Carnethy Hill Running Club in Edinburgh wins a historic British relay double

Edinburgh's Carnethy Hill Running Club has had an autumn to remember. At the British Hill and Fell Relay Championships, held at Todmorden in West Yorkshire in October, both the club's women's and men's teams took the titles, a double the club itself has called a truly historic day.

The winning margins were emphatic. According to the club, the men won fairly easily by eight minutes, while the women went even better and finished a mammoth 18 minutes clear. For Carnethy's women it was a first success in the event since 2005. The club's B team also finished fourth overall, and a men's over-40 team placed third in its age category.

The winning women's team included Kirsty Dickson, Holly Page, Grace Pow, Naomi Lang and Clare Stewart, while the men's team featured David Bunn, Eddie Narbett, Matt Knowles and club president Sasha Chepelin. Edinburgh University also had a good day, finishing fifth.

Chepelin is now turning his attention to the national cross-country championships at Callendar Park in Falkirk, although he is realistic about the task. "It's a bit of dream because for a hill running club to beat a club with a cross-country tradition might be like trying to beat the Jamaicans at sprinting," he said. "It would actually be crazy were we to win but we'll give it a go."

Carnethy was formed on 12 April 1983 as a home for hill runners who did not have a real hill running club of their own. Today it describes itself as the largest hill running club in Scotland, with a membership of over 600 in 2022, and it organises or helps to organise about a dozen races a year.

Success is also bringing plenty of new faces. Chepelin says interest grew during the Covid pandemic, when people got a taste for being out in the hills, and that 200 under-40s have joined since. "It is a challenge to put names to faces at our weekly sessions at Hillend, Swanston and Arthur's Seat," he said.

The club's own races are thriving too. The Carnethy Skyloop, now in its third year, takes runners over 18 miles of the Pentland Hills and across 11 summits. At this year's race Carnethy's Luke Fisher set a new course record of 2:19:04, some eight minutes faster than the 2024 mark set by Chepelin, and 139 of the 142 starters made it to the finish. The 2027 race is already pencilled in for Sunday 10 October.

For a club that was once labelled a particular lesser club, and was proud of it, this has been quite a season, and a fine advert for the hills on Edinburgh's doorstep.