Saturday's Adventure in the Yorkshire Dales: 3 Peaks Fell Race

Phen-Y-Gent in the background. Photo thanks to Daniel Connolly

Due to pesky things like uni assignments and exams, this “race” report will be a bit shorter than normal and nowhere near as long as the last one.

The reason why I’ve titled it as an ‘adventure’ rather than a ‘race’ is to accurately reflect my mindset going into 3 Peaks. I didn’t think of it as a race per se, more like an opportunity to be in a beautiful part of the country and to potentially be a fell-race finisher. This race is also the unofficial beginning of the fellrunning season and also one of the biggest races of the year in terms of participation, there were close to 900 people at the start line and I wanted to be a part of the atmosphere! It's also got a lot of history, with this year being its 64th running of the event.

3 Peaks’ slogan is - ‘The Marathon with Mountains’ and people often describe it as 3 fell races with a cross-country race in between. What that pretty much means is, the 3 climbs are tough but everything else in between is kind of flat (in terms of elevation), so very much runnable, like a cross-country race. 

The race has about 1600m +/- over its 37km

When the shotgun goes off to signify the beginning of the race, I start out conservatively. The first km is along a road and then the race turns onto a dirt trail, that slopes gently upwards but is littered with rocks, which meant I took it easy to avoid hurting my ankle. From 3km to 6km is the climb up to the first peak, Phen-y-gent. Being so early on in the race and not being that steep meant I was able to run up all of it, and it was a good feeling being able to pass a couple people along the way, but what goes up must come down. And I took the down part super easy, even if it was just mostly grass. I got a bit annoyed when I was passed over and over, but I just told myself, ‘it’s not a race’, which took the sting out a bit. The part between 8-20km was flat and the trail was smooth, but knowing there was still two climbs to go, I took it easy, taking in the views of beautiful green rolling country side (and all the little lambs that dotted it) and enjoying the sunshine (which felt amazing!)

Smooth trails for less chances of rolling an ankle, yass! Photo thanks to David Belshaw

The only thing of note to happen was losing my shoe in some mud around the 13km point, so I pushed the pace a bit harder for the two km’s after that to make back that bit of time lost putting my shoe back on. At 20km the 2^nd fell race began, crossing a creek and onto a super boggy ‘trail’.

Crossed a creek and about to go up and up and up. Photo thanks to Estelle Willis

Actually, to call it a trail is bit of an exaggeration, more like a faint line in the grass/bog/marsh that everyone follows, which also happens to be the shortest way to the top of Whernside, the second peak. This for me was also the hardest point during the entire race, I wasn’t tired aerobically during the climb but due to my ankle I haven’t done any strength training in the gym for the last 6 weeks, so my legs were super tired by the time I reached the top (I mean can you blame me though, the gradient was over 40% according to Strava for parts of the climb, I had to use both my hands and feet to get to the top) 

Once at the top though, as I wasn’t feeling puffed, I was able to break back into a run, that is until we started going down. For context the 24^th km drops 258m, the 25^th drops 107m, so it was steep and so very, very rocky. I hadn’t been over this course before the race (I live 3 hours drive away) and if I had known this descent was a part of the race, I probably would’ve had second thoughts about toeing the start line. For someone with an injured ankle, it was brutal, but I almost made it. The 26^th km was when it started flattening out and just when I saw the trail starting to get less rocky, pain shot up my left leg and I knew that I rolled my ankle, again. I couldn’t believe that I was able to get down the hardest, steepest part only to roll it just when it was getting easier. I then hobbled to the side of the trail, sat down, drank about half a litre of my sports drink and hoped after a couple minutes the pain would subside a little bit. Which it thankfully did! I then relied on my past experience of spraining my ankle during the Blackall 50km last year, and walked when it hurt too much to run, and run when it didn’t hurt too much to walk. This mainly meant that I walked 90% of the last 10km of the race. Something that helped was the last climb up to the top of the 3^rd peak, Ingleborough, 30km into the race and for whatever reason, my ankle didn’t hurt as badly climbing up compared to walking on the flat or going downhill, so I made up a bit of time there. Unfortunately, the last 8km back down to the finish line, where a decent amount of time could be made up, was the rockiest of the entire course, which meant I had to take it carefully and slowly, which frustrated me to no end. 

This is a photo of a person running along some part of the last 8km's of the course. See what I mean? It's rocky. Also, oww!

The only thing I was grateful for was that the pain was bearable. In the end though, I made it! 37.8km in an agonisingly slow 4:49:50, but after two failed attempts (at the Manx Mountain Marathon and Coledale Horseshoe) I can finally call myself a fellrunner! Thanks to all the marshals (there were over a hundred which is incredible 😮), the spectators (who gave amazing encouragement and some lollies) and the event organisers, it was an amazing day out! For those of you who are reading this and are trail runners, but looking to do a fell race, I highly recommend this one. Great atmosphere, beautiful scenery, navigation skills aren't required as you're able to follow the person in front of you and less than half the course is actually 'off-trail' meaning it's the perfect intro!

A very happy finisher. Photo thanks to Daniel Connolly

Coming to the end of April, I can definitely say that this isn’t how I imagined this year would be going. In my mind I would put in two solid performances at the Manx Marathon and at 3 Peaks, giving me a bit of confidence and some key areas to work on leading into my first A race of the year, the Buff Epic in Spain, which is in 8 weeks’ time. But it is how it is, and I’m super grateful that over the past few weeks I’ve been able to travel to some amazingly beautiful places and been able to meet some super cool people, all because of my running!

The TRN