The Fellsman Three 60

Sometimes I run a race and it’s so hard that at some point during the event I declare it a ‘one and done’ and vow that I will never do it again as long as I finish this time. My first Lakeland 100 was definitely a ‘one and done’ – I’m going back for my fourth this year and am intending to get my slate by doing number five next year.

I thought the Fellsman might have been in the ‘one and done’ category too – except that the 60th Fellsman was exactly four weeks after my 60th birthday and it was about 60 miles (hence the title of this blog, three 60(s)). As a result there was a certain inevitability to me heading up to Threshfield on Friday afternoon for the race on Saturday.

Anyway the Fellsman is a bit different to most races I’ve done. It’s old, very old, older than me even, it started in 1962. Due to Foot and Mouth causing 2001 to be postponed and the 2020 and 2021 events being cancelled due to Covid, 2024 would be, as previously mentioned, the 60th time it had happened. It’s also not run by a running club or an events company, it’s run by the Keighley Scout Service Network. I also doesn’t have a fixed route. As a result I had spent a certain amount of time looking at where I meant to go last year, where I actually went, and where I thought I might want to go this year. I also had a new running watch compared to last year, with a battery that, in theory, would last over twice as long as the race. I tweaked my route to try and ensure I could make a whole new set of errors this year rather than simply repeat last years, and uploaded it to my watch.

I don’t know if anyone involved with the Fellsman read my blog from last year but the kit list did have a few changes for the better. Five tops were still required. I was slightly concerned as to how a ‘fleece’ might be defined at kit check. I know from the Spine that the OMM Core Jacket provides incredible warmth but even I would admit the fact that you can see daylight through it doesn’t make it look that warm! Some races specify a minimum weight of fleece. I don’t agree with that either – a cheap fleece made of poor materials will almost certainly be quite heavy but not a lot of use on Buckden Pike in the middle of the night in a storm. There is no doubt the development of ever lighter, higher performing more technical materials makes it harder and harder for event organisers trying to ensure people have kit which meets the spirit of the kit requirement and not simply the letter.

Last year I ran in Inov8 X-talons and whilst I loved the grip they did batter my feet somewhat. This year I had considered the new Inov8 Mud Talons but they had rubbed my ankle a bit on a trail marathon a couple of weeks previously. Although little of this was actually on the Pennine Way (those that know can guess which bit of the Pennine Way I did find myself on at one point…) it was classic Spine territory. As a result I took the sensible option of Roclite G320s, Hemy waterproof socks and Runderwear anti-blister socks as liners – exactly the set-up that had carried me through the winter Spine Race with relatively little damage to my feet.

The food requirement was now an amount of calories rather than simply a weight, which I felt was far more sensible. I carried 80 grams of peanut butter buttons to meet the 500 calorie requirement – a vast improvement on the 300 grams of food I had to carry the previous year! There was also now a requirement to carry water.

Last year I used my 20l Fastpack and everything fitted easily. however I had noticed that many people were using significantly smaller and lighter packs so this year I was using my Adventure Vest. All my kit fitted, it was more of a squeeze but with a bit of thought I managed to arrange it all quite sensibly, with anything I might need in a hurry reasonably accessible. I then carefully unpacked it all into a black holdall ready for kit check. Last year I had arrived at kit check with my pack carefully prepared and then had to empty it all over the floor so the contents could be checked. This year I could empty the holdall and refill it as each item was checked. This seemed to work, my fleece and other long sleeved top collection wasn’t questioned. I got my kit check paper and went back to the hall I would be sleeping in to try and remember how I had packed my pack, and why it seemed to be only half the size it had been at home.

I got a little sleep but not as much as I would have liked. I don’t know if it was the lack of a gym mat under my mattress this year, or simply the fact that a screwed up down jacket makes a fairly lousy pillow, but sleep was slightly elusive.

The next morning I was up at 5:45 in time to hunt down a bacon roll before it was time to catch the 6:30 bus. Another lessoned learned was to make my toilet trip a bit earlier this year – I nearly missed the bus last year.

