Early Starts - communication in further detail
Mon 20 Jan 2025
To address some of the views and questions that arose from our recent communication about banning early starts for individual runners, we have put together this short explanation to set out our reasoning for this change to our rules.
It has for some time been the FRA’s view that agreeing to individual requests from runners for an early start should be discouraged as they create a safety risk. This view has been mentioned previously in Fellrunner articles, in the FAQ section of our website and in communications to race organisers.
Fell running is an inclusive sport – a glance along the start line of a typical fell race is proof of that – with a vast range of abilities and ages all taking part in the same races. Naturally we want this inclusivity to continue, but not to the point where it creates a safety risk. And this is where the topic of individual early starts comes in.
The reason we strongly recommended against individual early starts is because they are often agreed on an ad hoc basis on the morning of a race, giving the race organiser no chance to properly organise and communicate what is happening to their race team. This has in turn led to several “near misses” where slower runners have set off either before marshals are in place or caused confusion and mis-counts of runners. As you might be aware, the risk of mis-counting runners is a serious one, and can lead to major problems for both runners and the race team. Mis-counting runners has been cited as a key contributing factor in several cases where serious harm has come to runners.
Unfortunately, despite our recommendation, we have received regular evidence that individual early starts are still happening, putting both runners and race organisers at risk. Therefore, to simplify matters for race organisers and prevent that awkward conversation where an organiser is put on the spot, we have decided to update our rules and actually ban these ad hoc, individual early starts. This change DOES NOT prevent a race organiser from choosing to offer an official early start, for instance, for older age category runners. And in this way, we can remain both inclusive and safe.
Finally, here is the text of our updated rule:
Whilst the FRA wants fell running to be open to everyone with as few barriers as possible to participation, the nature of the sport requires a certain basic level of fell skills and fitness. Taking into account the safety of runners and what is reasonable to ask of volunteers and marshals, organisers must not offer “walking starts” or “advance starts” for individual runners, whether these are asked for in advance or on the day. However, organisers are free to have more than one official start time, for instance an earlier start for older age categories, followed by another start for the remaining categories.
We hope that all fell runners and organisers will see this as a sensible step, but we are very happy to hear your thoughts and views.
