Buff SkyRunner Series Comes to Ben Nevis this Weekend
Rob Howard / 04.09.2008
It’s the annual Ben Nevis race this coming weekend and the wild and windy slopes of the UK’s highest mountain will have a touch of continental competition this year as the race is part of the Buff SkyRunner World Series.The Ben Nevis race is one of the oldest in the UK calendar, with record attempts on racing up and down the 4406 foot high mountain from Fort William dating from 1895 and the first recorded race in 1898. The race in its current form has been run since 1937 and is limited to 500 competitors (with entry requirements on experience). Remarkably, the records were set in 1984 when Kenny Stuart and Pauline Howarth of Keswick Athletics Club won the men's and the women's races with times of 1:25:34 and 1:43:25 respectively.
It will be interesting to see if any of the elite international SkyRunner racers can challenge these times or the British competition. No one has been close to them since 1986 and with the deterioration and work on the path up the mountain some wonder if they can ever now be beaten. Whether leading SkyRunners like Corinne Favre of France or Kilian Jornet and Augusti Roc Amador of Spain are racing isn’t clear as the entry list is only showing UK racers, but it could be this ‘relatively’ short, fast, steep and low-altitude addition to the series is one continental racers will be wary of.
Presently Favre and Roc Amador lead the 14 race series, where points count from three of the ‘World Series’ SkyRunner races and only one of ‘World Trials’ SkyRunner races, which is the category the Ben Nevis race falls under. (SkyRunning is generally defined as being mountain races reaching over 2000m in altitude but there is a category with a vertical climb of over 1000m.)
Last year’s winner of the Ladies Buff SkyRunner World Series was Scottish racer Angela Mudge and she is the defending champion on Ben Nevis, having won last year in a time of 1.48.28. The men’s winner last year was Ian Holmes in 1.32.57.
