2022 Event Director’s Report

One of the quiz questions on Sunday evening was how many people took part in the first GL3D™ organised by Ourea Events… After various wrong answers, I shouted out “29!”. In fact, it was 53 starters and 29 finishers. Either way, the event has grown remarkably over the last decade, and it was an absolute pleasure and honour to welcome almost 900 participants to our Braithwaite event centre this weekend. 

One of the key ingredients to the success of the GL3D has always been the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. This is the core of the event culture and ethos. I sincerely hope that this was the overwhelming experience for everyone who took part this weekend. We want to welcome and accommodate all ranges of ability and experience, from the walkers on the Café Course to the elite runners on the Expert Course. Whilst the event has grown significantly in 2022, I hope that we have managed to maintain that magic, friendly ingredient that has been a hallmark of the event. 

At the same time, I hope that the additions we have made to the event, like the upgraded infrastructure, fire pits, and hay bale seating, have all contributed to the special festival feel that this weekend in the fells has. One of the benefits of the increased size was a much wider variety of people at the event, and I am confident that this provided greater opportunities for everyone to expand their community of like-minded running and outdoor friends. It really has been wonderful seeing so many people connecting over a shared love of the outdoors in a location as spectacular as Buttermere and it has been a privilege to watch this event grow over the years.

Infrastructure and Queues

At the GL3D last year, we needed to start dismantling some of our ‘front of house’ before all participants had set off, so that we could relocate and set up again at the second site. ‘Front of house’ includes services like the water and catering that participants have access to and the branding that provides the look and feel of the camp. This year, we decided to resource the event so that all ‘front of house’ services and branding were maintained until (more or less) the last participant had started. This approach meant doubling up on some infrastructure and much tighter schedules for dismantling, transporting, and reassembling other infrastructure. 

Overall, our new approach worked, but there were some notable exceptions, such as a slow start to provide our tea/coffee/cakes and self-service hot water on Saturday afternoon. This resulted in a small queue forming, and it took a long time to clear the backlog. This contrasts with Sunday afternoon, when there was virtually no queue at any time, as there was no delay for finishers to get this service (i.e. once a queue starts it is hard to reduce the backlog).

We were delighted to be able to open our event centre again at 11:59 on Monday morning, having completed the mammoth task of dismantling, transporting, and reassembling. The water was on, the finishers’ meal was ready to serve, the branding was up, and the tea/coffee/cakes and self-service hot water was good to go! However, there were almost 200 runners who finished before our ‘first finish time’ of 12 noon. This meant that there was already a queue for drybag collection, and soon after for the finishers’ meal, as this block of runners made their way through our system. 

Whilst I am thinking about queues, it is also reasonable to mention the registration queue on Friday evening, which, for about 90 minutes, was longer and slower than I would have liked. 

In summary, queues frustrate me as much as anyone else, and we will thoroughly review all these pinch points for 2023 to ensure that there is less opportunity for queues to start in the first place, and that our systems and infrastructure are scaled appropriately for the numbers taking part. If you were annoyed by a queue at any point, please accept my apology. 

Results 

You can view the 2022 results here:

One important correction I would like to highlight is to the Expert results. Unfortunately, the SI card of Mark Clarkson went missing between the finish line and the download (probably accidentally thrown away with the wrist strap). Fortunately, we have been able to interrogate the actual SI Boxes from each checkpoint and re-create his results. This is important, because Mark was the fastest on Day 3 and won overall! This change has the knock-on effect of moving first woman, Swiss International Mountain Runner Ariane Wilhem, from 3rd overall to 4th, which is still a remarkable performance.  

The GL3D has never really been about results and podiums, so I won’t dissect the results in the report. I would, however, like to offer a hearty congratulations to everyone who took part this weekend.

Serious Incident 

On Saturday morning, there was a serious incident, which required the deployment of our Response Team, Keswick Mountain Rescue Team, an air ambulance and coastguard rescue helicopter. The incident involved Lydia Gibson, and she has written about her experience on the participant group:

When an incident like this occurs, the emergency systems of the event are stress tested, and the tempo of the Race Control shifts from arm’s length safety monitoring to high intensity command and control. I’d like to share an insight into the Race Control and Response Team operations, which was at the centre of co-ordinating and executing our response. For Race Control to function, we need to integrate many different systems which are reliant on a significant technology and IT backbone supporting the event. This includes GPS tracking, satellite enabled communications and internet, and wide area UHF network. The Race Control team consisted of three people co-ordinating with the casualty, directing our Response Team to the incident site and liaising directly with the emergency services. On the ground, we deployed our Response Team. We cherry-pick experienced Mountain Rescue Team members from across the UK to work on our event Response Teams. On this day, we had team members from Bolton, Patterdale and Ogwen MRT, who were able to locate, assess and stabilise the casualty until Keswick MRT and Helimed 58 were on scene. I would like to express my sincere thanks to everyone involved in this incident, from the IT specialist to the volunteer MRT members, who all worked together to make this rescue happen.

My final thank you is to Patty Kostkova, who stopped to help Lydia. She sacrificed her day to assist another runner, and was instrumental in raising the alarm, staying with Lydia as the emergency response swung into action. I can’t understate the importance of looking out for each other as runners on the fells.

The Importance of Mandatory Kit

Whilst the weather turned wet and claggy on Saturday evening for 24 hours, overall, the weather was relatively benign for the event (anyone remember when the marquee blew away in 2016?). 

If you have read Lydia’s account of being injured, she emphasises the importance of carrying the equipment on our mandatory kit list… She needed to use all of it, and this demonstrates the importance of being properly equipped. No one goes out expecting to have an accident! 

