Chelmorton Chase – 3rd October 2021

Report by Will Day

When I first got into fell running about 10 years ago, one of the things I loved about it then was the informality of the events; for example – sometimes the results didn’t come out for months.

I remember emailing an organiser once and eventually receiving a reply with a photo of the results on a notice board in the village hall.

The fact that a load of people turned up to run in difficult conditions, where your time didn’t really matter, just that you gave it your all and had a good time.

This event was a throwback to those times…

My pal, Maxine (Totley AC) had told me about this event, apparently run under FRA rules. She had described the organiser being an eccentric larger-than-life character- ‘Lady Tracey’ who provided encouragement and prizes and who embodied the principles of local, village events.

Being curious, I attempted to find out a bit more – the event didn’t appear on the FRA site but the village website did mention it. Some simple Googling of Lady Tracey Hollinsclough elicited an interesting back story to her.

It was perhaps for these reasons that only 12 runners turned up!

Lady Tracey, dressed to the nines, hat and all was central to everything, brimming with enthusiasm.

The set-up was spot-on, registration, porta-loos etc. Conditions were good but a bit nippy.

Lady Tracey gave a brilliant speech to runners and the villagers were watching on.

As to the race – 8km on trails and lanes, nothing technical. Lovely views over the exposed limestone country.

Running it was strange – after I got into my stride, the only other runner I encountered was towards the end; I managed to overtake her a mile before the finish and, wanting to hold onto this lead, gave it everything and arrived at the finish to Lady Tracey’s encouragement.

When I run like this, I sometimes puke and I didn’t ‘disappoint’ this time. I apologised to Lady Tracey for vomiting on her ‘lovely Chelmorton grass verges’ – she was wonderful about it in her jolly hockey-sticks type reply, saying that it probably provided some well needed nutrients for their growth.

Poor Maxine had a fall and later went to A&E. Four runners took a wrong turn and did an additional 2 km.

Maxine’s daughter (Rose), wearing my spare Striders’ top coz it was so cold, ran her first ever race and got a podium finish as second woman

I think everyone got a medal and a prize!

As yet, there are no official timings, but this is sort of how things seem to have ended up!

Lucas Parker (Stockport) was first home. First lady was Fiona Stephenson.