In a race that is known for being the fell season opener Rob Jebb immediately opened his 2009 account at the 9th ‘Tiso’ Carnethy 5 on Saturday. A distance of 6 miles, with 2500 feet total climbing over 5 summits makes the race a testing opener for February!

Carnethy and Ben Nevis are the two biggest hill races in Scotland. Ben Nevis Race tackles the biggest hill, but Carnethy 5 has the largest entry list of any Scottish hill race.

The Scottish Hill Runners site states

The route is justifiably popular and makes an excellent day out combined with the bus ride from Beeslack School, Penicuik and the tasty school dinner afterwards. Although relatively short, the route can be exposed to full-on winter conditions, so hypothermia is a real possibility. A target time of 1 hour is challenging to meet, for all but the strongest runners

Snow covered much of the route and the fact that only 22 runners from almost 500 finishers dipped under the hour (and Rob’s winning time was almost 7 minutes outside of Gavin Bland’s course record) shows how difficult the conditions were for this years’ event.

This was Rob’s 4th win at Carnethy (a long way to go to equal Angela Mudge’s 11 wins!) and he was ably backed up by fellow SAAB Salomon Outdoor Team mate Andy Symonds in 3rd place, split by Clydesdale’s Prasad Prasad.

Fiona Maxwell convincingly won the women’s race, winning by 4 minutes from Claire Gordon and Iona Robertson.

Full results here and some fantastic photos from the Scottish Hill Runners on Flickr

Leading results
1 Rob Jebb Bingley Harriers 00:53:02
2 Prasad Prasad Clydesdale Harriers 00:53:09
3 Andrew Symonds Carnegie Harriers 00:53:57
4 Brian Marshall H.E.L.P. 00:54:59
5 Alasdair Anthony Ochil HR 00:55:41
6 Oleg Chepelin Shettleston Harriers
7 John Helme Ambleside A.C
8 Tom Addison Helm Hill Runners
9 Ales Drahokoupil Edinburgh University H & H
10 Mark Addison Helm Hill Runners

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The newly formed SAAB Salomon Outdoor Team are shaping up for 2009 and last weekend saw the first team get together in Langdale, Cumbria, with stalwarts Jebby and Angela Mudge joined by new recruits John Heneghan and Anna Frost…

To coincide a snazzy new website (www.saabsalomonoutdoorteam.com) has been launched, aimed at keeping us all informed as they trot the globe. With blogs coming straight from the athletes themselves we are sure that it will be a busy site with traffic from those mountain and trail runners who feed off the words of star athletes in the sport.

Speaking from the first team camp team manager Tim Lloyd said:

“The new team has some fantastic new talent and we are all really excited about the year ahead. Young guns Nick Swinburn, Ricky Lightfoot, John Heneghan and Anna Frost join the old hands like Rob Jebb, Angela Mudge and Rob Hope and Nick Sharp to create what we hope will be our best team ever. We are planning a busy schedule of domestic and international races through the year, for the first time we will be focusing on trail and mountain running.”

“Our success over the past 8 years in Adventure Racing has largely been due to our running strength, so it is completely natural for us to move our focus closer to the running scene, this is something that we are very happy and totally comfortable with”.

It sounded like quite a weekend (“we also managed to battle the elements and make it to the pub on Saturday night!”) and the addition of some young blood over the winter will no doubt invigorate those team weekends and race trips abroad still further. Tim and the SAAB Salomon team have always been known for their approachability and humble attitude towards their achievements and we are sure that as they carry on where they left off in 2008 we hope to be able to bring you the inside line on the runners, their travels, equipment choices and sponsors – and of course keep you abreast of the results from one of the best sporting teams in the UK!

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This marks the adventure racing debut of female fell legend Angela Mudge. She joins AR stalwarts Ben Bardsley, Andy Symonds and Tom Owens for the December event. Team manager Tim Lloyd explains, “It won’t be best suited to our team as most of the running will be in the dessert and there is a lot of sea kayaking, but we are treating more as a fun event as it has been a long year, so we’re just hoping to enjoy the occasion and see how it goes”

With $236,000 of prize money on offer I’m sure that the team will be focused for that one!

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Record number 7 for Jebby!

Most notable recent performance must go to Rob Jebb, as he claimed a record 7th (count ‘em!) 3 Peaks cyclo-cross title.

He also broke the course record, held by former MTB global legend Tim Gould, so no mean feat. This will go down as one of the cycling performances of the year – full stop.

Speaking of his victory he said,

It was a great day, as ever. I couldn’t have wished for better. I didn’t have a puncture and I didn’t have any problems. It couldn’t have gone better.”

