Famous Grouse

This race was the final Pennine championship counter of the year, so there were scores of Pennine runners. Mrs Noel's was due to do the race, but she felt a little ill on the day, so decided not to. It was lovely and sunny - as it always is on this side of the Peak District. Unfortunately, my camera didn't deal too well with the conditions, so everyone looks like they're glowing.

Dunnerdale Fell Race

Dunnerdale Fell Race was a Pennine club championship race again this year. This race is during my off-season, so it was great chance to watch the race, heckle, and video it. Can you spot yourself?

Shepherd's skyline video

Here's a video of yesterday's Shepherd Skyline fell race. Enjoy.

Screes and Great Whernside

"We should probably check if there are any fell races near where we are going on holiday," said Mrs Noel on the Friday before we were due to go to Nether Wasdale for a week. After a quick inspection of the race calendar, we found there was a race starting from the pub just around the corner from where we were staying on the day we arrived. Very bizarre!

Mrs Noel managed to finish first lady and win a meal for two at the pub - which was very pleasant. Thanks to the management of the Screes Inn.

Then on the way back from our week in the Lakes, we also called in on the lovely Kettlewell to do the Great Whernside fell race. This was the Yorkshire championship race, so a lot of good fell runners had turned up. Here they are not far into the race.

It was a good race to watch. Ian Holmes was chasing Carl Bell down the final descent. He was slowly, slowly gaining with every step. Unfortunately, they went out of my sight before the end. Apparently, Ian Holmes slipped and fell in the last hundred metres, otherwise it would have been very close. I had a quick chat with Carl while he was warming down and he sounded pretty relieved to have won.

Mrs Noel finished 5th, but was pleased to be ahead of some quality runners in a pretty high-profile race like this.

Last race of 2011

It was a great way to end 2011. The British fell relays will be my last race of the year, and I loved every minute of it.

If you discount all those fell runners who ran in other legs of the relays, and those who weren't there, and those who are better than me but couldn't get into their teams... bear with me here... then I'm the 22nd fastest fell runner in Britain.

Although in my rationale mind, I realise that this is like scoring a goal in a game of park football and imagining I'm Lionel Messi. I'm fairly sure I'm not in the top 500 fell runners in the country. But partly because of that "boyhood dream comes true" part of the mind that everyone keeps well hidden, it was great to be in an event like this and feel justified in pushing myself really hard like I assume the top runners do.

My teammates were great and dragged the team up to 21st place overall. We also had a ladies, v40 and v50 team out, who also did very well. I enjoyed having done the first leg and then being able to watch the drama unfold. My only regret was that in the mens' open race, there was very little "drama" around who would win. Dark Peak won it by a street in very unexciting fashion.

Will I be good enough to get into our team next year? My goal is to be better and be part of better team. Who knows what we could achieve. I shouldn't limit my ambitions. Where would today's champions be if they didn't have the drive and ambition to take them to the pinnacle of the sport. I'm hoping for 18th next year.

Things to do on a rainy weekend

1. Set up a rope across a river.
This was mainly for the kids. Here is my youngest midway across:

But the grown-ups couldn't help getting involved. We tried it hanging below the rope - this resulted in the lowest few inches of us getting wet. We also tried it above the rope. This was our friend Jason's idea and here he is demonstrating how it should be done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kblfXFh7JYA.
I was surprised by how reliable a method this was, as it looks very precarious.

2. Play with the kids' toys.
This was the best magnetix model that was made. Note the two-shell design utilising squares and triangles.

3. Run a fell race.
Mrs Noel did Windgather fell race today. She wasn't mad keen on doing a long race (13 miles). But she needed to do it to complete the Goyt Valley series, which she won to retain her trophy. It was also a counter in the Gritstone series, which she finished in second place.

Ian Hodgson relays

Last year's Ian Hodgson relays were a highlight of our year. This year, the Pennine mixed team was even stronger, but we had some serious competition. Both Borrowdale and Bingley had put out strong teams. Presumably they'd seen our success last year and thought "we could have beaten that lot".

Last year I remember there had been some discussion about whether Daz Holloway or I should be in the mixed team. I got the nod that time, but Daz has since transformed himself beyond recognition, so I was happy that Daz was running our longest and hardest leg in the mixed team. He was partnered by Adam, who is also running fantastically well at the moment.

While the battle for mixed team success was going on, I was running as part of the open (mens') team along with Nic, who normally beats me but only just. Unfortunately, we made a navigational error on leg 2, so lost about 10 minutes for our leg 3 and 4 runners to try to make up. I could take 10 minutes off our time and say "we would have finished there", but navigation is all part of it. Plus that would assume all the other teams didn't make errors of their own. Luckily, the lads on legs 3 and 4 ran well and didn't repeat our navigational errors, so we finished in a respectable time.

Anyway, back to the mixed team. After two storming runs by the girls on leg 1 and the lads on leg 2, Mrs Noel and her partner ran the fastest female leg 3 of the day to hand over to our leg 4 runners well ahead of Borrowdale and about 50 seconds ahead of Bingley.

And who were running for Bingley on their anchor leg? Multiple fell running champion Ian Holmes, and three peaks fell race record holder Andy Peace. This pair are getting on a bit, but they're still winning good races. Although the Pennine boys ran a near-perfect race, they were pipped by 7 seconds. Apparently our lads had been closing the gap all the way down the final hill. It's amazing that after 4 hours and twenty minutes of running, only 7 seconds separated the two teams.

We'll definitely be back next year. It must be such a palava to organise this race, but it's definitely worth it.