Despite my improved scheduling, it was still standing room only on the bus. I sat on the floor at the back and gained an interesting perspective on life for the trip.

Once I got to the start there was a bit of queue so I joined the back of it. Then someone told us this was the queue for kit check so a few of us tried to join the queue for registration. Turned out that the first queue was actually the queue for registration so I joined the back of it again. Apparently if anyone had entered a group of people it had given them all the same name and so much manual processing was having to be done to correct this – hence the long queue.

Eventually I was at the front and got given a number, a plastic disc, a fake wristwatch in orange and a GPS tracker. The plastic disc was my tally. Back in the day this would have been the only way my journey would have been recorded, the disc has 25 sections around the side and is clipped at each checkpoint. The 25 holes indicate that you have visited all 25 checkpoints. The clippers create different shaped holes at different checkpoints so you can’t cheat and make holes yourself. The ‘wristwatch’ is actually a transponder which is swiped over a box at each checkpoint to record your visit. The GPS tracker is a GPS tracker and allows people to occasionally see where you are on a web page. I say ‘occasionally’ as, probably due to poor phone coverage, I was told afterwards that tracking updates were a bit sporadic to say the least.

The issues with the entry system meant that the race started at 8:55 instead of 8:30. It is still the only race I’ve ever been part of where on the word ‘GO!’ everyone runs in different directions. Terry and I had positioned ourselves near the bank leading to the same gate as we’d used last year. It wasn’t that I felt I had to be near the front, it was simply to avoid any queue to get through the gate.

Although the weather forecast wasn’t great, and it was a very cold morning, at least it was clear and I was rewarded with some great views as I made my way up Ingleborough.

Last year was my first ever trip over Ingleborough and I found if fairly terrifying, I caused a huge traffic jam with my nervous descent. This time it was better. I still wasn’t exactly fast off the top but at least I didn’t have quite such a steady stream of people overtaking me. For reasons I’m not totally sure of but that probably have a lot to do with incompetence on my part, I had marked Checkpoint Two (Hill Inn) in the wrong place on my route. Had I followed my route to the letter, I would have missed it altogether. However this was still near the start of the race and there were a lot of runners around me so I was really just following rather than looking too much at my route and so I did actually visit the checkpoint, get checked in at have some food and drink.

After Whernside it was all the way back down to the Kingsdale checkpoint for more drinks and biscuits in preparation for the climb up to Gragareth. Gragareth is by no means one of the highest points on the route and on paper the climb up doesn’t look so bad but I remembered it from the previous year as being particularly tough and it didn’t disappoint. I took a photo but it doesn’t really show just how hard work this climb is.

Gragareth is slightly ‘out and back’ so I did my good deed for the day by preventing a couple of runners from turning right at the stile and missing it altogether.

After Gragareth the route follows a wall towards Great Coum. It’s one of the boggier sections and last year I managed to fall in a bog. Just to prove it was no fluke, I fell in one this year as well. After Great Coum it’s on to Flinter’s Gill and ultimately the ‘Track of Doom’ into Dent. The ‘Track of Doom’ is a particularly unpleasant ankle twisting rocky downhill path which no-one enjoys. Terry apparently found a way to avoid it completely, which was nice. If I do this again next year I may have to ask how he did it.

At Dent, I got my tally clipped, swiped my Felltracker and waited. One of the marshals inquired what I was waiting for. ‘Where’s kit check?’, ‘Can’t tell you, it’s a secret, its not here though’, ‘Well it was last year’, ‘We wouldn’t put it in the same place two years in a row would we?’, ‘I don’t know, this is only my second time’. Anyway a nice man made me some coffee, I ate some beige food, stuffed a sausage roll in my pocket for later and left.

