Scotland win team silvers in Ultra Trail event and Sasha takes third

Saturday 11th April 2026

Carnethy HRC athlete Sasha Chepelin takes bronze in the Ultra Trail event at Keswick

From Angela Mudge in Keswick

Scotland ‘s men’s and women’s trail teams both stuck team silver at the inaugural Senior Home Countries Trail Running International over a testing course in the Lake District.

The Run Through Lakeland Trails event in Keswick hosted the race which also served as the trail trial for the European Off Road Running Championships.

Conditions were tough on the trails. With high winds and snow forecast on the summits, race organisers shortened the course to avoid exposure on Scafell Pike. The shortened course was 48km with 1800m of ascent, over four climbs.

The first ten miles were undulating along the shores of Derwent Water. The field was led out very quickly and a pack of four reached the ten-mile point together with the rest of the field strung out behind them. The Scots started off conservatively and worked their way through once on the hills and more technical terrain.

Sasha Chepelin (Carnethy) was leading at Honister with three runners only seconds behind. Sasha had a battle to the finish and came home third overall.

In the Home International competition Keith Wigley finished third (and in seventh place overall), with Alistair Graves in fifth (ninth overall) and Robin Downie in 14^th overall.

This gave Scotland a combined time of 12:53:10. England won in 12:08:00 with Wales in third.

In the women’s race, English runner Scarlet Dale led from the gun and went on to build a dominant lead to winby nine minutes.

Scotland’s Kirsty Oldham paced the race well to finish third in the SHCI (and fourth overall) maintaining her position throughout the race.

Team-mate Catriona Graves came through strongly in the later stages to take fourth place (fifth overall) and Nikki Arthur, in her first representative even, finished strongly to back the team.

England won with an accumulated time of 14:21:51 and Scotland were second with 14:48:36

The first two finishers in the 48km trail race gain automatic selection for this years European Off-Road Running Championships in Slovenia, with the remaining two places being discretionary.