10 years ago was the first time I did the Chevy Chase race. Back then you could do it as a walk (time limit 8 hours) or run (time limit 6 hours). It didn’t even occur to me to enter the run, the walk was a big enough challenge and I’d trained hard. I remember being over taken by the front runners while I was heading up Cheviot – they were actually running up hill! Later on most of the runners were walking but still powering past. I nearly passed out going up Hedgehope, it was so steep – I had to sit down for 15 minutes or so to recover. I was in absolute awe of all the runners, they seemed to be on a level of fitness that I could barely contemplate BUT I really wanted to be that fit myself. I finished well under the cut off in 6 hours 24 but could barely move for the next 5 days.

The next year I was on the start line as a runner but the race route was shortened due to the weather. I remember thinking that I might have struggled to get around if it had been the full route. However by 2013 I was properly hill fit and finished in 4:38 which I was very pleased with. My peak years were 2015 – 4 hours 26 and 2017 – 4 hours 17. Never fast enough for even an age group win but I was in the top ten women so I was chuffed and wondered if I could get faster. I think that ship has sailed now! Last year the race was cancelled due to Covid but what with injury and unfitness and being clobbered by the menopause I think I would have collapsed half way up the Cheviot and needed stretchered off.

I wasn’t planning to do the Chevy this year since in a moment of utter madness last year I’d entered the Spine Challenger. Maybe I thought I needed a bit of motivation but shortly afterwards I got a bout of hamstring tendinitis so I couldn’t really start to train properly until March this year. Having done very little endurance training for the last 2 years meant it was too much of an uphill struggle, even with the benefits of my trusty oestrogen patches, so I saw sense and pulled out. Then I saw there were still Chevy places and entered without thinking too much about it. I haven’t raced since the Carnethy 5 last year, which didn’t go well and am really only just getting my mileage back to something respectable. I’d kind of forgotten how tough a race it is and that you can’t just wing it.

Since the walk part of the race was abandoned there have been cut offs for the runners. I’d never bothered to look at them until this year and thought, in my new found state of unfitness that actually they looked a bit tight. Hmm, cut offs. So Carnethy operates cut offs in our two big races – the Pentland Skyline and the Carnethy 5. These will limit the amount of time that marshals are stuck out on exposed hill tops and potentially stop anyone entering the race who isn’t really fast enough to get around in good time. It hadn’t quite hit me until now at how much these cut offs favour men since their average finish time in fell races are considerably faster. Looking at the Chevy results from 2019 there were 141 male finishers, 52 were MV40 and 41 were MV50 so it certainly looks like the 50+ men aren’t too put off entering. There’s a big drop off with age after that with 7 MV60s and 2 MV70s. There were 43 women which shows already how male dominated fell running is. 12 of them were FV40 but there’s only half that number of FV50s and one solitary FV60. So on that highly unscientific study I would conclude that women over 50 are a lot less likely to enter a race like the Chevy than their 50 year old male counterparts. That chimes with the experience of a lot of my female friends who are all perfectly capable of running the Pentland Skyline route but say they are far too intimidated by the cut off to enter the race. I don’t think there are easy answers to this as race organisers have to consider the safety of runners and marshalls out on a remote course in what can be appalling weather.

So this year was my first experience of a pandemic race and it all seemed very well organised and covid secure. Fortunately it wasn’t raining at the start which made the al fresco registration more pleasant but it was pretty humid and rain was forecast later. I started well back and kept the pace very easy out to Broadstruther and felt Ok at this point. At Cheviot knee I was starting to feel it and had fantasies about being timed out but found out when I got there that I was 7 minutes ahead of the cut off so had no choice but to keep slogging on. I’d brought my poles along and settled into the uphill but was feeling pretty murderous on most of the ascent. Stupid bloody race. Stupid legs. I should give up running. I will pull out at the first opportunity. How the HELL did I ever manage this race in under 4 and a half hours? etc etc. The gradient eased off a bit near the summit and I got my head together and decided that I should just keep at it. I got a good line off Cheviot and although I was at the back of the pack there were plenty of other folk around. By the top of Hedgehope it was raining and clagged in but I was moving well enough to stay warm and by then virtually all the climbing is over thank goodness. Just a 10 mile bog trot back to Wooler, although this year a lot less boggy than usual. I got back under 6 hours but I think I was last, everyone behind me was timed out.

It’s really hard not to compare my performance to those from 4 or 5 years ago and get rather despondent. However I need to remind myself that I am still a lot fitter than I was 10 years ago. Also I am hoping that I have weathered the worst of the menopause related performance deterioration and that maybe things will plateau in my 50s. Hopefully that wasn’t my final Chevy Chase! Covid meant no cake in the Youth Hostel afterwards which would have been a major disappointment if it hadn’t been for the chip stall doing free chips for all finishers. I would definitely do it again for the chips.