Brecon Fans Races

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

A few snaps from the prize-giving earlier today; runners all full of cake and beer, and the rain holding off…

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Just back from the race – another classic. Pete Ryder and Harry Matthews led the way in a battle from start to finish. Harry took a flyer on the descent, injuring significant proportions of himself and eating quite a bit of mud, but bravely kept it together and even took the lead for while until the final sprint finish. We couldn’t separate them at the tape, so it was 1st prize shared, with a time of 1:16 or so. Conditions were very heavy underfoot so times were generally down. I hobbled ... read more

I've just spotted this interesting article about the fastest ascents and descents in fell and mountain running (in the world!). The author Anthony Kay says... "I have concluded that the fastest sustained descent rate ever recorded in any mountain race is 1.365m/s, achieved by Keith Anderson in the 1990 Pen-y-Fan Race, when he descended the 580 vertical meters (in 2,450 meters horizontally) from the summit of Pen-y-Fan to the finish at Cwm Llwch in 7:05. Just to show that this wasn’t a fluke,... read more

Photos from Ali Tye here http://www.fellrunningpictures.co.uk/fanybig2011.html When I get results from Mark I'll put them on the web site. However I'm away with work all week, so it might be next weekend. So, in summary, a good turnout over 100 entries; weather not half so bad as it could have been, though screaming wind round the horseshoe; James Waldie from Cornwall won (and took the series prize), Ben Thingy from Dark Peak was 2nd, Ed Gamble from from Cheshire was 3rd. Helen... read more

Just back from a work trip to Chester, and finding the house full of boxes of Breconshire Brewery ale. I think I'd better check it's all OK, perhaps one bottle from each box. Also I bought the wine for prizes on the way home, 24 bottles of nice, and Naomi picked up the prizes from Cotswold Outdoors in Brecon. And as well as the main prizes, every runner at each race will get a 15% off voucher valid in any Cotswold store, which is most welcome and very generous I reckon. On Wednesday... read more

I've added a blog to the Brecon Fans web site... the idea being to jot down notes and thoughts in the lead up to the races etc. Not sure whether I'll use it really, and this is partly just me playing around with the functionality in mojoPortal, the content management system I've used to build the site. I've also activated "comments" on some pages, to allow anyone with an interest in the races to give feedback on the web site information and the races themselves. Every good blog entry... read more