Up the beast

Last night’s fell counter ‘Up the Beast’ (they seem to be dropping the prefix ‘Trail Race’, and rightly so!) was by turns, a roaring success, an eye opener, a great debut, or a right torment. Depending on who you were. I lost count, but I think we had 13 Helsby vests out last night, which is clearly fantastic.

A sneaky race, with two really tough ascents and plenty of off-piste action, some of which required a bit of scrambling technique! The second big climb (not that there was much flat) went on for a long time, really taxing lungs and calfs.

We came away with 5th and 6th overall, 3rd male (Adair) and 1st female (Jane). Albert also came away with another age group category and Paul took a well-deserved spot prize in a really strong debut on the fells. Chris BH is running like a train at the moment and starting to trouble Adair’s heels.

Special mention to Jim who’d cycled there for hardman points.

Full results now available here

http://www.wfra.org.uk/

Helsby positions and times were as follows:

5^th           Adair Broughton                               38.30
6^th           Chris Baynham-Hughes                 38.55
16^th         Jim O’Hara                                          42.53
22^nd        Jane Ashbrook                                  44.55     1^st Lady
33^rd        Paul Porter                                         46.31
36^th         Steve Riley                                          47.19
42^nd        Phil Gillard                                           48.04
43^rd        Andy Robinson                                 48.23
54^th         Albert Berry                                       50.00     1^st Male O/60
56^th         Andy Smith                                         50.34
62^nd        Vanessa Griffiths                             51.42
69^th         Carol Shaw (& Mario)                     55.22