Race Directors Report - Scafell Skyrunning Weekend 2025

Thanks again for having the confidence to book with Lake District Sky Trails, we really appreciate your support in the races we have developed and are developing and hope you had a cracking day in the mountains, despite the weather that prevailed throughout the day.
My team and I experienced a hard day behind the scenes with some errors and things that should not happen, but all runners came down from the mountains safely, no one got ‘seriously’ lost and those who suffered an injury or mishap, were dealt with professionally and kindly by our expert medics headed by Lee Tait, from New England Medical.

The Scafell Skyrunning Weekend has grown well over the last few years and we definitely felt the squeeze over the weekend as a team. I will be addressing the points I have seen over the weekend where holes appeared and errors were made, but firstly I want to concentrate on the weekend's racing.

The SG650 - or truly known as The Stickle Grind

I love this event, it's a true opener for the weekend's racing. Pure grit and lung bursting fun running from valley level to the summit of a mountain, its the roots of skyrunning and you have to love it! But not enough of you love it enough.

Always a small field of runners, but wow do you all put the effort in. It must be one of the hardest ‘short fell races’ in the year.

2.4k and 650m ascent - hard and fast - or as fast as you can run uphill. Usual suspects, smiling faces, racing hard to the summit of the iconic Langdale Pikes.

All I have to say is: Please tell your friends, we never need a massive field of runners, but it would be amazing to have 30+ each year, battling it out of the King and Queen of Harrison Stickle.

Ben Mounsey took the win for the Men and Sarah McCormack took the win for the Women.

Your top 3 Ladies and Chaps were:

1st			6th	617		Sarah McCormack	Ambleside AC	Female	F		00:33:13
2nd			8th	619		Kirsty Hall	Wharfedale Harriers	Female	FV50		00:34:32
3rd			12th	612		Emma Perz Horn		Female	FV40		00:37:27

The Scafell Sky Race - Edition 8

This is like a little baby for me that grew out of planning Mountain Marathon courses for Ourea Events, it was a link up of my favorite technical trails around the Central to Western Fells of the Lake District. It developed over a couple of years from a point to point and then once the circular route was designed, there were a couple of minor changes in the route, mainly the awesome technical path under Gable Crags and the descent of the Great Slab - both being cherries on the cake of the race route.

This year we were chosen to be the qualifier for the WMTR Championships in CanFranc later in the Autumn and I cannot express how proud I am to have our course chosen for this high calibre of event status. I will feel warm and happy about this for a very long time. What this produced was not only a fast and furious race at the front of the pack, but it also meant we had some of the best mountain, fell and skyrunners in the country trailing out to be picked to run in the World Champs. For those that have followed this race over the year or know me well, they will know I am excited about the elite runners, but it is the whole of the participant base that is important, not just the perceived running gods, however it was uber exciting to see them ‘literally’ tear up the course, smashing records on their way, though some pretty damn full on weather conditions. In both the Ladies and Men’s races, the top 5 all broke the records that were set in 2021 by Georgia Tindley [Rab Athlete] and Tom Evans [Adidas TERREX at the time] - this is pretty amazing given the weather conditions in 2021 were sunny and not over hot, whereas this year we had a pretty good storm hitting the fells.

Looking at the whole of the Scafell Sky Race, competitors flowed across the finish line having a tough and maybe soul searching time, but were extremely enthused about what they had just run through and had challenged themselves accordingly, which in my humble opinion, is what it is all about. Self discovery and personal challenge and growth. Many of you came back for a 3rd, 4th, 5th and maybe 8th time [Gareth Harland - have you run them all??] and this for me is a great sign that we do something right. I know some leave disgruntled, but I sincerely hope this is the minority, many of you express that we have created a unique ‘vibe’ to the event - my vision was always a grass-roots feel, on a serious course, with amazing support from a mountain marshal and safety team and a brilliant lower level aid station and finish team. Your comments crossing the finish line and throughout the event tells me we are definitely aligning with that vision, but we know we can always improve.

