A phone call to Dennis Quinlan, the UK Athletics coach for fell running, resulted in a generous invitation to attend this conference, designed for members of English, Scottish, Welsh and N Irish fell running teams.

only one to travel over, meeting up with Irish mountain running international Anne O'Kearney-McMullan, a fellow Crusaders member, in Manchester.

The conference was held in the Lupton Centre in Sedburgh and two large "common" rooms (not to mention the Red Lion around the corner!) gave plenty of opportunity on arrival to meet up with athletes, coaches and administrators from the sport, including Danny Hughes, president of the World Mountain Running Association.

Next day came the lectures - way better than anything I've heard back home in my many years of attending such conferences. In particular, th And Jones presentation on physiology was superb - easy to understand and completely de-mystifying the topic of physical testing.

From the Altrincham club, Peter Doherty, coach to Heather Heasman among a squad of 42, gave an illuminating talk on how his squad operates - the training week is based on a "block" of four very hard days, followed by three easier. On those easier days, technique is emphasised. He believes bend running is bad for the body and so all speed sessions are done in straight lines. He stressed that he was a track/cross country coach with no experience of the fells.

Danny Hughes then outlined what was happening with fell running within the context of the newly-formed UK Athletics organisation, and gave the selection procedures for the World and European Trophies, the uphill Grand Prix (4 races this summer), Zermatt and the Kinabalu Climbathon, to be held a week after the World Trophy.

For the first time, there will be money prizes for the overall winners of the GP - Lenzerheite, Switzerland on 11 July, Telfes, Austria, 8 Aug, Susa, Italy, 22 Aug, Bergen Germany, 3 Oct. The sums involved are not huge - maybe £200 for the winner (sorry, neither of us can remember exactly !). There will also be ranking points, based on the GP Series plus World Trophy Results.

For the World Trophy, the cost for a team of 12 plus two officials would be £280 ($400) from any Malaysia Airlines airport in Britain. Supporters and additional athletes will have to pay a special rate of $600 which isn't bad. Dates at that rate will be flexible.

Ian Holmes, winner of the Kinabalu Climbathon for the past two years, described the conditions out there. Anyone wanting to run well would need a week to acclimatise. As accommodation out there is very cheap, this should not be a problem (even for us). Alastair Lorimer of Scotland is currently checking out the administrative end of things and will report back shortly. All the hotels are within a two mile radius of each other and near the race start. Many of the teams will be housed in one particularly big hotel. All the races will be held on the one day - Sunday September 19th.

* Men's 12.5km with 800m climb: Starts slightly downhill, with a 1.6km loop on the roads, likely to be very fast. Next come three laps of a twisty-turny jungle track, some of the trail laid with new paths specially for the race. This is very runnable, despite occasional tree roots, though quite undulating. Race ends with about 500m back on the road loop, with the finish on an uphill. Estimated winning time is 52 mins.

* Women's/junior men's 7.8km with 496m climb. This starts with a shorter loop of the road bit and then goes directly into the jungle trail for two laps. The finish involves a short run on the road loop again.

* Junior women's 4.1km with 300m climb. This had no road at the start; it goes straight on to the trail for a full loop.

Ian Holmes recommends that runners wear Walshes as part of the trail could get quite muddy. Parts of the patch are narrow, making passing difficult. He feels the men in particular could go off too hard on the road loop and suffer on the final lap.

Scottish international Bobby Quinn then described his experiences of Reunion last year where he finished best of the Brits in 4th place. "Although I had made my mind up to start conservatively, I suffered badly in the earlier stages. But obviously I didn't go off as hard as some that I found they were coming back to towards the end of the race. If you've anything left near the end, I reckon you should go for it. So I did and

A traditional track/cross country man, whose best distance is 10,000m, he runs "only" 70 to 80 miles a week - "I don't really count them all up". His training is meticulously planned with coach Derek Parker, but he still believes in a flexible approach, specially as he has a job as a lecturer in business studies as well as a wife and two small children. Key sessions are a Sunday long run of 90 mins rising to 2 hrs, a 5k pace session in park land of 8 mins (2 mins off), 6 mins (1 min off), 4 mins (1 min off), 2 mins x 2. His "lactate" session would be something like a 400m (1 min), followed by a 2 x 1000m, 2 x 800, 2 x 600, but always finishing with a 400m to simulate running a race when the start and finish are fast. He favours very short recoveries for his 5000m-type sessions. He does also use hill work, with forthcoming competition determining the distance, length, etc. Following an accident when he broke his leg badly, he took to pool running and feels it can achieve the same muscle burn as hill climbing.

Dennis Quinlan then added his thoughts on specific training for mountain racing. This would include a triangle of say, 2 minutes hard going up, the same distance down and the same distance flat at a very fast pace. In a week leading to a race, you could do a similar session but shorter - say, 20 secs up, etc. The principle is to get the legs in shape for the hills, working the muscles in all possible ways. He made the point that even running downhill slowly can help - eccentric contractions strengthening the quads. He feels that triangle-type sessions can be used in all sort of ways , either for reps as described above or on 20 minute loops.

He believes in high mileage - as much as you squeeze into your life. There is no such thing as junk mileage. On 5000m-style sessions (eg 5 x 1000m), he disagrees with Bobby Quinn on taking only short recoveries. His main thesis is that fell runners don't train properly at all - they just race.

To be in the right shape for Borneo, runners would have to forego some races for proper, structured training. He felt that using low-key races as training could be counter-productive. If your greatest rival comes along, are you going to let him (or her) win ? It means you are not entirely in control of your run. He was also much in favour of cycling, especially uphill mountain biking as a valuable addition to any hill runner's training arsenal.

Later, in conversation, Bobby Quinn explained how the UK funding system works. The Scottish federation administers grants, as does UK Athletics through the Sports Council. It all sounds very confusing. For us Irish though, there was only one point worth noting - the Brits can get funding; we can't. Next morning, an early wake-up and off into the fells - glorious runnable terrain !

Overall verdict: well worth it - and special thanks to Dennis Quinlan for his kind invitation and all his help.