Fellsman 100km 4000m elevation in the Yorkshire Dales
Race date: Saturday 25th April 2026
Race report by Jim Rangeley

Over the years of running ultras chatting with other runners you hear about all sorts of fun races. Ones with big climbs, some technical running, ones with amazing volunteers, ones with impeccable organisation and ones that have an absolute fell heritage. It’s not often the Venn diagram spits out a single race. But the Fellsman does it all.

The Fellsman is an approximately 100km race starting in Ingleton and finishing in the lovely village of Threshfield. In between are 25 checkpoints on hilltops, car parks, and in marquees.

The race started the day before with Kit check and putting the tent up ahead of a very cold nights sleep. The Fellsman offers a 30 mile choice for those wanting to run the last half of the full route, my wife Laura ran that and will no doubt have a race report out soon. [Edit – that report is now available here.]

After the tent went up on the school rugby field we joined the queue for the kit check, nervously eyeing up other peoples bits of kit in plastic boxes, bags for life and a few Aldi veg crates. The kit list for the race is extensive, as it aims to cover pretty much every weather scenario – even though we were due for warm weather without much precipitation, goggles were still mandatory.

After ticking the box on our massive box of kit, we settled in a freezing tent for a pretty broken nights sleep and a subsequent early coach about an hour down the road to the start line.

Final checks, dibber allocation and collection of the famous circular tally and a little snack on a kabanos. Before I knew it the 500 entrants were off like a scatter gun across the field with three potential exits from the field into the village of Ingleton and subsequently up the road and out on to the trails towards Ingleborough. The race itself starts with going up 2 of the Yorkshire 3 peaks with a cheeky out and back up Whernside before heading towards the toughest climb of the day up Gragareth. This ended up being such a long slog on the tops and with no shade from the sun so the litre of water was dry by the time I got off the hill and into the checkpoint at Dent. The main aim for me over the first 2/3rds of the race was managing my temperature. Every time I passed a stream my hat and buff went in to keep my wrists and head cool. And it staved off the worst of the effects for me. There were already bodies strewn in the shade by the time I got to Dent, once you’re suffering from the heat it’s very difficult to pull yourself out of the pit.

Along a small section of lightly wooded road I snaffled a sarni, a handful of nachos and some satsuma. Before the power hiked climb up to How Gill Moss and then meeting the main path up Whernside but from the other side of the hill.

As I cruised back down the hill towards Gill Force and hit the foot path up along the air shafts up to the check point of Bleak Moor, I opted for my second gel of the day to try and ride the high I was feeling. But all did not go to plan. It sat there at the top of my stomach, threatening to vacate it’s current home. Heavy burps of garlic (from the kabanos) and satsuma (from the satsuma) caused a few pauses in the climb, that ended up across tufty lugs. I managed to keep hold of my lunch and dibbed in at the checkpoint, but feeling pretty heavy I waddled down the hill with heavy breathing, the heat was perhaps starting to take its toll. Thankfully not long after I was greeted by the sound of waterfalls and a river crossing, water to the knees, head in, dunk the hat etc.

I also caught fellow fell runner Andrew from Dronfield Running Club who was in a little bit of a funk, we walked in to the next checkpoint below Arten Gill Viaduct together. Ate some pasta served to me by a Power Ranger, topped up waters, a little glug of coke and climbed the hill under the viaduct. I hiked with Andy to the out and back up the hill checkpoint at Great Knoutberry Hill, he was cramping so I left him at this point and chugged on into the half way point.

On the road crossing near Widdale Head Moss, I was greeted by the happy faces of good pals Nick Burns, Nige Barnes and Simon Bayliss who had been signed up to race but due to various injuries were just drinking cans on the roadside. I nicked half of Nicks lager, snaffled a few Jaffa cakes and I was away up the boggy hill for the last half of the race.

It suddenly felt like a long way, although I had managed the majority of the climb overall, with only one major ascent to go. Running up some solid grit paths and a few sections of tarmac, I overtook a few groups of people who’d started to falter and bumped into a few can swiggers at the next checkpoint. I had half a can of supermarket craft beer, a cheese and crisp butty and left pretty quickly leaving about 7 runners looking forlorn at the checkpoint. To be honest this was the main feature of the race, in every Yeti sponsored marquee, runners numbering somewhere between 6 and a bakers dozen would be looking sad at their shoes or longing wishfully that a soup would somehow cure all ailments. For me I don’t like hanging around “wasting” time feeling sorry for myself and would aim to spend a few minutes at most in a checkpoints.

Due to some restrictions on land access, the route now took us off the hill adding more distance and a little more climb, rather than have 600 pairs of feet trampling across Fleet Moss, so as the sun set I scampered down the hill towards Marsett. And then along the Pennine Journey path up to Stake Moss. This section from Marsett to Cray at the next checkpoint was pretty runnable along a slightly hard packed track (if you’re here from Laura’s race report, I ran this bit because I hate myself, haha).

At this point headtorches were on and a few layers were applied, a couple of lads I had been running with pushed along and I followed close behind. The swing in temperature was pretty rough from around 18c down to about -2c.

Then Buckden, the last major climb of the day. Now in full dark and the first change of weather as we climbed into the cloud that stuck stubbornly to the summit. The hill full of it’s hidden summits, I presume, but the only sign of how high we had to climb were the twinkling red lights and reflected beams of the headtorches in the mist ahead. I climbed up with a few runners I’d cantered along with for a little while earlier, Michael and David. We trudged together through some bogs and onto the hard pack track and stairs to the summit lit by strings of lights and the joyous voices of marshalls. Along the top the path was flagstones and for me even as we hit around 75km I found this nicely runnable. Moving smoothly I left David and Michael behind and toddled down the hill, weaving across grass fields, deep rivets of moss bog and little technical rocky sections. It was one of these rocky bits that made deep contact with my big toe, followed by a few Big Swears!! Not 500m later another rock, the same toe, similar Big Swears.

We’d done a little bit of a reccie around the back side of Buckden and the trails that linked up to the base of Great Whernside by the last major checkpoint at Park Rash. While running this under torch light was completely different than last time, I felt pretty comfortable of my route and over took a few more lost souls and headed into the checkpoint. Bumped into Ben Mounsey (Run censored Podcast), had a little chat about the day and his Cohost Gary House, who was also on the course somewhere behind me. My water intake had slowed down as the temperature dropped. I drank about 6l of fluid in the first 70km but I don’t think I drank more than a litre towards the finish. I topped up the water, grabbed a butty and crisps and set off on the final steady ascent up the bleak Great Whernside.

As we hadn’t fully descended the valley between Buckden and Great Whernside, we only had to ascend about 200 meters to the summit checkpoint. On our ascent we passed an old boy who was back of the pack of the Dart Race moving rather slowly. While he didn’t want any assistance, he was pretty unsteady and we informed the marshalls at the next CP to keep an eye out for him. He ended up DNFing but had been kept warm in a tent on the summit before being driven off the hill by marshalls. Still an outstanding achievement at the age of 81, what a guy!

After the climb a few loose trods hidden in the dark grass lead the way to the peat myre that was incredibly difficult to navigate. I opted to hug the fence rather than plod on through the middle. A few deep plunges into the bog later I ended up on the firm path and the last run into the road and the final checkpoint before the end. All that was left was to hobble my way down the tarmac hill through a deserted Grassington, back to HQ where I had left on the bus some 19 hours earlier.

The race is amazing. The organisation was second to none. Possibly one of my favourite long days out on the fells.

The race was won by Barney Plummer in 10:57:36. First woman was Despina Berdini in 13:33:16.