Brecon Fans Races Blog

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

Here are some photos I took at the finish, but it’s not quite all runners as I had to toddle off to do the results before everyone came in.

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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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Photos taken on Andy's iPhone at the summit. We didn’t catch everyone due to technical problems – sorry!

 

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Thanks to Andy Creber for this new view of the race, taken from a remote control helicopter drone, with interesting soundtrack...

Thanks to Brecon Brewing we have a bottle of Gold Beacons ale for all runners (except the juniors!). They say it is a deep golden ale brewed with Progress and Pioneer hops for a soft yet well defined bitterness, which balances the blend of malts.Ingredients: Brecon water, Maris Otter Pale Ale malt, Crystal malt, Caragold malt, Malted Oats; Progress and Pioneer hops; yeast But before handing this out, we do have to follow our strict quality control procedures, so I’m checking it out now. Here’s ... read more

This fantastic video was recorded by Mark Bevan of Basingstoke & Mid Hants AC at the Pen y Fan Race in 2013 - it really captures the experience. It also reminds me what a hot day we had - especially poignant since only a few hundred metres away those SAS reservists were getting into big big trouble. For those using this as a guide to the race, note that Mark and the others around him took a descent line of questionable merit from Pen y Fan. Instead of descending direct down the steep ... read more

Here are some photo’s from the start, summit and finish of today’s Pen y Fan Race. Photo's were kindly taken by Tony Law on the summit (using a very old and primitive digital camera, he says), and at the finish by an innocent bystander who didn't run away when I handed her my camera - she did an excellent job (with a cheap camera) so thanks to her on everyone's behalf. Please let us know who this was, if you know, so we can acknowledge her input more... read more

I found this review of the Pen y Fan race from Anthony Clarke, a novice fell runner and self-confessed "plodder", who ran in 2011 and 2012 and described his experiences eloquently with profile and speed graphs. You can see Anthony's results here, confirming that he improved a lot second time around. http://www.breconfans.org.uk/Results?race=PEN+Y+FAN&year=ALL&sex=ALL&club=ALL&cat=ALL&name=Anthony+Clarke Hope we'll see you in 2013 Anthony - you could definitely get under... read more

I've added a little countdown timer to the home page, showing this: The Pen y Fan Race starts in // I got the JavaScript from http://www.hashemian.com/tools/-countdown.htm and added the script into the Brecon Fans home page using the mojoPortal editor (TinyMCE) - all nice and easy. I've also tidied up some of the styling so that all text can be re-sized in the browser (for our veteran runners ). This meant changing all text styles from using fixed sizes to using proportional sizes... read more