Brecon Fans Races

Here's a table of those who have entered at least four times, noting of course that we have no information for 1993-2003. Count of Pen y Fan Race entries per person First Name Last Name Entries Kevin Hagley 15 Simon Blease 15 William... read more

Kevin Hagley, then of Dark Peak FR, leading the pack up to Pen y Fan summit, with Corn Du screes in the background. Kevin, who may possibly lay claim to having raced Pen y Fan more times than anyone else (*analysis needed!), is closely followed Don Ashton, who had already won the English V50 Champs just before that race and won the V50 category at Pen y Fan that day, leading to his British V50 title a few months later. Photo by Ken Price - on the cover of 1992 June/July issue of "Up and... read more

We were contacted today by the grandson of Don Ashton of Blackburn Harriers. He spotted that the results on this website didn't match those in The Fellrunner.This is what we had, i.e. the original results sheet, with Don as a Senior M and Roger Bell winning 1st V50:And this is what Calvin was able to send me, from the Fellrunner, with Don correctly identified as 1st V50.Calvin says Don was born on 3rd December 1938, so he would’ve been 53 on race day in 1992, which tallies with the Fellrunner... read more

Many will be aware that there used to be an "overall record" prize for Pen y Fan that had risen by £100 per year for the past 12 years and was standing at £1200 in 2018 (in similar manner to the way the "Man vs Horse" winner's prize was raised each year). The original reasoning for this was that Keith Anderson's 30-minute record was said to be unbeatable, so it seemed a bit of fun to try to entice top class runners with a growing prize. The ladies record being 27.5% slower was said to be... read more

I just found some photos from the Fan y Big Horseshoe from 2008 and 2009, enjoy!

Weather and Kit @ Pen y Fan The forecast is mixed, with a good chance of rain, high winds on the high ground, and severely reduced visibility on the hill. Or it might be a sunny spell, but we all must plan for the worst. Therefore we will be requiring full kit at Pen y Fan, that is: Bumbag or rucksack Full windproof body cover (i.e. jacket and long trousers) Compass Map of the route (can be picked up at registration) Whistle For the up-to-date mountain weather forecast... read more

One of our competitors at Pen y Fan and Fan y Big last year - Damian Hall - is a journalist. He's had a piece about the races published in Men's Fitness magazine, and kindly sent us a link:

http://www.mensfitness.co.uk/races-events/4370/is-fell-running-britains-most-extreme-sport

Woohoo, it's Chris Chambers of Eastleigh Running Club going for the Pen y Fan and Fan y Big double.

First the good news... the online entry system is now open for 2015. It could be that perfect Christmas gift for the one you love!? Now the bad news... we've increased prices by £1 for each race, so that we can pay the farmers for parking out of the entry fees we receive. OK not such bad news really, as we collected money for parking anyway at Fan y Big, so including it in the entry fee will save that particular hassle. Overall, because there are more runners than cars, we will collect a little ... read more

Anthony Kay of the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Loughborough University, has kindly sent us a copy of a paper he has recently had published: "Importance of descending skill for performance in fell races: a statistical analysis of race results”, Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, vol. 10, pp. 173-181 (2014). He uses Pen y Fan as one of his case studies, because a) it’s a race with a very steep descent, and b) we have recorded split times for ascent and descent whenever... read more