A win for England at inaugural Home Countries International trail race
Keswick was the perfect location for the inaugural Home Countries International trail race on 11 April, which also incorporated the UKA European-Off Road Running Championships trail selection race, and the British Middle Distance Trail Championships. The trial and the Home Countries competition brought added excitement and made the RunThrough Lake District Trail Race one of the most competitive trail races held in the UK for some years!
England had a very strong team including Ben Rothery (Ilkley Harriers AC, Sarah McCormack) , Bertie Houghton (Hallamshire Harriers, Lewis Moses), Grant Cunliffe (Rosendale Harriers, Steve Duxbury) and Emily Cowper-Coles (Rotherham Harriers AC / Dark Peak Fell Runners, self-coached) who had all represented Great Britain at last year's World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Spain.
Due to heavy rain and high winds forecast for the early morning, the organisers had to make the decision to cut out 5km and around 500m of ascent to avoid Scafell summit. So the final course was 48km with 1850m of ascent. The race started at 8am with rain and low cloud covering the hills, when the cloud did clear there was a good snow covering on the high ground, which would make for challenging conditions for the early part of the race.
Once the race got underway the English trio of Grant Cunliffe, Bertie Houghton and Ben Rothery were all in the leading group along with Luke Grenfell-Shaw and Alexander Chepelin, with Dan Connolly (Salford AC / Keswick AC, Lewis Walker) the fourth member of the England team in a good position slightly behind. Leading the women’s race was Scarlet Dale, with the English team of Eve Pannone (Ambleside AC, David Roche), Nichola Jackson (Keswick AC, Andrew Bibby), Emily Cowper-Coles and Holly Wootten (Keswick AC, Doug Stewart) spread out behind. The first 15km was undulating terrain until they started to climb over to Wasdale Head.
The ascent up to Honister Pass is where the real race started and some injuries changed the situation for the team; Grant Cunliffe who was going well, went over on his ankle and had to drop out at Honister Pass, and Nichola Jackson suffered the same fate near Wasdale Head. This meant that if England were to be successful in the team competition, everyone else had to finish! Through Honister Pass Ben Rothery was in second but pulled away from Alexander Chepelin to win in a fantastic time of 3 hours 56 minutes, Bertie Houghton also finished strong to take second over Alexander's third. Luke Grenfell-Shaw had a great race to finish fourth, and Dan Connolly finished strongly for eighth, which gave England the team gold.
In the women’s race Scarlet Dale kept moving away from the competition and comfortably won in 4 hours 27 minutes. In second place was Eve Pannone with a very strong run for England, followed by her teammate Emily Cowper-Coles, though Emily had to work very hard to hold off Scotland’s Kirsty Oldham. Holly Wootten on her England debut, finished seventh which was enough to secure the women's team gold.
Results
Men
1st: Ben Rothery (England) - 3:56.41
2nd: Bertie Houghton (England) - 3: 56.53
3rd: Alexander Chepelin (Carnethy HRC) - 3:58.26
4th: Luke Grenfell-Shaw (Lonely Goat RC) - 4:01. 22
5th: Andy Symonds (AS Cavaillon) - 4:08. 58
6th: George Foster (Keswick AC) - 4:11.29
7th: Keith Wigley (Scotland) - 4:13.05
8th: Dan Connolly (England) - 4:14.27
Men's teams (aggregate time)
1st: England - 12:08.00
2nd: Scotland - 12:53.10
3rd: Wales - 15:20.19
Women
1st: Scarlet Dale (Ambleside AC) - 4:27. 31
2nd: Eve Pannone (England) - 4:36.08
3rd: Emily Cowper-Coles (England) - 4:44. 50
4th: Kirsty Oldham (Scotland) - 4:45.16
5th: Catriona Graves (Scotland) - 4:46. 45
6th: Beth Pascall (Salomon UK) - 4:57.28
7th: Holly Wootten (England) - 5:00.53
8th: Nikki Arthur (Scotland) - 5:16.35
Women's team (aggregate time)
1st: England - 14:21mins 51sec
2nd: Scotland - 14:48mins 26sec