FRA Juniors 2019 - Sedbergh

On a very wet and overcast morning we arrived at the People's Hall in Sedbergh in advance of Helm Hill's hosting of the FRA Junior championship for 2019. At the time it was so cloudy that the tops of the hills weren't visible and it was a worry as to whether it would be safe for the under 19s to run their full route as it took in 3 summits (luckily the weather cleared in plenty of time!).

After my marshal briefing I walked the under 9 route with my son so I could find the best videoing spot. It was a challenging if not too long a route for them:

My son and his friend walked some more of their under 15 route whilst I set myself up to film just below the under 9 turn. There were 26 runners from 6-8 years in this race:

After they had gone I walked up along the descent route to capture the under 11s. This shows how steep some of the course was:

FRA Malham Fell Race

On Saturday my son and I drove over to Malham in Yorkshire for the latest FRA Junior Championship race hosted by Keighly and Craven Athletics Club. After a stunning drive through the Dales we parked in the beautiful village before hiking to the start:

Once my son was registered we joined the other families walking the course:

It was a scorching hot day and the under 9s were lucky to only have to run to the specially flagged turn:

#CountryKids FRA Junior Championships Blacko

On Sunday my son and I travelled for just over an hour to Blacko in Lancashire for the 2nd of the Fell Running Associations Junior Championships. (First event was at Todd Cragg in Ambleside). We arrived in plenty of time as we knew parking was going to be an issue (it did result in total gridlock in the village!). This also gave us time to walk the course and check out the obstacles and let me decide on filming points.
We actually got lost walking the route as we were so early they hadn't flagged it out (the landowner wanted it all done at the last minute). However we did manage to discover the bog of doom and how many stiles they would have to climb (4 in total but 2 would be repeated):

Looking at my strava recording I can see where we went wrong but it wasn't easy to see on the ground:

The first two races were taking a slightly different route which had no mud but an awful lot of hill. I positioned myself on the hillside with both cameras and enjoyed the sunshine whilst waiting for the under 9 runners to get to me. Bear in mind some of these are only 6 years old:

#CountryKids Fell Running Association Junior Championships Todd Cragg

This Sunday saw the opening race for this year's Fell Running Association Junior Championships at Ambleside. My son hadn't taken part in previous years so he decided to give it a go this year. All the races had to cross the historic Miller Bridge from Rothay Park:

There were 6 different age categories and each route was well marked and marshalled. My son and I walked his route so he knew where he was going and I could choose from filming locations.  The under 9 race (for 6 years and over) was just for 1 km and they went up the tarmac hill and back down again:

I captured their race from a few 100 metres below their turn. There were some scary speeds as they raced back down past me: