Isle of Jura Fell Race

Click here for photos of the race on Picasa Web Albums

We've just got home after a fabulous weekend at Jura.

I've uploaded a heap of photos (link above) - unfortuntaely I couldn't get a pic of everyone as I was moving around a bit to get a nice varity of shots and also had to sort the dogs out when a bunch ran thru.

A bunch of us from Eryri travelled up for the race - after Noel and Ali convinced us it was the best weekend ever. They wern't wrong. The area is fabulous. The race itself is 16 miles long and 7500ft of ascent - it's a similar undertaking to the Pedol Peris but rougher underfoot. Fast runnable terrain early on is soon replaced by steep rough ground covered in large unstable scree as the route traverses the famous Paps of Jura. If that was not enough the race finishes with 3.3 miles of flat tarmac back along the coastline to the Jura Whisky distillery.

In good clear conditions all Eryri runners who had done this race before ran PB's. In a very strong field Chris Near recovered from his Paddy Buckley Round to have a great run and come 8th in 3:40:57, his first Jura sub 4, while Iain finished 90 seconds and one place behind in 9th in 3:42:25. Despite having good runs both were still "mudged" as Angela Mudge had a superb run winning the women's race, finishing 7th overall, and breaking her existing record with a time of 3:40:33.

Rob Jebb had a stormer to win overall in 3:07:49, missing out on the record by 50 seconds. Ian Holmes was runner up in 3:15:23, beating Jethro Lennox by 4 seconds in a sprint finish.
Noel Craine knocked almost 45 minutes of his previous PB for the course to finish in a state of exhaustion (looking even worse than he did after last years Peris!), agonisingly close to the 4 hr mark in 4:00:45, 28th overall.

Sub 4 hr finishes are awarded an engraved crystal whiskey glass, so for one more year Noel's whisky won't taste quite as good as it could.

Jura is a fantastic race and definitely one to be recommended.

Links:

Race website

Photos on Picasa