The top 10 Ladies and Chaps were:

1st		9th		206		Naomi Lang	Carnethy Hill Racing Club	Female	FSEN			04:51:56
2nd		14th		303		Sara Willhoit	Mercia Fell Runners	Female	FSEN			05:16:26
3rd		18th		318		Emily Cowper-Coles	Dark Peak Fell Runners	Female	FSEN			05:28:01
4th		22nd		285		Victoria Thompson	Helm Hill Runners	Female	FSEN			05:36:09
5th		24th		307		Holly Wootten	Keswick AC	Female	FSEN			05:41:47
6th		26th		137		Megan Cooke	The Trail Team	Female	FSEN			05:43:18
7th		31st		313		Charlotte Morgan	Carnethy Hill Running Club	Female	F45-49			05:48:10
8th		32nd		181		Hannah Havelock-Allan	Keswick AC	Female	FSEN			05:48:40
9th		35th		149		Laura Dozier	Carnethy Hill Running Club	Female	FSEN			06:03:51
10th		48th		299		Cat Wain-Hobson	Dark Peak Fell Runners	Female	F40-44			06:47:09

1st

187

Bertie Houghton

Dark Peak Fell Runners

Male

MSEN

04:25:30

2nd

308

Joseph Wright

Carnethy Hill Running Club

Male

MSEN

04:26:21

3rd

324

Grant Cunliffe

Rossendale Harriers & AC

Male

MSEN

04:27:05

4th

265

Jack Scott

Male

MSEN

04:29:46

5th

112

Harry Bolton

Keswick AC

Male

MSEN

04:30:44

6th

148

Robin Downie

Lochaber Athletic Club

Male

MSEN

04:31:38

7th

263

Philip Rutter

Helm Hill Runners

Male

MSEN

04:45:46

8th

243

Eliott Pantel

Bad Boy Running Club

Male

MSEN

04:50:49

9th

281

Jeremy Swainson

Male

MSEN

05:07:23

10th

138

Rob Corney

Reading Roadrunners

Male

MSEN

05:10:51

The Scafell Sky Ultra - The Inaugural Edition

Well done to all of those of you that stepped up to this mark. We very nearly cut you short at Stool End Farm - CP12, but we felt, even though it was on the edge, we could manage it safely and we had everything in place to do so.

This route was designed as an extension to the awesome SSR, however it may undergo a few changes for 2026, slightly less distance, possibly a little more ascent to keep with a SkyRace finish - I’ll say no more, you will have to wait and see when we open for entries in early October.

45 of you stood on the start line outside the New Dungheon Ghyll Hotel at 06:00, there were some excited and very serious faces, as usual more men than women, but gender aside, 45 hardy mountain, sky and ultra runners stood awaiting the ‘quiet’ count down to head off up into those grey looking fells.

The racing was less about speed and more about endurance and being mountain savvy, however in the male race Rogan Martin and Spencer Shaw [previous winner of Scafell Sky Race] battled for first place. Spencer played clever and chased Rogan down all day, rather to be the hound than the hare and caught him in the final mountain to valley section on the Coniston Fells [would you all like to see a Coniston Skyrunning Weekend in the future??] and like a true pair of gentlemen, after racing hard all day, decided to run across the finish line together and take 1st Equall - this put me in a spin for the prize giving and I will cover this later.

Steph Knapman [Rab Athlete] keep pushing away to cross the line in 1st place in the ladies race, so happy and excited to the cheers of those of us who were left [the weather and lack of food from the hotel [addressed later] chased quite a number of you away] and made the film edit from Steve Ashworth [the best mountain running content creator and capturer in the business].

The rest of the pack, whether ‘self pulled’, stopped by our team at Stool End Farm for not making the cut-off or made the grade and finished at the NDG Hotel, you ran, you walked, you ate and you stayed hydrated, you fought the Lakeland Sou-Westerly [one of the most fearsome weather gods around] and you succeeded! Yes even those who didn’t make the whole course, like alpine climbers, knowing when to turn around and make it back alive, this is a major success. Hopefully you will all be back for the 2026 edition of this grueling Sky Ultra race route.

