It’s easy to assume that every hill runner in the Highlands has incredible terrain right on their doorstep. As if we’ve all moved in together in Hamish MacInnes’ house in Glencoe. I wish that was true.

I’ve spent most of the last year in Grantown-on-Spey, 30 odd kilometres downstream of Aviemore. We’re still in the Cairngorms National Park, but it’s hardly the place to come for a mountain running training camp.

From the door I can leave town to the north and enter some of the worst landscape that Scotland has to offer. Heather, heather and more heather blankets the land, some scorched, some not.

Peculiarly sandy estate tracks snake their way through the emptiness, joining up the small estate buildings. I know I’m lucky to have hours of off road running so close by, but this is not an uplifting place to spend your time. In any sense. Not flat, but hardly hilly, I’ve been spending hours running laps of the same hills, trying to cram in metres.

One slithery quad track offers a 12 minutes round trip at a steady effort. There’s a hundred metre climb on farm roads in nearby Glenbeg. I grind around in circles, telling myself that it will turn me into Beth Pascall. Unlike George At-One-With-Nature Foster, I’m not averse to podcasts.

On your bike

Just a 15 minute bike ride away, oozing across Grantown’s southern skyline, the Cromdales look like a more enticing prospect. A gently undulating ridge with a few eye-catching cairns, they look like they should offer pleasant, grassy running. They don’t. All they offer is interminable, infuriating bog.

Running up there last May, when the sun had been baking the earth non stop for 6 weeks, I still found myself foundering shin deep in gloopy, gritty shite. It is a cursed place. The laws of physics are suspended; water refuses to flow downhill, the crest of the ridge remaining sodden year round, despite sitting hundreds of metres above the glens on either side.

The only kind thing you’ll hear people say about the Cromdales is that they make a decent ski tour. To paraphrase, don’t bother going there unless you can multiply the surface area of the soles of your feet many fold.

As if to rub salt in the wound, the Cromdales offer excellent views of much better hills. The slightly more interesting Ben Rinnes to the east, Ben Wyvis to the north, the Cairngorms proper to the south. Some days that reminder that there’s a better world out there makes it easier to keep slogging away. Some days it makes it harder.

Photo: Possibly taken by Munro botherer Donnie Campbell

A pilgrim goes the extra mile

Yesterday I made the pilgrimage to Glenmore, epicentre of Speyside hill running, home to my beloved Meall a’ Bhuachaille and, funny enough, the place I was living when I was running my best. I met Donnie Campbell, who’s been up all the Munros but has never run on the World’s Best Hill, and gave him a comprehensive tour.

Descending for the third time to Ryvoan Bothy with a view to heading right towards Creag a’ Chalamain and the Lairig Ghru for a change of scenery, the sun on the plateau caught our eye and we hung a left instead, taking an impromtu trip out to Bynack Mor.

I won’t bore you with the details, but it was glorious.

A long grind up to the plateau, then kicking steps through the snow at the base of the ridge, as best you can in running shoes, then clambering up through the boulders feeling like Hermann Buhl. We paused briefly to take in the view. Oh look, you can see the Cromdales from here.

And back down to home

And then down again, skipping across the rocks, hopping on and off the snow, glissading down the last 100 metres to the platea, before the open-strided joy of the long grind reversed, legs going faster and faster, gliding over the drainage ditches, trying not to think about how much skin you’ll lose if you catch a toe.

The kind of fast running that feels completely effortless until you stop at the bottom and realise you’re a little bit buggered.

It’s a long jog out from Bynack Stables to the cars at the Hayfield but it didn’t drag. The power of company and the feeling, for the first time in months, that I’d actually been somewhere.

It was a wonderful reminder that hill running can be fun. Not the type-2 in-hindsight fun that ultra wankers are so proud of, but actual fun. The kind of fun that children have in playparks.

It’s possible, maybe likely, probably inevitable, that much of what I write on here this year will be moaning about the extended athletic decline that I feel I’ve been in for the last couple of years.

Days like yesterday leave me feeling uncharacteristically optimistic. Not that I’ll turn things around and become a superstar, just that even if all I ever have to show for my running is a series of impressively gutsy death march ultra finishes, there will still be enough days like yesterday to make the hours in the Cromdales worthwhile.

The post Hill running can be fun appeared first on Fast Running.

Ally Beaven is a friend to Fast Running and has written for us before, on topics based around the fells, hills, mountains and fastest known times. Author of celebrated book Broken, about the summer of records last year, if you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, it’s highly recommended.

Normally found on the mountains of his base in Aviemore, Beaven also travels overseas to events like the super tough Tor 130, sister race o the iconic Tor des Geants in the Aosta valley, Italy and the Berlin marathon… on roller skates (hence the 2:12 marathon PB).

Hopefully he has some races and long, sunny uphill tempos to tell us about in 2021.