As we advised pre-event, we did conduct kit checks and subsequently disqualified 36 people for not having the mandatory kit. We take no pleasure in disqualifying people from our events, because, at the end of the day, you are all our customers – we want you to have a fabulous time and come back again in the future. However, not at the expense of your own and other people’s safety.  

Vision for 2023

Our regular runners know we are not an event that stands still, and, after each edition, we reflect carefully on the event, invite feedback and plan for next year. The full team debrief is in the work diary, and there is now a window of opportunity for you to influence how the event evolves. I’ll share my headline thoughts currently:

1. Investing further in the event infrastructure (e.g. more self-service hot water) and optimising our processes (e.g. registration) to minimise any queueing. 

2. Offering a ‘Choose your own Adventure’ course, that would have all the checkpoints open on all three days, so that runners could visit any combination of checkpoints. This would spread out our participants, reducing lines of runners on any one course, and would be completely compatible with the ethos of the event of allowing people the flexibility of choosing their own routes.

3. We have always loved the fact that “A few - very well behaved - dogs have completed the SILVA GL3D™ over the years”.  However, given the higher number of dogs on site this year, we may just need to review our dog rules to ensure that we can handle any issues that could arise. For example, we have to bear in mind the local farmers, and the very real risk that just one adverse dog/sheep incident could result in having access withdrawn. 

4. Queues - we will review all the pinch points at the event this year (registration, tea/coffee/cakes and self-service hot water, drybag collection and finishers’ meal) with a view to minimising this. Some obvious solutions include expanding the infrastructure provision, mandatory registration times, and extending the start and finish times. 

Participant Feedback

We would love for you to complete our post-event questionnaire. As always, we are really keen to hear your feedback on this event so that we can strive to make each event better than the last. If you have absolutely anything to feedback or comment on, please do fill in the questionnaire, or if it's easier, feel free to drop us an email with your comments: [email protected]

Charitable Donations

Ourea Events is a member of 1% For The Planet, and each year we donate 1% of overall turnover to organisations that support environmental and conservation work. We have supported the work of Fix the Fells in the Lake District for many years, and we will once again be making a substantial donation to this organisation this year. We have also been raising money for the Lake District Search and Mountain Rescue Association, and I am delighted to say that we have raised £2,159.05 as a result of the GL3D this year. Thank you so much to all of you who donated!

Thanks to the Event Team

Like so many events, the SILVA Great Lakeland 3Day™ wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our awesome event team. So much work goes on behind the scenes to put on an event like this, and our event team worked tirelessly throughout the weekend to meet the tight schedule required to resource the event. I can’t thank you all enough for your dedication and hard work.

Camp Team

Adam Malloy

Angela Emms

Catheryn Lowe

Colette Webster

Colman Herron

Daniel Steggles

Dave Phillips

Debs White

Emma Price

Gavin Grimsey

Guy Redmond

Ian Cowie

Lawrence Day

Lee Mildener

Liane Shaw

Melissa Tate

Nickie Jones

Paul Imrie

Peter Huzan

Phil Anderson

Rachel Platt

Robert Campbell

Ruth Howie

Sue Lane

Tabitha Codd

Tom Warman

Catering Team

Finlay Harrison

Fiona Massey

Hilary Malyon

Laura Smith

Michael Letheren

Tim Glasby 

Checkpoint Team

Ann Perry

Colin Harding

Derek Allison

Lawrence Jones

Paul Beeson

Philip Wilkinson

Richard Lawrence

Tim Laney

Marquee Team

Alex Moreman

Antony Fleming-Williams

Jessica Byrne

Jonathan Lees

Seb Boulton Oliver

Timothy Exley

Zakius Benaton

Media

Steve Ashworth

Medical Team

Bethan Rouse

Charlotte Hattersley

Dan Romberg

Larissa Robson

Morag Bowie

Race Control

Abbi Forsyth

David Taylor

Matthew Gemmell

GPS TRACKING

Tom Jobling

Chris Mills

RACE TIMING

Martin Stone

Jack Eyre

Emma Winter

Technical Services Team

Barry Hirons

Peter Henley

Philip Sturgeon

Tom Rouse

Ourea Management Team

Charlie Williamson

Eleanor Claringbold

Graham Gristwood

Greg Mickelborough

Janie Oates

Jen Edson

Lisa Knipe

Lucy Scrase

Neil Davies

Sue Dowker

Tom Hecht

Thanks to the Stakeholders

The SILVA Great Lakeland 3Day™ would not be possible without the consent and support of various landowners and stakeholders throughout the Lake District National Park. I would like to extend a sincere thanks on behalf of all the participants to these organisations and individuals. 

Thanks to our sponsors

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our incredible sponsors, SILVA and Scarpa. Their support has been invaluable for organising and delivering such a great weekend.

Event coverage

Take a look on Facebook and Instagram for some of the photos from the 2022 event - more will be posted in the coming weeks! We will also be updating the event website with lots of great new photos from the 2022 event.

If you have any photos of your own that you would like to share, please do share them in the Facebook group for participants.

Check out our blog posts covering the 2022 event if you would like to relive some of the best moments.

You can also watch the summary videos from each day below:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Entries now open for 2023

We are excited to announce that entries for next year are now OPEN. The event dates are: 29th April - 1st May 2023. Please note that the event this year sold out, so enter now to secure your place and make the most of the early bird entry price.

We look forward to seeing you in 2023!

Best wishes,

Shane Ohly, Event Director