GUMMER’S AHOY!

The first and most important question is, what's the name? Is it Lakeside Fell Race? Gummer's How Fell Race? No, it's The Lakeside – Gummer's How Fell Race. A very long name for a very short run.

And it's a corker. Quite appropriate when you consider how much bobbing up and down the runners in this race do, with that hyphen representing the additional challenge that they face of rowing back and forth across the southern end of Windermere, from Lakeside on the west shore, to Gummer’s How on the east. In many ways, LGH is fell running’s answer to the Oxford Royal Regatta, but instead of a handful of the country’s best and brightest (/poshest and nerdiest) sweating their way smoothly down river, what you get on Windermere are a ragtag bunch of fell runners desperately trying to keep their oars in the rowlocks, while splashing their way haphazardly across a poultry half mile of lake.

This unique little race was originally held almost a century ago in 1926, as a part of the sporting programme of the ‘Finsthwaite, Lakeside and District Unionist Demonstration’. Back then, in the absence of PlayStation 4s and I’m A Celebrity, this hot ticket event managed to attract bumper crowds of 2000-3000 spectators, with special trains being laid on from Barrow and Ulverston just for the day. The race is still technically served by the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway, a 150 year old steam powered heritage train which chugs its way down tracks from just 3 miles away, but you can now expect a more modest crowd made up of a few dozen friends and family (and quite a lot of bemused guests staying at the Lakeside Hotel).

The start line is a short way up the road from the shore, in the original show field, and runners endure an opening fast minute or so to get down to the beach, where the well-worn old rowing boats are lined up waiting. You jump in the first boat you see, row over to the other side, jump out, and set off on an out-and-back to the top of Gummer’s How, through a couple of tussocky fields, a good path section, and a quick scramble to the summit. Then it’s straight back down the same way to the boats, row back across, and finish. About 3 miles of running and half a mile of rowing, all done and dusted in half an hour or so.

By 1930 everyone had grown a bit weary of all the yawn-inducing Tory politics that accompanied the fun of the sports, as the local paper recounted: ‘The political speech making was left out, as it had been felt for some years that to introduce politics into the Lakes sporting month of August is a great mistake’ (Westmorland Gazette 30.08.30). And then sometime in the 30s the whole event lapsed, and the race lay dormant for more than half a century, before being triumphantly resurrected in the 90s by David Birch. 

As a teenager visiting his grandparents in Field Broughton near Cartmel, not far from Lakeside, Dave’s curiosity had been piqued by a Victorian coffee pot/ teapot (nobody is entirely sure which, though Dave's money's on coffee) sitting on a shelf in the corner of their living room. Inside the lid he found a folded up piece of card with the words 'First Prize' written on them, giving some credence to the story that he was then told, that his great grandfather had won it at one of those early Lakeside – Gummer’s How races. Many years later, upon inheriting the coffee pot, he was inspired to do some more research on it, and ended up hunched over microfiche copies of old articles in the archives of the local south lakes newspapers – The Westmorland Gazette and the Evening Mail – rediscovering the origins of the race, and igniting his desire to see it run again.

Armed with his event-organising experience as a P.E. teacher, and a canny knack for keeping all the key stakeholders happy (the hotel, the landowners, the boat-owners), 1994 saw him successfully pull off the first re-running of the race, albeit with a slightly altered route to take account of quite a few decades of tree growth. Dave was not a regular fell runner himself, but was a keen sprinter in his day, and recalls training in Haverthwaite with fell racing legend Fred Reeves; ‘we’d go down and hammer out hard training sessions together, and I’d be there puking up after’ he remembers, somewhat fondly. In 1997 he entered the race himself as part of a team, so at least he can always say that he took part, even managing to come third. And yes, it’s still the same boats now as they were using in 1994 (although they’re probably not the same ones as 1926, despite how they might look!).

Dave passed over organising duties to Roger and Kath Aubrey in 2019, with the backing of Helm Hill Runners, and next year will be the thirtieth anniversary of its happy re-founding. In those three decades it has been graced by some of the true greats of 21st century fell running; British Champions Ian Holmes (five wins), Rob Jebb (two wins), and Simon Bailey (two wins), alongside stalwart entrant and six-time winner Alastair Dunn, who first won it in 2000, most recently won it in 2022, and who, after beating Carl Bell into second this year, shows no signs of slowing down. This in part, must surely be down to his steady rowing. “There have been some class runners who have come to grief in the boats”, Alastair confides, “Rob and Simon to mention two. Rob had clearly been practicing his rowing when he came back one year and won!”. The overall individual record of 24:46 was set by Ian Holmes in 2006, and nobody has managed to go under 26 minutes since 2009.

This year was my own third time entering the race, and after a decent couple of showings previously I rocked up feeling supremely confident of my ability to swing the oars around in a convincing manner, at least to look the part, if not really deliver the results. Surveying the competition, I noted with resignation the presence of a certain Mr. Carl Bell of Keswick AC (who can be described as ‘not a bad runner’) and disavowed myself of any notions of victory that might have been creeping in on the drive over!