The Top 3 Ladies and Chaps were:

1st

7th

428

Steph Knapman

Rab

Female

FSEN

11:26:49

2nd

21st

439

Amy Robinson

Female

FSEN

14:26:36

3rd

24th

400

Zane Agapova

Dark Peak Fell Runners

Female

FSEN

14:47:37

1st

431

Rogan Martin

Guildford Trail Runners

Male

M40-44

08:45:27

1st

442

Spencer Shaw

Male

MSEN

08:45:27

3rd

405

Richard Bannister

Deeside Runners

Male

M45-49

10:08:37

The Great Langdale 21k:

I have to say, I am majorly disappointed that we made such grace errors on this race that cost some of you the glory of finishing first. I am so sorry about this and I should have called for a 30 minute stop before setting you off, so I had been informed that everyone was in place and all course markings were correct. The error is mine and please do not be upset with the marshals, the buck stops with me, I am responsible and I made a big error. I will be emailing you all directly and offering ways to appease this problem that should never have arisen. I could pretend and blame course tampering, I could say well it was the marshals fault, but at the end of the day, the course was not proved out. By this I mean, there was no runner sent round the route, who would make sure all the markings were in place, on top of that, the marshals who sent you the wrong way, up onto the ultra course, were not briefed 100% as to what their full role was. As said, the error is mine and the buck stops with me.

You were all safe, that is one of the major things, the extra km’s you did were on our marked Ultra route and there were safety team members and marshals in place, so I am at least happy about that, but it has certainly, from my side, marred the experience of the weekend and meant that some of you did not have the best experience possible and certainly not one we want/ed you to have.

Many of you have been very kind in replying to me and saying you still had a great time and felt challenged and ran well, however this is not why you entered, you entered to have a race and some of you were not given that race.

I could write more and more about this race, but I’m not going to fill the RD report with negativity. I just want you all to know, this is not how a LDST race goes usually, it's been a long time since we have experienced a course error like this and I am looking very hard at how the event structure works in order to avoid any more occurrences. I thank you for your kindness and understanding.

The top 3 Ladies and Chaps who did the ‘actual’ GL21 are:

1st		3rd		525		Ebony Jane Ward		Female	F		02:50:19
2nd		6th		518		Gen Norman		Female	F		02:56:31
3rd		7th		522		Jessica Riley	Waltham Trail Runners	Female	FV40		02:59:25

1st			1st	512		Samuel Hurst	Wild Trail Runners	Male	M	Male	02:27:46
2nd			2nd	511		Ben Hartshorne		Male	M	Male	02:28:46
3rd			4th	515		Daz Mc		Male	M	Male	02:50:21

Mountain Rescue’s during the event:

We pride ourselves in the Mountain Safety Team, they are on the mountains, along with mountain marshals, to provide a safety net alongside Open Trackings GPRS trackers and our valley based Medics and Paramedics. Generally we only every experience looking after runners from our event, however the strategically placed MST member, Chris Wright - ex-MRT - was positioned at StyHead Stretcher Box, a place in hot years where we provide a water stop and in wet years, wait for possible casualties from the traverse round Great Gable under the iconic Napes Needle. Chris, supported by marshals Paul and Dani, directed and helped runners as they passed through but as the day developed and the weather worsened, Chris was called on by a couple of members of the public to assist with their injured friend/family member. On one of the occasions, Chris was required to leave his post and move to the close by Sprinkling Tarn. He stabilised 2 casualties who had both broken ankles, one younger, one in his 70s. Both casualties were kept warm and stable in a bothy bag, extra warm layers and a sleeping bag whilst the Keswick MRT came to take over.

It is this level of mountain cover that we provide, so that we can help either you or a member of the public. Both Chris, our MST and the MRT teams are essential for mountain accidents.

https://keswickmrt.org.uk/rescue/sprinkling-tarn-57/

https://keswickmrt.org.uk/rescue/sprinkling-tarn-57/

The Prize Giving/Awards:

Usually I love this part, but with a stretched team, a race in process that had gone wrong, whether beating the mountain team into the screes and crags, I was left swimming around in the events field without any backup. I need someone to keep me in check and one of my favorite mountain sayings when delivering all manner of running courses through Mountain Run is: KNOW THY SELF!