After Dent it was a few miles along the Dales High Way and possibly the Craven Way too until I reached the ruin that marked the start of the first of what I had called last year, the ‘Brave and Bold’ sections – those parts with no marked path on the map. I mainly managed to follow a ‘trod’ – a path made simply by a general consensus of previous walkers that this was the route they would follow – and reached Blea Moor without incident. After Blea Moor I took a slightly more direct route back to the Bleamoor Tunnel footpath that I had the previous year. The ‘trod’ came and went but even where I lost the path it was still fairly easy to cross. The Bleamoor Tunnel path went through some fairly ugly plantations and dropped down around the tunnel entrance.

It was at this point that the highest point of the event occurred. Better than finishing, even better than a phone box. Well OK, perhaps not quite but I saw smoke and steam in the distance and decided the race could go on hold for a minute or two.

It was ‘Tangmere’, a ‘Battle of Britain’ class locomotive, hauling the ‘Northern Belle’, a train of luxurious Pullman carriages in which a fine dining experience was happening.

As I grew up with model railways and a Dad obsessed by steam trains it brought back a lot of memories. The ‘Battle of Britain’ class was designed by Oliver Bulleid for the Southern Railway and this particularly fine example was built by the Brighton Railway Works 1947. She was a long way from home but a magnificent sight nonetheless.

I continued on to Stonehouse, more food and drink, and, as it turned out, the location of this year’s kit check. I would like to take this opportunity to say that the lady that did my kit check was amazing. She was happy to simply see enough to convince herself that I had the kit and kept telling me not to completely unpack things. The result was a quick and efficient check and I wasn’t left with a pile of kit to try and squash back into my pack.

After Leaving Stonehouse I walked up the road, went back to the checkpoint, picked up my poles, walked back up the road and started the two and a half mile climb to Great Knoutberry Hill, which is roughly the halfway point of the Fellsman.

The climb involved going through the Arten Gill Viaduct. Last year I did this section in the sunshine, this year it started raining. I had been wearing my waterproof from the start so it didn’t make much difference to me but most of the runners around me stopped to put jackets on. I don’t know if it was simply an advantage conferred by using poles (not many of the people around me seemed to have poles) or whether I’ve got quite good at hills, but I overtook many people on the trek up (most of whom promptly overtook me on the next downhill section).

After Great Knoutberry Hill, I was fairly convinced I would retrace my steps to the Pennine Bridleway rather than take a slightly more direct path to the checkpoint at Redshaw. Last year I’d tried the direct path and seemed to veer off course a bit and took quite long loop round. However everyone in front of me went straight onto the trod and so I just followed. I did have more idea of where I was heading this year so I did manage to follow a fairly reasonable line to the checkpoint. After more food and drink I carried on for a mile to the checkpoint at Snaizeholme and then on to Dodd Fell. Getting to Dodd Fell involved being on a short section of the Pennine Way. Sadly it was the Cam High Road, easily my least favourite path in the UK and possibly the world. However unlike the Spine Race, I only had to follow it for just under a mile, not about eight.

Coming down from Dodd Fell was another ‘Brave and Bold’ section. It was the last one I had a significant concern about as I knew that ideally I wanted to cross the wall I walked all the way round last year to save time. There were several of us on the fell and I quickly realised that few of them really had much more of an idea than I did as to the way to go. Fortunately I saw a group of three female runners (at least one of whom hated the Cam High Road as much as I did when I spoke to them earlier) heading purposefully to a point in the wall. The wall had slightly collapsed and it was fairly easy to duck through. I crossed the Cam High Road and continued to the Fleet Moss checkpoint and more food and drink.

Due to access issues, the next three miles were on tarmac and downhill. This isn’t great on legs that have already covered 36 miles of up and down, and it adds around a thousand feet to the overall climb on the event. It’s not all bad, it did mean I got to pass the rather sorry looking phone box at Oughtershaw.

The sun was starting to go down so it didn’t look like I’d get much of a sunset as I would be quite low down. However it was quite a pretty valley.

After leaving the Deepdale checkpoint the setting sun lit up the ground ahead of me quite beautifully.

