Ben Nevis Race 2024 – A scorcher…

Ah! The Ben. That iconic race up and down Ben Nevis. The story goes that…

“In 1895 when William Swan, a Fort William barber, set off on the first recorded timed ascent and descent of Britain’s tallest mountain he could not have envisaged the modern-day Ben Nevis Race which now has a field of 600 runners accepting a challenge which is not for the unfit or faint-hearted.”

(source: http://www.bennevisrace.co.uk/?page_id=232 [Accessed 13/9/2024])

But first getting there usually straightforward can sometimes prove to be a challenge, courtesy of EasyJet. Rumour has it that while the Mourne Runners team were climbing the walls at BIA, as a 5-hour delay crawled slowly by BARF (well most of them) were scaling the height of some crag in Glencoe, final race day preparations which they secretly claim of their success. Reports from the Ballydrain Camp suggest that for the first timers it was certainly a brutal experience. Although they had been warned that it is much longer climb that anything in the Mournes. The second half (from Red Burn to the summit and back) is nothing like anything we have to compare to in the Mournes, so training is always an issue. Yes, we can get the 1345m height in a training run but not all in one go and not of the rocky terrain that is present on the upper slopes of Ben Nevis. So, in truth there is nothing quite like experiencing it first and then Race number 2 becomes your first real test of prowess.

Despite the usual post-mortem from the Ballydrain team that primarily focused on the heat effect, the injuries (1 broken finger, 1 heat stroke, 7 wrecked Ballydrainers), the brutal terrain and the conclusion that “I’m never coming back, I didn’t enjoy it” the mood in their camp next morning miraculously had changed to “We have unfinished business, when do 2025 entries open”. Strange the workings of the mountain runners’ mindset.

Whatever your reason for taking on the Ben Nevis Race there can be no doubt you will face one of the toughest challenges of your mountain running career. Some for the first and only time and many pursuing the goal year on year with the ultimate prize of 21 Ben Races and the coveted Connochie Plaque. Few Irish runners have this plaque while a number are within sight of it. Former NIMRA Chair, Ricky Cowan and Mourne Runners Chair, David Bell both having 20 ‘Bens’ to date are rumoured to be fixing a nail to their living room walls already in anticipation, although the ever-cautious David will fervently deny this proclaiming that it “isn’t done until it’s done”. Wise words, some might think!

But whatever at NIMRA, we wish them both a successful 2025 Ben race and look forward to seeing those plaques back on Irish soil.

Others in the NIMRA community are into their teens of Ben races and have started the countdown although current NIMRA chair with his 6^th Ben and 63 years of age foresees a very old final ascent – of course he denies that is his ambition, but he is well known for saying “never say never”. We are assured he is already in training for next year.

Now setting aside the veterans, many newcomers to the Ben Race travelled to Fortwilliam for the spectacle and the experience, only to be assaulted by the toughest day in Ben history. One 24-times Ben veteran racer was heard to say that in all his time running the race he had never seen the weather so brutal. And while mountain runners in this part of the world are all very well versed in inclement weather conditions; high wind, driving rain and fog (or clag, since we are in Scotland) very few, if any of us know how to cope with high temperature extremes. Yes 27 degrees in the field and 16 degrees at the summit could be viewed as extreme in Scotland. Next morning it was covered in ‘clag’ and two days later it was snowing on the summit – so there’s your bandwidth.

So how well did NIMRA runners cope considering 600 runners were entered and only 376 made it to the scoreboard.

Well first up, a young 19-year-old Tom Crudgington, the man with 5 wins in the NIMRA championship and who represented NIMRA at the Snowdon Race this year pulled a very impressive 2^nd place finish. At such a young age it is clear Tom has a great future in the sport. BARF runner, Kathleen Monteverde back for her second Ben Nevis race gained 2^nd place in the Women’s Vet60 race.

