Report by: Will Worboys

ANYONE who has walked Yorkshire’s three peaks even at a leisurely pace will know how tough the popular route is.

However, on Saturday morning around 600 people made the decision to attempt to run the 69th renewal of the fell race in the Yorkshire Dales.

The classic race starts and finishes at Horton in Ribblesdale and takes in Pen Y Gent, Whernside and finally Ingleborough and is 23.5 miles in total. There were five Ilkley Harriers who braved the cold weather and disagreeable headwinds to complete the event this year.

Peter Shelley was the first Ilkley runner home, brilliantly bettering his previous course best to finish in a time of 4hr 39:16 and achieving a second-class finish. This despite suffering with an unpleasant cramp well before the final peak.

Next over the line was Dave Reynier who conquered the five thousand feet plus of climbing to finish in 4hr 54:37. Alison Weston put in an excellent run to finish seventh in her age category WV50 in a time of 5hr 09:43. Not far behind were Kate Prior coming home in 5hr 13:11; and then Sacha Jones in 5hr 35:34. Anyone completing the three peaks deserves praise, but to run it in these sorts of times takes an admirable amount of training and determination.

Amazingly, the above race was arguably not even the toughest event in the Dales this weekend with the 60th running of the ‘Fellsman’ also taking place concurrently. A whopping 95-kilometre arcing route from Ingleton to Threshfield, this race attracts a special breed of athlete.

Challenged further by the cold weather and the many climbs, Ilkley’s Dick Waddington ran all day Saturday and through the night, finishing early on Sunday morning in the sunshine in a time of 21hr 02. Over 400 competitors started the race and were whittled down to 258 finishers, further demonstrating how tough this event is.

One of the most impressive performances of the weekend was on flatter terrain at the Boston Half Marathon in Lincolnshire. Ilkley’s Jaysson Sawyer finished ahead of the vast majority of the field of 460 runners to finish 15th overall and 3rd in his category.

This was a particularly poignant race for Sawyer because four weeks after managing a PB at the 2021 edition, he was struck down with an unknown illness leaving him unable to walk. He was blue lighted to hospital with a suspected stroke and eventually received a diagnosis of ‘Functional Neurological Disorder’; symptoms of which include muscle weakness and impaired co-ordination.

Since then, the Ilkley Harrier’s recovery has been a long and steady but inspirational story and he is well on the way to matching the fast times achieved in races before the diagnosis. Finishing where he did in poor weather and in a superb time of 1hr 23:50 is testament to Sawyer’s will, dedication to training and recovery.

Meanwhile in midweek the EvenSplits 5K series at the Brownlee centre continued. An impressive 31 second course PB was had by Harry Sime who finished in a time of 20:15 and was 2nd in his category. The only other Harrier to participate was Matthew Lambe who just ducked under the 20 minute barrier to finish in 19:55 and was 38th overall.

Sticking with the 5K distance, plenty of Harriers gave good accounts of themselves at the Saturday morning parkruns.

At Barnsley Mark Hall was 3rd overall and also in South Yorkshire Diane Kitchen was 19th female at Hillsborough, with an age graded score above 81%. Samesh Chotai finished 2nd at Skipton in a superb 17:47.

At Fountains Abbey Andrew Smith enjoyed the scenery putting in a course best time of 21:44. At Chevin Forest Nicola Budding put in a great run to finish 8th female, while Robert Budding was 11th overall.

Finally, the Coy family had a productive visit to Malahide in Ireland with Gaenor posting her quickest time for quite some time of 25:20. While Steve stormed to 2nd place on his milestone 50th parkrun.