Brough Law Fell Race, 17th March 2024

With the Lambton Harrier League fixture cancelled (again), it was a touch serendipitous that a friend should casually ask me on Thursday evening whether I fancied a fell race on the Sunday, and that there happened to be a space in the car… A cross-country shaped hole in my schedule, and a £5 entry fee was all the motivation I needed to take my first dip into the world of fell-running, and so we were off to Brough Law, a little west of Alnwick.

Despite the long list of ‘mandatory’ kit, we were informed at registration that compasses, maps, whistles etc. would not be required, merely a waterproof jacket. Travel light, move fast.

The race started with runners assembling at the bottom of a short, incredibly steep bank. I’ve run up some tough inclines, but this was on another level. It seems slightly antithetical that a ‘running’ race should start with a minute of walking, but there was to be plenty more of that to come.

What followed was an undulating climb, alternately running and walking on the steeper parts. It was an overcast day, but there was no rain and no wind to really speak of. Reaching the top of the first hill, we were treated to our first majestic view across the rolling, mist-swathed fells, and a bit of respite as we ran down to a plateau.

There were a couple of marshalled checkpoints, but mostly we were left to follow the runners ahead, which sometimes provided options as people split off in different directions to navigate a particular stretch. In contrast to the plodding uphills were the lengthy, tumbling downhills, which saw me passed on a couple of occasions by presumably more experienced, gazelle-like runners, bowling over the uneven, grassy terrain like it was a flat running track. There were a few boggy bits to traverse that reminded me of cross-country, but it was an otherwise moist-at-worst affair.

At the top of Cochrane Pike, swimming through the fog, I had lost touch with the runners ahead, and was lucky to be passing the last checkpoint, as the marshal shouted at me to bear right and follow the small piece of barely visible tape staked in the ground. Good timing that perhaps prevented me from running off the edge of a precipice (dramatic licence, this probably wouldn’t have happened).

There was one more sheer, walking incline to come, followed by some gentler undulating climbing for a couple of km, before the steep, nervy descent. Two men had caught up with me shortly after the checkpoint, and we had stayed together until this, but their nimbleness told as I lost some ground loping down the slope after them.

Hurtling down the final hill, we arrived back near the start, the finish line reached after hurdling one last stream. It was certainly a different experience, one requiring as much endurance as speed, but the views and atmosphere were amazing (when one had enough breath to remember to look). All things considered, 17th place seemed a great result for a first go. A taste of what to expect at the Chevy Chase, which is only four times longer and reportedly much steeper…