Profile

Name: Ally Beaven

Age: 32

Hometown: Speyside.

Club: Highland Hill Runners

Main discipline: When I run hill races I’m an ultrarunner, when I run ultras I’m a hill runner.

Other disciplines: I’d been really looking forward to the cross country season. Getting the legs run off me by a variety of vets last winter was a real joy.

Work: Part time barman, one time writer.

Goals or targets for 2021: Train better than I did last year (this pretty much means more). I’ve also recently become aware that it’s a few years since I did Something Interesting, I’m like to put that right. Exatly how I’m not yet sure, probably something really long and obscure.

Past Running highlights: I’m quite proud of being the most short-lived holder of the Cairngorm 4000s record.

This is a picture of Dan Lawson and James Stewart, but Ally ran on the section preceding with the Dan the night before so it could be Ally for all anyone else knows.  Photo: Dave MacFarlane

Interesting or fun fact: I’d mention my marathon PB but Robbie doesn’t like it when I bring that up. [Too late, I already did – Robbie]

I run because: There’s nowhere near my house that’s good for rollerblading. [Surely the A9 is perfect? – Robbie]

Favourites

Favourite training session: Staring out the window at the snow, ice and slush, I have a real yearning for a long, sunny uphill tempo.

Least favourite training session: Long, flat and fast. I’d claim that my training history and race goals put me at a disadvantage with these kinds of sessions but really I think I’m just a wimp.

Favourite pre-race food: Porridge.

Favourite post-race food: Pizza

Favourite running shoes: Altras. I don’t really have much choice, my feet are almost as wide as they are long.

Brands or organisations that support me: Haha.

Ally’s book Broken really is a good read, so if you’d like to support a young writer in our sport, please do consider buying a copy. Maybe as a belated Valentine’s present for that special someone?

The post Fast10: Ally Beaven appeared first on Fast Running.

(Winners announced at the bottom of article if you’re in a rush).

Each year the Fell Runner’s Association gives out the Long Distance Award. It is given to a UK resident runner for one or more long distance running achievements in mountainous terrain, (primarily on foot though some cycling, kayaking or climbing is acceptable) in the UK or overseas. Race performances are not considered.

The list of winners is full of the kinds of things you’d expect, 24 hour records, the Munros, the Wainwrights, but it has also been awarded for less obvious stuff; Simon Jenkins and Martin Moran’s continuous traverse of the 4000m peaks in the Alps, Ken Taylor’s Bob Graham completion at the age of 71.

The first winner

It was first awarded in 1987 to Martin Stone for a trio of runs; the 24 Munro record, the Scottish 4000s and a mid-winter Bob Graham, all solo and unsupported.

“I was never a great fell racer,” says Martin. “I got some reasonable results on things like Wasdale, Langdale, mountain marathons, but actually I wasn’t that quick. So to have found my niche and then get some recognition for it was rather nice.”

Soon after, Martin was asked if he would like to take charge of the award, “on the basis that I probably wouldn’t ever get it again”, and he’s been running the show ever since. Each year, soon after the 30^th September deadline, he draws up a shortlist and distributes it to the voting panel.

“Every time somebody wins the award, they go onto the panel,” explains Martin, “so it’s still growing. It’s grown from about 20 to 28.”

There are no photos of Finlay Wild in action on his Charlie Ramsay Round because he just buggered off and did it solo, as he’s truly made of girders. Photo: Pete Bland Sports.

Who’s going after it?

One quirk of the Long Distance Award is that it isn’t something that anyone sets out to win. 

“I guess it’s never in anyone’s mind that they’re doing it because they want to win the award,” says Stephen Pyke, the only three time recipient. “They’re doing it because they’ve set themself a challenge or they want to break someone’s record , but come the end of the year, you get the call or the email from Martin, it’s a big honour really.”

Long distance hill running is a small world within a small world, so the award has always been a low key affair. Not exactly prestigious, but all the more meaningful to those who receive it because it is awarded by their peers and places them among their heroes.

“Winning the award was a huge honour for me.” Jasmin Paris, 3 Big Round records, 2016. “Arguably greater than any race win could be, as it was based on the collective decision of so many of my own running heroes and inspirations.”

A panel of people who know what they’re talking about

Paul Tierney, the most recent addition to the panel after receiving the award for last year’s Wainwrights record, says similar. “When I first got into the sport, I was reading books like Feet in the Clouds, Wild Trails to Far Horizons, and it was this golden age of record attempts and personal challenges.

There wasn’t the same wealth of races there is now. Reading books like that, you learn all about who the proper legends are and then to see some of them win that prize and your name is on the thing as well, it gives you a really nice feeling.” 

In 2020, for the first time, the information Martin Stone sent out included an article from each of the nominees, a couple of pages written for The Fellrunner magazine, giving details of their run.

