A team of six Manx fell runners competed at the British Fell Relays held in Appletreewick in Yorkshire.
The relays consists of four legs, two individual and two pairs one of which was a navigation leg.
The race course terrain was made up of flat trails, long tussocky and boggy fell with some really sharp steep climbs sprinkled in between.
British Fell Relay
Nick Colburn was on leg one with five miles of tough running ahead of him and some hot competition.
Nick as always, ran hard and finished in an excellent 26th position.
He then passed the batten onto top youngster Harry Kneen and current Manx fell league champion Sam Jones who headed off on the first pairs leg, a longer tour of the surrounding fells.
Harry and Sam ran well together pushing each other all the way on what proved to be a long, tough leg. At the changeover to leg 3 MFR were in 30th position.
Navigation Leg
Leg three was the navigation leg and was the responsibility of the two veteran members of the team Lloyd Taggart and Tom Cringle.
A tough course to navigate with numerous uncrossable walls criss crossing the route and some unexpected steep ravines.
Lloyd and Tom kept there focus though and avoiding the temptation to access one checkpoint via a swim down a river, finished with the team in 43rd position.
Last off was Saul Bradley on leg four, another short and tough route. This was Saul’s first race off the island and having had a long wait through the day he was chomping at the bit to get going.
Manx Fell Runners
With a great run he brought MFR home in 47th position overall out of 145 teams.
A fine performance from a small fell club whose, like all the islands athletic clubs, opportunities for regular national level competition are limited.
Next year the relays are in Wales, let’s try and get a few MFR teams in to fly the Manx flag.
5 Comments