell running where the flier will read "no safety pins or mobiles" and you just do it.
Before safety pins were in regular use, numbers had to be sewn on.
The emphasis on safety has also ruined this aspect of the sport as well.
Aye when I were lad "no safety pins" meant "only dangerous pins" or shove off!
Great, YT's been on.
We should be able to get another 150 posts on this mobile phone thread.
Hope we don't get stitched up!
If fell running was simply about how fast you can run I would be more inclined to support this argument - but I think its about how well (or badly) you can do a lot of things - running fast is just one of them, navigating is another. So are actually choosing routes between checkpoints and crossing rough/steep ground etc.
I've commented in an earlier post about why I respect organisers and marshalls for the work they put in but I still can not bring myself to support the compulsory carrying of mobile phones on races. Objectively what would they be used for? - eg
1. I'm lost, please help. - as has been said by others already its easy to get lost, we can all do it, but if you cant then navigate yourself safely off the hill or back on course you probably shouldn't be doing the race.
2. I've found another competitor/I've hurt myself with an injury serious enough to prevent him/her getting off the fell by themselves.... If you can get a signal from where you are this will obviously save time in getting help but in reality you often wont get a signal and you will rarely be more than thirty minutes running (forward or back) to a manned control where the marshalls will usually have reliable comms. In many races you will be able to descend to the valley to summon help in less time than this. I'm aware of numerous broken/difficult/misinterpreted calls to MR leading to much confusion (there are a lot of blea tarns in the lakes for example) but a call via landline from the valley or via marshalls is likely to be more reliable.
3. Someones had a heart attack.... Sadly the reality is, even with helicopters (assuming they can get to you in the conditions) your chances are usually very small regardless of how fast you can summon help
What all the above mean to me is that the circumstances in which a mobile is going to be significantly useful are very limited, and I feel too limited to objectively justify making the carrying of them compulsory. This brings me back to my earlier point that I feel a more effective contribution to improve safety would be a willingness/requirement to carry more kit when conditions justify it. I dont feel we can use the safety argument as an unbeatble trump card to impose requirements like this otherwise we really will end up with flagged courses and a requirement not to stray off a designated route for safety reasons (and I dont mean where we have controlled sections of races for environmental or access reasons)
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