I saw several runners on the way up to Chapel Moor. It was a very arduous climb and there didn’t seem to be much of a consensus on the best route. Looking back at my GPS trace, I appear to have taken a fairly direct route, possibly more by luck than judgement. The route to the next checkpoint at Hell Gap (not as awful as it sounds) was straightforward as it simply involved following a wall. From there it was a wide track downhill to Cray and yet more food and drink.

It was more or less dark by the time I got to Cray so I had my head torch out when I left. The next section was up to Buckden Pike, the penultimate big climb of the Fellsman. It involved passing Cray Gill, or Cow Close Gill, depending on which map you look at. Either way the choice was to go North or go South. Last year I meant to go South, went North, tried to go South and ended up in the Gill with a steep and tricky climb out. This year I’d decided to go South again, although I’d heard people discussing this on the bus and North seemed to have a lot of support.

As it was I kind of followed some people and ended up going North anyway. It was a fairly straightforward and direct route so if I go back next year I’ll probably go that way deliberately. At least this year I resisted the temptation to climb down into the gill. After you get to the end of the gill and hit the wall, there is absolutely no necessity to cross the wall, even if there is a gate (or it may have been a stile). As I was now the wrong side of the wall I ended up climbing it at the top of the slope. As I climbed the wrong wall I arrived at the checkpoint looking over the wall at the marshal – who kindly directed me to a nearby stile. I went back and got myself logged in at the top of Buckden Pike, the darkness mostly hiding my red face.

By now it was quite misty. I was using the Fenix head torch I had used on the Spine Race so I had no worries about how long the battery would last. The mist also gave me the opportunity to try a feature on my torch I’d never used before, the ‘warm white’ LED light. Mine was the latest version of the HM65R. The previous version had two conventional ‘white’ LEDs, one as a spotlight and one as a wider beam. I almost bought the older version as I couldn’t see the point of the ‘warm white’ LED. However I felt the if Fenix thought it was an upgrade I should give it a go – even if I didn’t know why. I was later told the ‘warm white’ was to give better visibility in mist and fog, well now I had a chance to find out. The visibility was only a few metres so I switched to the ‘warm’ light and yes, it was better than the ‘white’ light. It was a bit weird to start with but I soon got used to the different colour and appreciated the reduction in backscatter from the mist.

I’m blaming the mist for my failure to see the War Memorial again, I was entirely focussed on following the path. This was easy as it was a line of gritstone slabs – until it wasn’t. Despite this I found my way to Top Mere without any great drama (although I think I may have fallen in another bog – I definitely fell in bog somewhere in the dark but it may have been later on), although after my errors on the way up Buckden Pike I was constantly checking my route and questioning which side I should be on of every wall I came across.

After Top Mere I came into Park Rash, the penultimate ‘food’ checkpoint and the last one at which I intended to eat and drink. I had been slightly cold on the way and so, as the last major event was a climb up Great Whernside and hypothermia would be embarrassing at this stage of the event, I put on my woolly hat, warm gloves and OMM fleece.

I occasionally found the path up to Great Whernside but also spent quite a lot of time just trudging through grass and rocks, however so long as I was going up I felt I was kind of going the right way. I was also slightly regretting dressing so warmly as it wasn’t as cold as I’d expected it to be. Eventually I reached the Great Whernside checkpoint, which I believe was manned by a solitary marshal with a faulty radio. At Park Rash we had been asked to report that he was OK at the next checkpoint at Capplestone Gate, something I immediately forgot about.

From here it very much felt like the home straight, there was one more checkpoint and no more big climbs. Also some of the route was actually marked with flags and beacons. From the last checkpoint at Yarnbury it was only a couple of miles on a road to the finish.

