Scafell Sky Race 2020 cancelled due to Coronavirus strain Covid-19

We have just received notification that our events centre, The Stickle Barn owned by the National Trust, have been forced to cancel the booking due to the Covid-19 lockdown measures in place.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been looking at other dates in the year that we could possibly move the Scafell Sky Race to.

September and October are already busy months in the Lake District and with large events moving already to later in the year in these two months, we are sure that some of our competitors will already be committed to one or more of these events and so we do not see either of these months as a viable solution, plus we are also not able to secure our events centre in these months without clashing with either other skyraces or other large trail running events, that will compromise the safety of our event with courses/race routes crossing over each other. On top of this, marshals will be extremely thin on the ground during this time and so we are not confident we would be able to put together a full marshals team, which is imperative to the safe running of the event.

We have been looking into the viability of November, but have reached the conclusion that it would not be a safe option for the event to go ahead during this month due to the following reasons;

1. Daylight hours are reduced during the month of November, getting shorter by the day. The event requires 10 hours minimum of good daylight to ensure the safety of all our competitors, volunteer marshals and events safety team and from the 1^st November sunrise is 07:00 and sunset 17:30, only 10.5 hours of daylight, assuming it is not an overcast or bad weather day. We allow 10 hours for the competitors to complete the course, this leaves no margin for error.

2. Weather in the UK can be difficult in any month we pick, but generally we can conclude that the months of April, May, June, July, September and October are more favourable. The months of November, December, January, February and March are all deemed to be less favourable months, with snowfall in the mountains being a highly likely occurrence.

3. In the last 5 years we have seen heavy snowfall during the month of November, major UK storms from the Atlantic seaboard and floods. It is very common for us to have serious storms during this month.

4. We have a broad spectrum of runners entering the Scafell Sky Race, but we are aware that plenty of our competitors do not operate in the mountains on bad/foul weather days, covering the nature of the terrain that the Scafell Sky Race takes our competitors over.

5. The safety of the volunteer marshals and paid events safety team is also paramount and we must make decisions to the running of the event based upon this factor as well. We cannot have these teams out in the mountains in foul weather for 10 hours trying to manage the safety of our competitors.

6. We are likely to have to move to a shortened course due to the advent of weather and circumstances beyond our control.

7. The likelihood of an event cancelation is greatly increased due to the points listed above.

Therefore, in a nutshell we can now only cancel the Scafell Sky Race for 2020 and start the process of planning a bigger and better sky running race weekend for June 2021.

Please be aware we are a very small events team delivering this event, having 2 full time members of staff who are myself and Nicola (my wife) and this is likely to take us a little time to coordinate.

We would like to make you aware of the terms and conditions you have booked the race under, please take time to read them carefully: https://www.lakedistrictskytrails.com/scafell-sky-race-40km-3000m/rules-and-declaration

We also would like to make you aware that as an events company, we are operating the races as a business and this is one of our main sources of income. We do have a sister company, The Outdoor Warehouse (Windermere) Ltd, which operates under the trading names of Mountain Run and Nics Nordic Walks. Between these 3 company facades, we have an income stream that allows us to live and this is how we earn our income.

At present, all our booked work for the next 3 months has been cancelled and so our income has instantly stopped. We are not sure about worked booked for the rest of the calendar year at present.

We would like to advise that we have already incurred costs to this date and we are at present looking at all solutions in order to keep both companies afloat to survive this extremely difficult time ahead.

Basically, circumstances beyond our and your control, have forced the cancellation of the Scafell Sky Race for 2020.

Please update yourselves on current the UK Government current guidelines: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/full-guidance-on-staying-at-home-and-away-from-others

We are currently establishing the costs we have incurred to date and will be able to advise all competitors of options that they have, in respect to their the entry, as soon as possible. We will be sending this information to all participants entered into the race to advise what our/your options are.

If you require any further information right now, then please email me (Charlie) at enquires@mountainrun.co.uk and I will answer you as swiftly as possible, but please expect delays in my reply and if you could wait until we have sent you an email via SI Entries this week, then that would be extremely helpful, as you can imagine, we have a lot to deal with right now.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all past, present and future competitors in supporting us over the last 5 years of our events company, which has delivered races such as the Keswick Mountain Festival Trail Races, our own Lakes Sky Ultra, Scafell Sky Race, Pinnacle Ridge Extreme and Wansfell Mountain Race and our sister companies Mountain Run and Nics Nordic Walks where we have trained a large number of our competitors and entrants towards a more efficient way to move through mountainous terrain, in order to compete in events such as above and many of the worlds largest trail and mountain races.

We, like many of you out there, are not sure of our business survival into 2021 and it’s not a welcome thought. We love what we do and we love to share our passion, experience and knowledge with you and look forward to seeing this virus spread quelled and stopped and the return to normal life as soon as possible.

We hope you still manage to train enough to keep your fitness levels to the best you can and will be working through our social media platforms to try to come up with some innovative ways to keep your sky, mountain and trail running skills and efficiency up to date whilst at home.

Thanks for your understanding,

Yours on the trails or stairs,

Charlie Sproson

Event Owner and Director.