This year has been an exceptional one (someone should write a book about it – Ed.), the shortlist swelling from the usual 4 or 5 runners to 11, with a dozen more solid candidates failing to make the cut and several runs soon after the deadline, like George Foster’s second fastest Bob Graham, that would have been very strong contenders.

These are the nominees, alphabetically by first name:

Sasha Chepelin – 24 hour Munro record

Beth Pascall – Bob Graham Round record

Carol Morgan – Lakeland 24 Hour Record

Damian Hall  – Pennine Way record and winter Paddy Buckley Round record

Donnie Campbell – Munro Round record

Finlay Wild – Ramsay’s Round record

Howard Dracup – Steve Parr Round record

John Kelly – Pennine Way Record and Grand Round

Kim Collison – Lakeland 24 Hour Record and winter Bob Graham Round record

Matthew Roberts – Paddy Buckley Round record

Sabrina Verjee – Pennine Way record

Sabrina Verjee, on her Wainwrights record attempt, which wasn’t included as assistance meant it wasn’t record eligible, but we had another nice picture and wanted to use it. Just imagine Sabrina’s in a bog on the Pennine Way instead please. Photo: Steve Ashworth Media

Not an easy decision in 2020

This incredible depth means that making a well informed choice is a time consuming business, though most relish the responsibility. Among them, Manny Gorman, Corbett Round 2009.

“I really look forward to it. You get that email from Martin and you know you’ve got your night’s reading ahead of you. I sit down with a dram or a beer and go through them. This year, there were so many candidates, it was ridiculous. A whole bottle of whisky and a barrel of home brew. I read all of those reports 3 times and some of them 4 or 5 times. I had real trouble narrowing it down.”

Members of the panel have free rein in their decision making, most alluding to some balance of physical difficulty, logistics, style, aesthetics of the route, but each weighing these things differently according to taste; one may be drawn to the highest level of athleticism while another values novelty and creativity.

For those in difficulty, Martin Stone provides a list of weighted criteria to help guide their decision making, though he thinks only about half of the panel uses it.

So who do you go for?

Talking to usually effusive members of the panel, they suddenly become coy when asked about their decision making process, for obvious reasons.

Paul Tierney again. “Well, it’s the long distance award so obviously. . .very long distances are essential. . .” Woah, slow down Paul, I need to write that down. Eventually, he tires of talking in circles. “I can tell you who I voted for, would that make it easier? I voted for REDACTED in the end but I really could have voted for any of them.”

In the cosy confines of the long distance world, the panel’s job is made even harder by a web of potential conflicts of interest. Several are this year asked to consider runs that broke their own records, others played a part in supporting one or more of the nominees. More generally, it’s impossible for runners’ reputations not to precede them.

“Certainly in that list there are people who for years have stood out to me as being very, very impressive,” says Paul Tierney.

“Knowing the individual and what they’ve done before has to colour your thoughts a little bit. Does that make me a fucking cheat? I did try and just base it on what they actually did.” 

Kim Collison was just one of the runners photographed by Steve Ashworth in 2020, who probably could have been nominated for his own cumulative time on the fells this year. Photo: Steve Ashworth Media

No worthy winner?

The panel do have the option of voting for No Worthy Winner if they feel that there are no appropriate candidates. The award has been withheld twice, in 2002 and 2012.

“I really bugged to see that,” says Manny. “If I’d thought that was the case I’d have nipped out and done something for a week. I’d have ran coast to coast on my hands or something.”

It is unlikely that that will be the case this year. “I did put it on the notes this time,” Martin says, “but obviously it’s completely irrelevant.”

One outright winner, but plenty of deserving silver medals

There will be no runaway winner this year. But although the voting will be split, there’s a concensus among the panel not only that the winner of the Long Distance Award in 2020 will be a deserving one, but that a number of equally deserving contenders will be missing out.

Martin Stone, the man at the helm, feels this more keenly than most. 

“After it’s all over there needs to be some empathetic writing saying what a challenging year it’s been for the panel and what fantastic things all these people have done. Everybody should be proud, in any normal year any one of them would have been a fantastic winner. I think the person who wins will be almost like a representative of everyone who’s done great things this summer.”

And the winners are…

 ***The 2020 Long Distance Award is to be shared between John Kelly and Donnie Campbell***  

Both athletes received twice as many votes as any other nominee and the panel clearly felt that 2020 was the year to honour the biggest and most committing adventures.

This is the first time since 1989 that 2 runners who were not running together have shared the award. On that occasion is was shared between Helene Diamantides and Mike Hartley for records on the three Big Rounds and the Pennine Way record respectively.

Did you know that Ally Beaven has written a book about all these bloody records being broken this year? It would probably make an excellent Christmas present for all your friends and family, if you’re the kind of person who likes being nice. 

The post And the fell winner is… appeared first on Fast Running.

