Hodgson Brothers Mountain Relay, 1 Oct 2023

The ‘Hodgson Brothers Mountain Relay’ is a fell running relay held on the first weekend of October each year in Patterdale, Lake District. It attracts some of the best fell runners in the country, with around 70 teams competing. I was honoured to be asked to run for Pennine Fell Runners women’s team. Each of the four legs is run in pairs, and I was paired with a lovely lady called Jo.

The route isn’t marked, and you aren’t allowed a GPS device (just map and compass), so we drove up the day before with the intention of doing a recce. When we arrived the weather was horrendous. It was raining heavily and the tops were claggy, so we decided to save our legs as we wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway! Thankfully, Jo had already recce’d the route and seemed pretty confident that she knew the way. We also had the benefit of being on leg 1 so would have people to follow. The rest of the day was spent pottering around Ambleside and eating cake at the hostel.

Race day. After a little jog around the field to warm up, we went to the start line. It was one of the most tense start lines I’ve ever been at and it all started to feel very real! Having never run with Jo before, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up, but calmed my nerves by telling myself it was only 4.5 miles of pain! From doing Tim’s VO2max sessions on the bike I’ve definitely learned that I can push my body to its limits, so it doesn’t scare me as much anymore. Anyway, I shouldn’t have worried as we were actually really well matched!

We had about 100m of road before joining the uphill path. Then it was more of a march than a run. I’m not actually too good at running so I much prefer this type of race; steep climbs, technical paths and fun descents. This ticked all the boxes! The route was great and I kept having to remind myself to look up and enjoy the (misty) views. Soon enough we were at Angle Tarn. I was pleasantly surprised that we had finished the climb and it was all downhill from here. I enjoy running downhill, but this was something else - it was SO steep and slippery! Most people were sliding down on their bums. I fell over a few times before deciding to follow suit. Jo absolutely mastered the art of the bum slide, meanwhile I was cursing myself for wearing shorts rather than leggings, as despite the smooth mud there were also rocks and a lot of bracken. Finally at the bottom, we had around 500m on a downhill track to the finish, where we managed a good sprint. Thankfully Jo was in charge of handing over the dibber to the next pair, while I collapsed on the grass to catch my breath!

We came 6th out of the 11 women’s teams on our leg, which we were super proud of. Our team also finished 6th overall. It was such a great day; hopefully I get asked to do it again next year!

Georgia Roberts