I’m not religious, but I know where my failings are. I do try to account for myself, but this time I was caught short. I could only manage in amongst the swirl of the mountain mists in my mind to offer prizes to the SSR winners and the SSU winners who were back at the events centre, the GL21 had to wait and we had previously the night before awarded the 1/2/3 Female and Male winners for the SG650.

I’m sorry to those of you who missed out on your deserved glory, I know it's not acceptable and I personally would be upset if I suffered the same thing at a race I attended.

We have the 1/2/3 list above, so below are all the winners of the Vet’s Categories

Scafell Sky Race Vets Categories:

FV40-44 - Cat Wain-Hobson [10th Female and 48th Overall] - 06:47:09

FV45-49 - Charlotte Morgan [7th Female and 31st Overall] - 05:48:10

FV50-54 - Anna Szafranska [16th Female and 77th Overall] - 07:50:31

MV40-44 - Sam Mayglothling [15th Male and 17th Overall] - 05:23:39

MV45-49 - Andrew Lamont [19th Male and 3rd Overall] - 05:37:44

MV50-54 - David Bradley-Jones [ 61st Male and 76th Overall] - 07:44:40

MV55+ - Darren Jones [34th Male and 43rd Overall] - 06:33:37

Scafell Sky Ultra Vets Categories:

Unfortunately no Vet Females finished the race.

MV40-44 - James Bellin [6th Male and 6th Overall] - 11:23:26

MV45-49 - Adam Armanta [5th Male and 5th Overall] - 10:33:26

MV50-54 - Stephen Winter [11th Male and 12th Overall] - 12:34:34

Food at the events centre - or not, as was the case for many!

It seems like it's a RD Report of apologies and basically it is. The weather and marshal drop outs in the 24 hours running up to the event put massive pressure on the whole team.

However, it would seem that the NDG Hotel had a similar experience. In the run up to the event since January, we experienced management changes up top 3 times, this left us at times, on very rocky and unstable ground and in fact, we were lucky to still have an events centre to host the races from.

Lucas, who was the cover manager over the event weekend, until the newly employed manger steps in, did a great job of holding it together, however with only 3 weeks out from the event when Lucas stepped in, both of us double checked and made sure everything was in place, but I did not feel comfortable but was assured everything would go according to plan.

A long story short - staff at the NDG did not appear and the kitchen was under major pressure, not only were you, the competitors not able to order food, but neither were we for the events team.

I know this was a massive issue for you, the runners and your supporters, family and friends and I am so sorry that this was the case. Rest assured that for 2026, assuming we still host from the NDG Hotel [which we really want to] then external food providers will be in place so we do not suffer a repeat of this year.

And its a WRAP.

I think there are only a few really important things for me to say;

You came, we saw, the weather beat us all, marshals endured serious conditions, Mountain Safety Team members and Medics made sure you were all ok, I am still standing and the event on a whole was a brilliant success. Records were broken and smashed, flags were retrieved, route markings brought in, we’ve cleaned up and really I just want to thank the obvious folk.

LDST Core Team:

Emma Brabazon - Marshals Coordination

Tom Sutton - Seathwaite Manager

Rachel Platt - MST Control and Events Control

Jack Overhill - Events Control and Hole Plugger

Steve Hopwood - Course Marking Team Leader and Marshals Team Leader

Dave Thorp - Course Marking Team Back Up and Marshals Team Back Up

Your Course Marking Team were:

Your Mountain and Valley Marshals were:

Finally, a massive thanks to our main sponsors, RAB, plus our supporting sponsors, Scarpa UK and Voom Nutrition, all the farmers land we cross and travel through and the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel for yet another awesome year at the Scafell Skyrunning Weekend and of course the LDST Core Team and our amazing marshals.

Charles Sproson

Race Director and Creator.