Roger kept us waiting until the cruise boat had gone past, perhaps with good reason; as Alastair recalls ‘Mike Addison was having a good battle with someone one year when the big tourist boat came down the lake. Mike refused to give way despite the horns but the wash nearly tipped his boat and he ended up flat on his back.’ Titanic-like collisions safely averted on this occasion, we were led up to the hay meadow that was our start line, and set off in true fell race fashion with a ‘Go!’.

I successfully pursued a strategy of giving-it-some-beans for the first 30 seconds, in order to get into the first boat and out onto the water in front of everyone else. While me and Alastair got well stuck in to the row (not actually well, but as well as non-rowers in decrepit boats can manage…), Carl, Ian and most of the others got in a fair old kerfuffle back at the shore, with a fair bit of dodgem bumping and oar clattering, which gave the two of us a good few seconds lead by the time we leapt out on the far shore. I managed to open up a good gap on Alastair by the time we arrived on the top path, and despite being all but certain that Carl would come bouncing past me as some point in the climb, he still hadn’t by the time I hit the top and turned. A fair few minutes of decidedly desperate descending followed, and as I careened into the water and dove into a boat, he still hadn’t arrived on my heels to crush my dreams, so I struck out into the lake in a disbelieving frenzy. I had inadvertently picked one of the especially knackered boats for the return leg, and the oars kept slipping out of the rowlocks, causing a few seconds of scrambled panic each time. Carl was now in the boat and gaining on me a little each time, and Alastair was not only in his boat, but rowing well to catch up with Carl…

A 10mph speed limit was introduced on Windermere in 2005, presumably due not to the raucous revelries of speedboats, but to the intolerable rowdiness of the rowers in this race! To us in the boats it feels like we’re on the final stretch of the Olympic singles event. To those on shore we must look like a bunch of enormous beetles flailing around on their backs, oar-legs waving pointlessly in the air.

After a final few frantic rows I gave a jump and splashed my way up the beach, to victory! Alastair was just 4 seconds behind in second, and Carl just 5 seconds behind him for third - as close as it gets. The winner in 1927 was reported to have ‘descended at break-neck speed’ and ‘romped home as fresh as a daisy’ to the band playing See The Conquering Hero Comes ‘amid a thunder of applause from the grandstand occupants’ (The News 03.09.27). Well, no grandstand or marching band for us lot, and thankfully no broken necks, but a good amount of laughter and applause from the assembled spectators as we all finished. It was the third slowest winning time since 1994. Huzzah!

In 1927 the winner was awarded £12, which sounds more impressive when it is translated into its modern equivalent: £965. But with a grand in cash not forthcoming from Roger, I had to settle for surely one of the most generous prizes for half an hour’s running that you will find; a night in the Lakeside Hotel and Spa (kindly donated by them), not quite to the value of £965, but a hell of a lot more than £12!

Most of us could then relax with a beer and spectate the competitive silliness of the team event – even more worthwhile and entertaining than the individual, and a big part of the enduring popularity of the race. 

I say most, because some individual racers actually opt to go back down the start line for a second go as part of a team, with barely more than a few minutes rest in-between. As a brief aside, this – along with the fact that the race is held in the evening – opens up the tantalising possibility of a triple-header day of racing (one for you Mr. Fishwick?). In 2018 I jumped in the car after Great Lakes and made it in time for the individual. This year, even more impressively, Ben Abdelnoor managed to make the long drive from a scorching hot, soul-sapping running of Ennerdale to make it there for the team race. With some logistical ingenuity, I reckon a gruelling trio of Great Lakes - LGH Individual - LGH Team is feasible. Something for next year…

Teams employ different strategies on the row, some opting for one passenger and two rowers (with an oar each), while others go with one strong rower and two passengers. As Alastair puts it ‘two good rowers are better than one, but one good rower is better than two bad ones!’. Once out the other side, the teams face the same run up and down the hill as the individuals, with various strategies employed for keeping the team together… ‘One year, myself, Billy Procter and Dave Butler ran.’ he recalls, ‘Dave was always going to be the slowest so we perfected the ultimate teamwork where one of us pulled him and the other pushed him up the hill! We won that year and it was the only fell race he ever won so was really chuffed.’

This year it was the local lads from Kendal ‘The Helmsman’ who took the win with a comfortable 30 second lead, followed by a strong Bowland team ‘Bows Deep’ (featuring a fine array of brightly coloured shorts) with ‘It Runs in the Family’ coming third, although for my money last placed ‘Rowing Pains’ deserve a pub quiz point for best name.

Prizes were doled out, and thanks given all round, and that was that, another year of this laal Lakeland classic in the books. Odd though its format is, to me it has the perfect fell race atmosphere: good competition between fast runners, but no big hype, just a bit of fun. Gummer’s How? With a splash and a laugh, that’s how!

In his guidebook ‘ The Outlying Fells of Lakeland’, perpetual curmudgeon Alfred Wainwright described Gummer’s as ‘an old man's mountain… when ancient legs can no longer climb it, know ye that the sad day has come to hung up the boots for ever and take to slippers’.

Well, I suppose I’m safe from slippers for at least another year then.

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This article was originally written for The Fellrunner - the journal of the FRA - for Issue 136 (Spring 2023).

Many thanks to David Birch and Alastair Dunn for help with this article, and most of all to organisers Roger and Kath Aubrey, and all their helpers, for putting on a great race!

Bobby Gard-Storry
Cumbria, 2023