I went really hard over Ingleborough and got a gap on Nick Craig, who was on my wheel. I didn’t kill myself on the descents, but I knew I had a chance at the record, so I kept the pressure on.

A huge congratulations must go to Rob for this performance, also crowned English fell running champ and winning the Langdale Horseshoe race he has had yet another superb season.

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The last race of the British and English Fell Championship was at the end of August. To win the English championship I had to win the final race (nothing like putting pressure on yourself!). Luckily I had a great race and won! I had now secured the English Championship and 2nd in the Britis Champs behind Angela (Mudge). End of the main season meant I caught a cold and a cough, so didn’t have a great run at Ben Nevis the following week. Angela stormed to another impressive victory and Rob (Jebb) ran a close race to finish 2nd to Agusti Roc!

There are a few local races over the next few weeks, then supporting my partner Tim (Austin)Â at the 3 Peaks Cycle Cross event, where no doubt Rob will be going for another 3 Peaks victory! Then the Salomon Turbo race at Mugdock up in Scotland followed by the mountain relays for my club.

Not long before next years season begins……!

Natalie (White)

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Only one stage to go now and it’s a close run thing.

After 5 days and 85 miles (and a fair bit of climbing) Tom and I are sat in 2nd place overall, about 5 minutes down on the leading team - Nike. The gap to 3rd place is about an hour or so, so the race is all about the win. That said, claiming victory in tomorrow’s 21 mile stage by over 5 minutes will be one heck of a challenge. Eric and Max (the Nike guys) are going really well on the climbs and seem to be suffering less from the effects of running up to 12,000ft every day than ourselves. Our smaller British lungs are being pushed to the limits, but will have hopefully doubled in size during the course of the week. On each stage we try and limit the loss on the long and gruelling climbs and once at the summit we let the legs loose for (typically) 10 miles of downhill forest tracks with the aim of pulling back the time lost on the ascents. Today, from being about 5-minutes behind at the top, the Nike team came into view with 300m to go and we crossed the line only seconds behind.

It’s a very different storey running over here in the States. The trials are so smooth, wide and well maintained that it’s closer to being a hilly road race than the fellrunning and mountain running scenes of the UK and Europe.

Plenty of results and photos on the website: www.transrockies.com

I’d better head off and stretch these legs which it feels like someone’s been working away at with a hammer and chisel for the last 5 days…

Andy

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Well day one was what could be described as a “nightmare”. An almost flat (gradual incline) half marathon on dirt roads with some depressingly long straights disappearing into the distance. We grit our teeth, lungs bursting with the 8-9 thousand meters of altitude and completed what will hopefully be the least fun days of the week.

Day 2 was much better. This time a fell run! The challenge was always going to be the altidude. Starting at just short of 10,000ft and climbing up to 12,600 we steadied away and crested the pass about a minute down on the american pair (apparently made up of last year’s winner and an Olympic steeple chaser). As we hoped, they weren’t as strong on the down as on the up and we soon passed them finishing about 90 seconds clear with the 3rd team (who summited just behind us) a further 10-minutes down.

Tomorrow’s going to be a different ball game. After two short stages we’ll find out who can hold it over 20+miles. Tom and myself feel good, but not that “chuffed” about the quantity of dirt road and rolling terrain – why can’t we climb these massive mountains at the side of the path!

Time for a bite to eat and a lie down in america’s highest town… Tomorrow we have a hilly marathon… and then another… and another… looking forward to it!

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New team member, the 2006 British Fell Running Champion Natalie White took victory at the English Championship ‘Paddy’s Pole’ in Lancashire, while further North Ben Bardsley and Angela Mudge took the honours at the Lakeland Classic ‘The Anniversary Waltz’, Angela was an amazing 4 minutes inside her own race record.

The Team has a very busy schedule again for 2007 with numerous athletes competing all over the globe in running and Adventure Races including the Buff Skyrunner series and the newly-launched Saab Salomon x Adventure Championship.

By Steve

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The day started with a downhill bike ride from the ski resort of Les Arcs 1950 to the town of Bourg Saint Maurice – Team Saab Salomon cam in third about six minutes down on the leaders. The teams then paddled their inflatable canoes down the River Isere before an uphill bike section.

The Teams are now on a long running section over the mountains. Further reports later today.

By Steve

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“The Team have got together on at least four weekends since Christmas”

said Tim Lloyd, Team Manager.

“They are looking really good. Even though some of the members hadn’t met each other until recently, they are working together as if they had been together as a team for years.”

The training weekends both in North Wales and the Lakes were very intense concentrating on skills training and teamwork. The session in North Wales ended with a mock race including two running sessions, a bike session an a canoe around Llyn Padarn – the whole “race” taking six hours ending with well-earned refuelling at Pete’s Eats in Llanberis.

By Steve

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