I’d been checking my watch for a while and a sub-18 hour finish definitely looked to be a strong possibility. I ended up running the last couple of miles with another runner also looking for a sub-18 hour finish. I didn’t get his name (well, I might have done, but if so I was too knackered to remember) but from the results I would guess it was Ashley Ward. We dragged each other along and so this was one of very few ultras where one of my fastest miles was at the end. I can’t remember if I told him about my three 60 reasons for doing the race or if he noticed my badge but he asked me how I was still running like I was at the age of 60 as he was 44 and hoped to do the same at my age. I told him that the main thing is don’t stop. Also, anyone that says you are too old or you ought to slow down is not your friend. Unless someone can medically prove to me that I’m going to have a significantly poorer quality of life if I keep running then I’m going to keep going. Would I live longer if I stopped running? I’ve no idea but I do know it would feel one heck of a lot longer!

Anyway we made it to Threshfield without any incident. My official time was 17 hours 46 minutes and 52 seconds, over 90 minutes quicker than last year! Some of that was due to experience of the race and a slightly better choice of route in places. I don’t think any of it was due to the course conditions. It was just as wet as the pervious year, much colder and with poorer visibility after dark. I would like to think I’m getting better at ‘grim’ races as my friends call them.

Terry had finished just over two hours before me but was awake when I went to find my bed. Sadly our other Ridge Runners had both retired, one at Dent and one at Stonehouse. It is a very tough race for those of us that live in Essex, there are simply no hills big enough and long enough to really subject your muscles to the load (both up and down) that they get running in the Yorkshire Dales. I’m lucky in that I spend several weeks a year running in Fuerteventura. Whilst the weather is quite different to the Yorkshire Dales, I do have the opportunity to run mountains of a comparable size and steepness. Obviously I have also gained a lot of experience of ‘grim’ races in the UK, two Summer Spines (one complete, one DNF), Summer Spine Sprint, Winter Spine, two Cheviot Goats, three Lakeland Hundreds and of course last years Fellsman. Considering I only started doing these kind of slower hillier races in 2021 I seem to have done a few!

Obviously I have to say thank you to the race organisers. A bit less queueing would have been nice but I do accept that at least some of it was due to circumstances outside the organisers control. The race is certainly friendly and has a great atmosphere. I do really feel for the marshals that are on the hilltops in a tent – especially those at Buckden Pike and Great Whernside as they are going to be out all night. However they were all still very upbeat and encouraging (and quite understanding when I was on the wrong side of the wall) so a big thanks to them for their dedication. Also all the ‘roadside’ (food) checkpoints are amazing. I mainly stuck to cake, biscuits and squash with the occasional coke and coffee thrown in but the variety of food available was unbelievable. While on the subject of coke, big thank you to the organisers, I mentioned it would be a good option in my blog last year and this year it appeared so thank you for that! I did even get a mention at the prize giving! Although the gentleman didn’t know my name or number he was aware I’d run with my 60th Birthday badge on and mentioned my three 60 rationale for running and I got a round of applause – which was nice.

Will I go back again, bearing in mind there is no ‘three 60’ justification next year? Probably. Why? I don’t in anyway feel I’ve ‘cracked’ this race yet. Yes, I have two finishes and yes, this year was quicker but I feel I’m still learning. This is why I started doing these races. I would never say an undulating 50km race on a marked route is easy but I know how they go now. I can still make mistakes but generally I know what I’m doing. The ‘grim’ races test me and they teach me. I still love Debbie Martin Consani’s comment about the Spine, you don’t train for it, you learn on the job. I’m still learning about these races and so I’m going to keep doing them, repeating them. I’m not expecting to ever ‘crack’ them but that’s part of the fascination. I’ve had real trouble accepting I’m 60, I’m now old and I can’t claim to be ‘in my 50s’ any more. However I’m not stopping, I don’t know what the age of the oldest Spine finisher is but one day I hope it will be me.

Anyway I need to stop writing and start packing. In a little over a weeks time I will be on a plane to Spain to take part in the Way of Legends, a 6 day stage race in the mountains of Spain! After that it will be the Summer Spine Challenger with Sharon, back to the only way being Pennine!