Race Report - The Settle Saunter

Organisation

The Settle Saunter is a set of three races organised by the Rotary Club of Settle, North Yorkshire. Their website is here https://rotary-ribi.org/districts/page.php?PgID=250343

The races are 10k, 13.1m and 23m over the fells around Settle. These are held over a single day with different start times (08:00-09:00 for the 23, 09:00-10:00 for the half, and 10:00 for the 10k) and in common with other hill races, you choose your start time and use a 'dibber' at the start, end and various checkpoints. Other than the two checkpoints on the half, this is theoretically unmarshalled and self-navigated; but in practise all the locations where you can go wrong seemed to have good signage and volunteers on them.

The purpose of the self-timed start seems to be to avoid too many runners congesting the public footpaths, but the 10k is a mass-start, so I'm not entirely sure. It makes for quite a chilled atmosphere at the start in Settle's Victoria Hall - you simply start when you want to within the hour permitted for your race.

Each of the routes is intended to be walked or run, with the event closedown at 16:30.

Parking + Facilities

The races are on a Sunday and there is free parking about 10 minutes walk away. There are about 200-250 participants across all the races but only about 50 free parking spaces. However the town has plenty of large car parks about the same distanance away, and these are £3.50 for the whole day - so there isn't any stress about being unable to park.

The Victoria Hall is music hall/wedding venue and the toilet facilities are available for the racers - however there are no bag drop, other storage facilities, or inside changing; and this is made clear in the joining instructions - you must turn up, dressed to start the race, and leave nothing at the start. If its raining (as was forecast for me) then ... tough.

The race numbers and dibber are picked up at the race registration desk at the start, but you are e-mailed a race instruction pack, including GPX files and a very detailed route guide about a week before the start. This looks very intimidating and I was quite concerned about navigation, especially if the weather closed in, but the organisers had done a great job on the hills, and there were only a few occasions where you couldn't see the next hazard-taped marker from the one you were on (although these were sometimes just a piece of tape wrapped round a rock). Where there were multiple possible paths the organisers had put sign-boards, or there were volunteers; so about 3 miles in I stuffed my carefully marked up OS map into my pack and forgot about it.

The Route

The half starts in Settle and after about a mile on the road, breaks out onto a well defined footpath that heads up the side of a limestone quarry. This quickly gets un-runnable and walking is required. This stiff uphill (450ft climb) tails off onto a limestone fell-side with a gradual undulating downhill section to the first CP in the tiny hamlet of Feizor. Here you follow a flowing downhill enclosed footpath into the village of Austwick back a the same height as the start at Settle.

Through the village and the half-way point is reached before a stiff (450ft) climb into Oxenbar Woods. This is too steep to be runnable, and is pretty exhausting as a normal walk. This then drops steeply into the second CP in Feizor (about 50 meters from the first one). A second sharp uphill through a valley surrounded by limestone crags gets us up to the high point of 1050 feet (550ft above the start height). A steep descent down a mixture of turf and crumbly rock path drops us into the village of Stainforth, and a few hundred meters of road. We hit the River Ribble and then a three mile flat riverside run across a mixture of wide turf meadows and narrow rooty paths.

This final section spits the runner out about half a mile from the start in Settle town centre, where you re-trace your route to the Victoria Hall.

The 2026 winner of the half did it in about 01h:47m - so compare that to the expected winning time in a road half, and you get an idea of the impact of the uphill sections.

The 23m race shares a lot of the half-marathon route, but with added loops in Austwick and at Stainforth, so you do need to be alert for the splits and not just follow the runner ahead.

My Race

I like the format of a trail-half, but this was the first one I'd done where some of it was on open hill-side, and I felt very much out of place. Was I going to be surrounded by hard-as-nails fell and dales runners ? Well, yes, and no. Looking at the club names there were definitely some that were mountain goats, but mostly it was the same mix you'd see at a road race - so my concern was completely misplaced. It was really welcoming and a very relaxed atmosphere; however it was a little offputting to see that some of the marshalls were wearing Cave and Fell Rescue gear. The event raises money for this organisation, so they help out with the waymarking and marshalling - so not a suprise, but still... hoped I didn't need them.

The weather was kind - instead of the blast-furnace heat of the week before, and the forecast rain, it was overcast with a very slight drizzle. This cleared up to be a fine day for running. I had worried about both route finding, and finding myself alone on a hillside, lost; but there really was no issue - I was always in sight of other runners (especially at the beginning) and the waymarking was clear enough, and only in one or two places was there any question.

(Toward the end, when the marathon runners split off I did find myself with only one other runner in sight, but this was the only time this occured.)

The run was completely exhausting - even with a drink-break at each CP, it was hard sometimes to pick my head up to look around at the stunning scenery; but when I remembered to do so, the reward was an view of up to 10 miles across the Dales.

I ended up finishing in 12th place overall, in a time of 02:25:25 out of 125 finishers (many of who were walkers - there were 82 finishers below 4 hours); I was chuffed to bits with that, especially with the total height gain of 1550 feet; for comparison Folksworth 15 has a total height gain of 614 feet.

I'd thoroughly recommend the event.