HUSBAND and wife Henriette and Jonathan Albon dominated the toughest climbs in the Lake District to win the Scafell Sky Race.

The couple triumphed in the men's and women's events after 42km of running and 3,00om of ascent on a challenging course over England's highest peak, Scafell Pike.

Skyrunning is a combination of mountain running and mountaineering, including low-grade rock scrambling, the the race brought a large international field of runners to the Lakes.

The field of 196 represented Australia, Belgium and the USA, among others, with Albon one of two stars from the Great Britain team that earned a team silver medal at the 2018 IAU Trail World Championships, along with Tom Evans .

The race, run by Glenridding-based Mountain Run Events, saw competitors summit Green Gable and make a classic, technical ascent of Scafell Pike, via the Corridor Route. 


After summiting Great End, crossing a boulder field, they eventually descended into Great Langdale, climbed up Harrison Stickle and headed to the finish in Ambleside.



Evans and Albon charged off the front, with Sebastian Batchelor initially keeping in touch. Albon gradually pulled away, to arrive first at the University of Cumbria’s Ambleside Campus in a course record time of 4:26:50. “The Lakes is an amazing place to run,” said Norway-based Albon. “It was a lot of fun, especially the technical sections, when you get into your flow – if you ignore that there's a drop off next to you.

“The second half was more runnable, but hotter – more bearable when we had some wind and cloud cover.

“The nice, open grassy fells were welcome. It's interesting doing the techie stuff first – I loved the slabby section, I hadn't run on stuff like that before – your legs get blasted by all the jarring around, and then you get the long flowy sections afterwards, so your legs need to be in good condition.”Evans was second in 4:39:57 and Batchelor third in 4:59:50.

In the women's race, Henriette Albon started conservatively but gradually moved ahead and took the win in 5:59:27.

“That was definitely one of the tougher races I've done this year,” she said Albon. “There was a lot of undulating, rocky terrain, you constantly had to be focused. I was surprised by how much time it took. I remember looking at my watch 15K in and thinking, 'Phew, this is going to be a long one!'.”

Sally Fawcett placed second, in 6:26:16, and Helm Hill's Catherine Slater dug deep to finish third in 6:47:48.

Almost a quarter of the field, 46 runners, failed to complete the course.