Ep 38 - A Tribute to Steve Chamberlain

Aid Station pays a short tribute to Steve Chamberlain. Ultra runner, race volunteer, community contributor, family man, avid listener and lovely guy

Aid Station website where you can find the episodes or leave comment https://www.aidstation.co.uk/

Please feel free to give the show some feedback on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/aid-station/id1549735359

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

I can see it. Next Aid Station Hello and welcome to episode thirty eight of AIDStation.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

This is a short one, and not a happy one I'm afraid, but I hope by the end it is at least an uplifting one. A week last Saturday on the seventeenth of August, the UK running community lost Steve Chamberlain. Steve was out doing what he and all of us love doing and that is running when he was struck by a car. At the age of fifty two this was far too soon to be taken, and one can only imagine the loss it is and will be for some time for Steve's wife Karen and their two children. There have been a lot of lovely tributes to Steve within the Ultra Running community by people who knew him far better than me. However, Steve was an avid AidStation listener and supporter of the podcast right from the very start. He was also a top contributor on the Aid Station community Facebook page and as such I feel he deserves an appropriate tribute from me. In 2021 I started podcasting my recis for that year's Dragon's Back Race. Steve had also entered the DBR and soon made comment that he was grateful for my insights. We made comments on the DBR entrance Facebook page and at race registration he introduced himself to me. He did this along with a lot of other would-be dragon slayers who have since become an extended community. When you spend a year training for an event and then spend six days on the same race, if you stay in that long of course, you develop a really strong bond with fellow sufferers. Of course, even if you don't last the whole journey, you stay heavily invested in the event and the performances of your fellow athletes. The 2021 DBR group of athletes is a great example of that bonding, as I still have some sort of contact with Nicola McNally, Russell Mather, Dean Reese Thomas, Benjamin Potts, Sophie Bennett, Steve Bennett, Fred Newton, Ben Davis Thompson, Ollie Harrison, Peter Riley, Silvio Galdago Ordees, Paul Telford, Steve Jones and Peter Bedwell. And of course, up until last weekend, Steve Chamberlain. Of course, many of those just named also had contact with Steve. Friendships born out of one race that have led on to other races, recis and training runs. Indeed, I well remember Steve and Nicola McNally storming round the expert course in the opposite direction to me at the Great Lakeland 3 Day in 2022. I was also delighted to see Steve volunteering on the Northern Traverse last year. He was driving all of our drop bags on to the checkpoints right across the country. I saw him at just about every major checkpoint and he went out of his way to ensure he was able to cheer me on and even got my drop bag at Patterdale. Steve had only been running Ultramarathons for four years, and yet in 2021 he completed the Dragonsback Race in his first full year of racing, finishing 66th out of 90 who completed it in what was a brutal year for high temperatures and a high dropout rate. In 2022 he ran with a new community at a couple of centurion events, the South Downsway 100 and the Wendover Woods 50, where he won the 50 plus age category. Steve then took on a big year in 2023, completing the winter spine race, which I know he really suffered in. His wife Karen posting on his Facebook page progress reports keeping us dot watchers well informed. Despite his suffering, Steve still got the job done in 134 hours and twenty minutes, finishing fortieth. He then followed this in july twenty twenty three at the Lakeland hundred where he came eighty seventh. As I did the Centurion's Winter Downs two hundred last December, I was quick to check out the entry field for this year's event. Steve's name was second on the entry list. I know he was very keen on giving this two hundred miler a go, as he had commented on my podcast about the inaugural event. I had half an eye on doing the Winter Downs two hundred again this year, but was waiting until I'd got my twenty four hour track race out of the way in mid September. As soon as I heard the news about Steve's passing, I entered the event straight away, with a view of running it in his memory and getting the job done for him. I know James Elson at St. Tuin has already posted condolences on their community group page and would holler Steve's memory in some way. The very first episode of this podcast back in january twenty twenty one had a news item that noted the passing of a guy called John Kinniston. John was a YouTuber and host on the Run to the Hills podcast. I didn't know him from Adam, except he was similar age to me, ran very long single and multi-day events, and shared his runs and recus far and wide. He was most helpful and inspirational to me, and although I never met him, I was just touched by his passing. Ed Katmir, who died earlier this year out on Dufton Pike, also doing what he bet loved best running long. I was in the same centurion race as Ed once, and obviously I was never anywhere near him or met him even, but I saw the race results and he was a fellow ultrarunner in the same race. The point I'm trying to make, and maybe it's just me being a sensitive soul, which I very much doubt, is that our trail and ultralunning community seem so strongly connected and bonded. Even if those connections are very slight, even tenuous, we enter a race, we pass on a trail, we pass up something to help, we sit next to each other in an aid station, we share the beam of our lamp at night, sometimes we complete a race together and often hug once crossing the line. Steve didn't get to finish all of his race, but many of us did those things just described with Steve, and we carry those moments on with us in the rest of our race. In fact, the ultrarunning season is coming to a peak over the next two weeks, with the UTMB races already underway, the Dragonsback race starting this Monday coming, and Tour de Gion starting on september the eighth. I'm sure there will be many of Steve's ultrarunning friends will be out there turning to his memory and giving thanks that they knew him and are still able to do what they love doing the most. To Steve Chamberling, Ultrarunner. Enjoy those high mountain passes up there, Steve. You'll be fondly remembered down here on the trails.