Race Date: Saturday 19^th July 2025

After leading Yorkshire’s women to victory in the Inter-Counties Fell Championships at Pen-y-Ghent in June, Abbie Pearse was selected to run for England at the Snowdon International Fell Race. It is believed that this is the first time that any Steel City has ever run in a Senior England vest. To the indignation of some fell running purists the nearly ten miles (15.35km) course is really quite simple for after starting in Llanberis it follows a well defined trail climbing 994m all the way to the summit of Yr Wyddfa before returning along the same route. Those who saw the highlights of the race on S4C the following day cannot fail to have noticed streams of walkers on the path that competitors also had to negotiate along with the gradient.

The live tracker informed that after 26:09 at the second check point Abbie was in sixth place but then she just disappeared. The assumption was that Abbie had dropped out so, with disappointment, the mobile was put to one side wondering what had gone wrong and hoping that all was well. But then….. a couple of hours later a quick look at the results showed that Abbie had miraculously reappeared reaching the top in 57:15.  It was clear that a few other competitors had also managed to miss the narrow timing mats along the way.

Anyway, Abbie now tells us what actually happened.

“I attended this race in 2023 as chief cheerleader for Dan, who was running for England. The weather was diabolical with torrential rain and wind with the organisers deciding to shorten the race and only go three quarters of the way up the mountain. As cheerleader I also only ran up to this point to provide encouragement at the turn. There were rumours that after here the mountain becomes much less forgiving and kicks UP.  On Saturday 19th July, donning an England vest for the first time, the rumours were brutally confirmed to me as I began to struggle up this section of the ascent towards the summit. This time, in humid, hot conditions, Dan was my cheerleader.

Four miles into the five mile climb I was losing places and not in my usual high spirits when going uphill. (Running uphill and high spirits is surely an oxymoron. Ed.) A small pick me up from Dan, and a demand to RELAX MY SHOULDERS and smile, gave me the reminder that this was meant to be fun and I pushed on, up to the summit, over the timing mat, round the marshal, and the descent began…

Anyone that knows me, knows that I cannot ‘send it’ on a descent. However much I try to ‘switch off my brain’ and ‘let go’, I either seem to lose places, fall over or even both! My shoe choice became very painful as I went for a minimal fell shoe and the dry rocky paths were taking their toll. Dan managed to gesture some ‘lines’ to take me off the rocks and onto some the grassy banks to relieve my feet. He then fell over in front of me, just as the person behind me fell over. It felt like a chaotic descent but I eventually hit the steep tarmac path at the bottom of the mountain with my heels feeling  like they might go up in flames, quads like  jelly and my face a tight grimace. (Abbie only lost one place on the descent so hardly disastrous. Ed.)

Although crossing the finish line as tenth elite female and the third English vest I don’t think this was my finest performance but I have learned lessons having done the race now and, dare I say it, would go again. I am very grateful for the opportunity to run for my country.”