In 16^th position was Mourne Runners’ Joshua McAtee in a time of 2:05:33 with Jonny Steede of Glens Runners (and NIMRA committee member) close behind in 20^th position (2:09:55). BARF’s Niall McCartan followed closely at 2:13:19 to take 29^th place. Andrew tees, back on form after injury had pulled him out of the 2024 Senior Home International in May placed 37^th in a cluster race to the finish line with 6 other racers chasing (5 of whom were local) with an impressive time of 2:17:22. Just 53 seconds separating the 7 racers at that point.

A list of all local runners, position and time are in Table 1.

Pos.	Local Pos.	Name	Club	Cat.	Time
2	1	Tom Crudgington	Newcastle and district AC	SEN M	01:54:25
16	2	Joshua McAtee	Mourne Runners	SEN M	02:05:33
20	3	Jonny Steede	Glens Runners	MV40	02:09:55
29	4	Niall McCartan	BARF	SEN M	02:13:19
37	5	Andrew Tees	BARF	MV40	02:17:22
49	6	Jack Proctor	BARF	SEN M	02:23:24
72	7	David Hicks	Newcastle and district AC	MV40	02:30:41
73	8	Andrew Elwood	Durham University Athletics	SEN M	02:30:45
75	9	Richard Hanna	Mourne Runners	SEN M	02:31:35
86	10	John Marrs	Glens Runners	MV40	02:33:53
134	11	Dominic McLarnon	Glens Runners	MV40	02:43:52
138	12	Garth McGimpsey	Mourne Runners	MV40	02:45:13
145	13	Ronan Davison-Kernan	BARF	SEN M	02:47:25
161	14	William Imrie	BARF	SEN M	02:52:04
172	15	Amanda Perry	Ballydrain Harriers	FV50	02:55:36
184	16	James Lappin	Ballydrain Harriers	MV40	02:58:54
185	17	Sinead-Marie McAllister	LARNE AC	SEN F	02:58:59
191	18	Sam Herron	Mourne Runners	MV40	03:00:22
202	19	Declan McGrellis	BARF	MV50	03:02:09
219	20	Alan Elwood	Dromore AC	MV50	03:07:12
221	21	Mark Dugan	Ballydrain Harriers	MV50	03:07:27
222	22	Ciarán McAleenan	Mourne Runners	MV60	03:07:35
232	23	Duncan Millar	Ballymena Runners	MV50	03:11:18
234	24	Zachary Askham	BARF	SEN M	03:11:46
245	25	Tim Wilson	BARF	MV50	03:13:53
260	26	Graham Hill	Ballydrain Harriers	MV50	03:18:02
300	27	Kathleen Monteverde	BARF	FV60	03:30:20
304	28	Fiona Simms	BARF	SEN F	03:31:34
328	29	Debbie Mingout	Ballydrain Harriers	FV40	03:41:44
329	30	David Bell	Mourne Runners	MV60	03:42:05
332	31	Paddy Ritchie	Ballydrain Harriers	MV50	03:43:17
353	32	Andrew Wallace	Ballydrain Harriers	MV50	03:58:29
356	33	Andrew Mc Gibbon	BARF	MV50	04:03:20
374	34	Clarke Campbell	BARF	MV50	04:38:41

The complete collection of results, including summit times and downhill times are available at this link https://protay.co.uk/bennevis2024/ .

In the post-race meeting place, the well-known ‘Ben Nevis’ eating and drinking emporium the usual suspects of Mourne Runners, Newcastle AC (sole -representative Davy Hicks) and Glens Runners, now joined by the BARF contingent shared stories of heroic battles of the day. Mostly, to be honest though it was about how hot it was and how exhausting it had been and how much better it would have been if the weather had been worse. Although if it had been raining, windy and shrouded in clag we still would have complained. Oh, how fickle we all are!

Until next year farewell Ben Nevis.

Ciarán McAleenan

NIMRA Chair and Mourne Runner.