Carnethy host British Relays; Junior Hill League winners

Wednesday 12th October 2022

British Fell and Hill Relays: Saturday 15 October, Broughton Heights

Carnethy Hill Racing Club are hosting the annual British Fell and Hill Running Relays this coming Saturday at Broughton Heights in the Borders.

Two hundred teams are competing where the British title is up for grabs for open and the V40 category for both men and women teams.

Teams comprise of six runners, the first and last leg are short hill legs and run individually. The remaining legs are paired, a long leg and a navigational leg where runners receive the course map at the start of their leg and must navigate their own way to the checkpoints. The other legs are flagged.

The legs distances are as follows:

Leg 1: 7.8km, 550m; Leg 2: 11.2km, 890m; Leg 3: 11km, 700m; Leg 4: 7.8km, 520m

The shorter course run over Trahenna and Clover Law, very steep side hills but fast going under foot. Leg two takes the runners to remoter terrain around Brown Dodd where there’s waist high heather and a few boggy bits after recent rain.

There is a strong entry from Scotland, with 13 different clubs involved.

Carnethy men are the reigning British Champions, winning the open event in the Howgils in 2021. They will face strong competition from Dark Peak, Keswick and other Scottish clubs such as Shettleston, Edinburgh University Hare and Hounds and HBT.

In the women’s event, Edinburgh Hare and Hounds finished on the podium in 2021 and will hope to repeat this, whilst the home club Carnethy are also looking strong. The navigation leg is normally the deciding leg, a bad line and teams can lose minutes or more.

*Organising this event is a massive commitment, over 100 volunteers will be helping on the day.

Route planning started months ago and gradually the event has taken shape, the event is novel in that a different club organises it each year and start from scratch once a venue if found.

Thanks go to the landowners for agreeing access and the numerous volunteers who are helping on the day.

Good luck to all the Scottish teams competing at the weekend.

With thanks to Angela Mudge

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James Wotherspoon of Harmeny in action at Cademuir earlier this summer – took the U15 Boys league title (photo by Neil Renton)

SA Junior Hill 2022 final

scottishathletics Junior Hill league 2022

The final races of the scottishathletics Junior Hill league 2022 was held at the end of September.

There were nine races in all with the first one starting in April at Dumyat. Three races are needed for a runner to gain a final position in the league.

And this year we were very pleased to have 31 junior hill runners completing the league across all age and gender groups.

The winners of each category were

U15 Girls: Freya Mowbray (Lasswade); U15 Boys: James Wotherspoon (Harmeny)

U17 Girls: Katie Meek (Highland); U17 Boys: Thomas Hilton (Moorfoot)

U20 Girls: Isla Hedley (Fife AC); U20 Boys: Angus Wright (Team East Lothian)

This year we have had a great spread of runners from participating clubs. Well done to all! And many thanks to all the parents, friends and guardians for supporting the league.

Each finisher will get a prize so please be in touch if you do not hear from us over the next few weeks.

Any errors or comments please email harrismark1@mac.com

With thanks to Mark Harris