ISLE OF JURA FELL RACE, 2005  

(Victory for Dennis Lucas in MV60 Category)

Dennis Lucas and John Armstrong made the long trip to the Isle of Jura fell race – 16 miles/ 7500ft.

Logistics: Drive to Scotland, catch the 1.00pm Friday ferry from Kintyre to Islay, then another ferry onto Jura. Catch the local bus the 10 miles to the camp site and start.

Camping next to the start and the sea makes for a pleasant anticipation of the race. Strong winds and heavy rain spoilt sleep. Rumours started at 7.00am and were later confirmed that the bad weather route was to used for the first time for 15 years - it was wet, windy, with clag about 1000ft.

Jura on race day (what Paps?)

The conditions made route finding interesting. Conditions improved as the race went on - from atrocious to rough.

Dennis’s main rival in his age group – no names – misread his route card and went off at 112° instead of 12°.Dennis was pleased to win the vet 60 category - a fantastic achievement. However this does mean he has to return next year to take the shield back.

Sunday dawned bright and clear and showed Jura to be a beautiful place.

Jura on race day +1

This race is unique because 150 runners double the population of the island and are together for 2 days and share lots of fun in the pub. 

Denis Lucas finished in 4 hrs 34 mins and John Armstrong 4 hrs 53 mins, including 10 minutes backtracking to checkpoint 6 after missing the summit due to the awful conditions.

Report and pictures by John Armstrong

(note from Ed. the climb from the Brown Cow in Norden to the top of Knowl hill is about 800'.  The 7500' of the jura fell race is equivalent to running up knowl hill about 9 times in succession. Only the Jura Paps are steeper and the weather, well, 'challenging')