Pendle Cloughs Fell Race – Sat 11th May 2024

Saturday brought the 3^rd qualifier in this year’s English Fell Running Championships and was the first of the AL races, a tough outing summiting Pendle Hill twice between visits to various outlying cloughs over a distance of 22.5km and 1250m. It was also in the club Grand Prix and on a hot sunny day brought 21 club members to the village of Downham on the far side of Pendle where the race started & finished.

Talk before the race started was who had seen the previous night’s magnificent Northern Lights show, however there was certainly nothing northern or arctic about the weather for the day with clear sunshine and the temperature pushing well into the 20 somethings. Lots of water was getting stored in race vests in anticipation of a long hot day.

Apart from the run in at the finish the route is completely unmarked with 9 checkpoints to visit by your own route choice. There were over 300 runners started the race so with a large field and clear skies route choice was generally not too difficult. There was a debate before the start about an alternative route between checkpoints 5 & 6 which some people took however opinions after were pretty mixed on whether it was better than the recognised route or not.

Outstanding performance of the day for Tod was Doni finishing 4^th (1^st V40) in a time of 2:03:51. A time which in itself beat the previous course record.

Overall winners were Nichola Jackson, Keswick in 2:20:51 and Ben Rothery, Ilkley Harriers in 1:58:48. Both were new course records.

Other notable Tod results in their class were Mel Blackhurst, 2^nd W55, Deborah Gowens, 4^th W55

Full set of results can be found athttps://www.sportident.co.uk/results/FRA-English/2024/PendleCloughs/