for an ad-free Fetcheveryone experience!

Fetch Fell Runners

1 lurker | 160 watchers

flyingfinn 18 Jan 5:45pm, 18 Jan 2025 3,774 posts	Quote Pin flyingfinn Northern Exile wrote:paulcook wrote:Two very different people told me basically the reason why the no nav rule was brought in because podium finisher(s) were using on championship races and felt to be completely against the fell running ethos. Whether it's happened since, I've no idea. That's essentially true The main reason it was brought in was that people in the Lakes didn't like their local knowledge advantage being undermined by technology. Most fell runners cannot navigate well enough with a map and compass to cope with running at race pace (there have been a couple of championship races in NI in very low vis where the overwhelming lack of familiarity with the area has exposed this very clearly and identified the small number who can.). They rely on local knowledge and repeated recces of race routes. This clearly provides an advantage to those that live close to races. Technology undermined that advantage and enabled 'outsiders' to beat them. The fell running ethos argument was largely a convenient smokescreen.
Derby Tup 18 Jan 5:49pm, 18 Jan 2025 70,192 posts	Quote Pin Derby Tup Local runners win local races
cackleberry 18 Jan 5:52pm, 18 Jan 2025 4,534 posts	Quote Pin cackleberry I've argued with people in the middle of a race, ultimately using my previous experience and beating them by a significant margin. I have also gone totally the wrong way...
paulcook 18 Jan 5:55pm, 18 Jan 2025 7,248 posts	Quote Pin paulcook Northern Ireland was one of the races I pieced together it was based on. Personally the decision just made me decide to try work on my nav / compass work. To different degrees of success. And whether I can run at pace while navigating is also debatable especially given my pace is way off any front runners. One of my last races also made me realise decision making when lost on a race isn’t as good as decision making during training.
cackleberry 18 Jan 6:01pm, 18 Jan 2025 4,535 posts	Quote Pin cackleberry While I can navigate well, I can't do it well at race pace - even my race pace!! I think that being able to nav and look after yourself on the hill is integral to fell running. The need for this should not be seen as a barrier to entry but a skill to be learnt. Preaching to the converted here, I know; but I have club mates who whinge about it greatly!
cackleberry 18 Jan 6:04pm, 18 Jan 2025 4,536 posts	Quote Pin cackleberry Mind you, they are the same club mates who refuse to come out if it's bad weather, or muddy etc. They say I need to learn to read a map. We say come run with us Saturday, we know the route but you can hold the map and learn! They don't turn up 😕
Curly45 18 Jan 6:14pm, 18 Jan 2025 4,932 posts	Quote Pin Curly45 Yes it's one of the reasons I don't do the harder races. As my map work is not the best. I don't have a GPS that can do map and have always run with a print out. What I do is draw my route on in pencil. That's on training runs though where I can stop and look easily. The "fell" races I do have marshals. Appreciate it's a different league to you lot. I did best in our village race as I know every inch of that course 😂
larkim 18 Jan 6:20pm, 18 Jan 2025 26,444 posts	Quote Pin larkim Son is careful to make sure that routes are deleted from his watch if he has previously used them to navigate a recce as whilst he knows he wouldn't cheat, he wouldn't want anyone to grab his watch in the end and be able to infer he might. But as he points out there is very little real navigation required in the big races as you just follow others. (Obviously you can't always see the people in front, and they might also not be going the right way!) As a side point, the leading women (mostly) will always get to follow a trail of men navigating in front of them; when the women are set off first (as happens in some of the Long races) that position is reversed.
flanker 18 Jan 8:04pm, 18 Jan 2025 21,380 posts	Quote Pin flanker Your son is very diligent! For unmarked races where I don't know the area well I tend to have the route, or at least key waypoints, on my watch, just in case something goes wrong. Never needed it yet, but there's always a first time... Then again I'm not going to be challenging for a podium and nobody is likely to care anyway
Northern Exile 18 Jan 9:31pm, 18 Jan 2025 10,760 posts	Quote Pin Northern Exile flyingfinn wrote:The main reason it was brought in was that people in the Lakes didn't like their local knowledge advantage being undermined by technology. Most fell runners cannot navigate well enough with a map and compass to cope with running at race pace (there have been a couple of championship races in NI in very low vis where the overwhelming lack of familiarity with the area has exposed this very clearly and identified the small number who can.). They rely on local knowledge and repeated recces of race routes. This clearly provides an advantage to those that live close to races. Technology undermined that advantage and enabled 'outsiders' to beat them. The fell running ethos argument was largely a convenient smokescreen. Spot-on FF. One Lake District club in particular methinks!! It got very silly.