The Berlin Marathon is a big deal. 47,000 runners, a glittering elite field and consistent world best times. Some may be drawn to the Ye Olde charm of Boston, but there is no doubt that in global road running Berlin is The Big Show.

Yet if the ocean of twitchy, nervous runners that line up on the Straße des 17. Juni on a  September Sunday morning think they’re about to run the best marathon in the world, they’re kidding themselves. It isn’t even the best marathon in Berlin. It isn’t even the best marathon in Berlin that weekend.

The real Berlin marathon

Because the previous afternoon a different group nervously twitched behind that same start line. Not quite the gargantuan hoarde which lines up on the Sunday but, at 5,000 people, a considerable crowd nonetheless. In almost every respect the two events are the same; the same organisers, the same headline sponsors, the same pints of alcohol free Erdinger at the finish. All but 7 of the their 42.195 kilometres are identical. 

The only significant difference is that those racing on the Saturday are wearing rollerblades.

This past Saturday I was one of those with wheels on their feet. My debut roller marathon marked the end of a twelve year haiatus from the sport, having spent god knows how many hours of my teens jumping down stairs, mucking up benches and walls with liberal applications of candle wax and being chased out of the Eastgate Shopping Centre in Inverness while trying to buy sweets.

The author looking like a ‘pro”. He did ask if we could use the word “bell-end” on Fast Running. Photo: John Kelly

Not quite your youth offender skaters

Looking around, I found little in common between those I was skating with in Berlin and those with whom I’d terrorised innocent highland security guards. This new lot, though not all outwardly athletic, were clearly dressed for an activity which differed from the one I had been used to.

Aero helmets and skin suits were in. Wallet chains and Linkin Park t-shirts were notable only by their absence. 

Even accounting for the sad lack of metal band t-shirts, anyone who, given the option, opts to run the Berlin Marathon, rather than skate it, is an idiot.

Why the skate marathon is better

Before they’ve even tied their laces on the first day of training, the skaters have a much better deal. Runners taking their chances in the lottery must get their entry in in October and stand around a 1 in 11 chance of getting in.

By contrast, my inline skate marathon entry went in one morning in June while as I sat in bed with a cup of tea. In half an hour we’d sorted race entries, travel and accommodation.

No waiting around, no uncertainty, no I got in but my wife didn’t, and no need to tweet that it’s the  47^th straight year you didn’t get in and the lottery is clearly rigged!

The runner’s entry stress is mirrored by their race day experience. A 6am alarm to eat whatever miserable high carb gruel they think will help their performance, followed by hours spent cheek by jowel with 50,000 similarly misguided “athletes” in Vaporflys, getting hearty lungfuls of deep heat and body odour and agonizing over whether it’s worth the trauma to make a last minute dash to the portaloo.

By the time they finally crawl across the startline some time before 10, the carbohydrate you got out of bed for four hours earlier has come and gone.

Time for a lie in

The skaters, by contrast, don’t start until 3:30 in the afternoon. A lie in, a relaxed stroll round an art gallery, a boozy lunch in an unbearably cool Berlin cafe; these are the race day rituals of an inline skater.

There’s ample space to sit and put your skates on, the queues for the toilet are mercifully short, and dropping your drop bag takes mere moments. In fact, the worst part of the skate marathon, at least for those languishing in the final start wave, is having to hear the same 60 seconds of AC/DC’s Hells Bells 8 times.

Eight tiny, inevitable disappointments that they haven’t slipped in one For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The race itself

Skating through Berlin is a joy. Try rollerblading the course of any UK marathon and at best you’ll need a few new fillings. At worst extensive skin grafts and a couple of plaster casts. Rolling through Berlin is like skating on a snooker table. Floating on air in your finest silk slippers.

And even on the occasions when tram lines distrupt this frictionless reverie, all you can think is I bet those form part of a well integrated, affordable public transport system. Famous landmarks whizz by and then, before you know it, you’re done.

A skater will finish in around half the time of a similarly competent runner. (Bart Swings 56:49 course record comes out just shy of 45kph).

This year, in the pissing rain, Felix Rijhnen ended Swings’ six year winning streak. World and European titles, world records, Olympic medals; he’s still no Finlay Wild.

And then off, into the continental evening to find another hip and happening eatery in which to knock back pints of hefeweizen and trade tales of glory. Even with the later start time, the skaters are two pints to the good before the runners, wincing and clutching at cramping quads, have even made it downstairs into the s-bahn station. Idiots.

*Ally Beaven is a Scottish hill runner who loves long and technical ultra distance mountain races and reckons he could go under two hours for a marathon, but it would all be down to his special shoes. If you feel like more dry humour, inline skating and hill running is a mix you need, follow Ally on Twitter.

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The post Why you’re doing the wrong Berlin Marathon appeared first on Fast Running.