Sarah Rowell - Trail and Mountain Running

First published in 2013 by
The Crowood Press Ltd
Ramsbury, Marlborough
Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2013

Sarah Rowell and Wendy Dodds 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 564 5

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the following for giving their time and expertise to help shape the contents of the book:

Bob Smith, Mark Townsend, Barbara Lonsdale and Hilary Bloor for their insightful and challenging questions and suggestions throughout; Dr Steve Ingham for advice on the training sections; Ian Holmes, Jez Bragg and Jonathan Wyatt for sharing their training ideas and plans; Ali Rose and the staff at the Coach House Physiotherapy Clinic for their assistance and expertise with the exercises included in the book (and for helping keep Sarah Rowell running); those who have let us use their photos, in particular Triss Kenny, Dave Woodhead, Andy Holden, Ian Charters (www.justusuk.com) and Dan Vernon; your work really brings our words to life.

We would also like to thank all those other friends who have given us advice and shared many days on the hills over the years, and who have provided us with the inspiration for this book; and, last but not least, our long-suffering partners Andy and Ralph for their help, support and patience.

Picture on page 2 courtesy Berghaus.

Sarah started running during the early 1980s marathon boom, winning gold at the World Student Games in 1983 (where Wendy was one of the medical staff), representing Great Britain in the 1984 Olympic marathon and setting her personal best of 2.28.06 when finishing second in the 1985 London marathon.

Injury issues meant that her focus switched to off-road surfaces. In 1986 she won the Seven Sisters marathon outright, becoming the first woman to achieve such a feat. In 1992 she finished second in the World Mountain Running Championships, and in 1996 and 1997 she won the British and English fell-running championships. More recently she has focused on longer events and running for pleasure.

In normal life Sarah works as an advisor within high-performance sport and is the team leader for UK Athletics mountain running. She also advises a number of athletes, from recreational to international.

Wendy diversified from being a junior international swimmer and an orienteer as a student, taking up mountain running in 1972 when she did her first Mountain Marathon. Over the years she has run regularly over the fells with numerous age-group English and British championship wins, though favouring long races. She won her age group category in the first five years of the Runfurther Trail race series and in 2006 was third FV50 in the UTMB.

In parallel with her running she has been a Sports Physician for over thirty years working with many sports, being a Team GB doctor at four Olympic Games and a volunteer doctor at London 2012. In retirement she has been able to be a full-time athlete(!), allowing her to reproduce times from twenty years ago when training was limited by professional commitments.

Sarah and Wendy first teamed up in 1991 to break the womens record at the Haworth Hobble, previously held by two Olympic marathon runners (Angie Payne and Veronique Marot), with their time still being very respectable twenty years later. More recently they have formed a consistently successful Mountain Marathon partnership.