Sunday 26 May 2013

UltraTrails Howgills marathon 2013

This event was tougher than we expected. We probably should have worked that out after the Grisedale marathon which was organised by the same people (the ones who organise the Lakeland 50/100).
When I looked at the route beforehand I divided it into four quarters. The first quarter we knew was going to be very tough. From Sedbergh we were heading north onto the Howgills. After about 6m of climbing we would reach the Calf and the next quarter looked fine, a descent down into the Bowderdale valley and along there for a while then turn to the east towards Ravenstonedale which was the only checkpoint. Then a bit of a slog south back up the into the hills. The final quarter looked a lovely descent back to Sedbergh.
Mel shows Dave how it's done ...
In reality the first quarter was possibly a bit tougher than I expected. The climbs were steeper and seemed to just keep on going. It was a warm day with a breeze from roughly south. The second quarter was a bit of a surprise, the descent into Bowderdale was a little tricky and the path in the valley itself was narrow and technical. You couldn't take your eyes off the path and it went on for a long time. The terrain in Bowderdale was a bit wet and muddy in places, but it would have been much harder if it had rained more recently. Finally we turned east towards Ravenstonedale, but then turned south and up again for a while before we came to a familiar section which we walked last year. Into the Ravenstonedale checkpoint to fill our bottles which were about empty.
We left Ravenstonedale and slogged our upwards on a deserted narrow road. We could see by now that our original estimates of how long it would us take were slipping away (MelanieLH guessed 5hr30 and I guessed 6hr).
Finally we reached the highest point of the second half and worked out way down into a valley and followed the River Rawthey back to Sedbergh. There were lots more stream crossing here and it certainly wasn't all downhill, there were a few climbs as well. I was dunking my hat into the streams to keep myself cool by now.
The scenery was fantastic and I really enjoyed that last few miles. If you like the Lakeland Trails marathon, then you will certainly like this one.
They gave us a lovely cup of soup at the end of the race, the same butternut squash soup we had at Grisedale, we needed it after 6hr 40mins (so much for our estimates !). The goody bag contained a tee shirt, medal, lots of gels, flapjacks. They also gave us a roadbook which also contained a map of the route. However, we followed the gpx route they supplied which we downloaded on our garmins and the course was signed at most critical places

Photos

Wednesday 15 May 2013

Brathay Windermere marathon 2013

I saw a couple of students on Friday who appeared to have the same stomach bug. It had been bad enough for them to have missed exams whicg they will now have to retake in the summer. If felt a bit queasy yesterday and I started to be a bit concerned. However, I woke this morning and felt fine :-)

We drove down to the start from Penrith and got there in plenty of time to register and seen the 10 in 10 runners start. There have been some awesome performances this year and I was disappointed I hadn't been able to come across and watch them on a quieter day

For the marathon itself, they had the same rolling start as last year but we were much nearer the front this time. Not really by design and we knew that it meant that many faster runners would be coming by us and this is exactly what happened.

There quite a few supporters out on the course and there was a lovely atmosphere :-) We doodled along at about 9 min 30 pace, apart from the 8th mile containing the dreaded hill. Halfway in just over 2 hours :-)

Then it was the tough third quarter and we got through it in what felt was a reasonable pace, but looking at the splits they weren't too good. Then suddenly having completed the hardest bit I ran out of energy at about 18m. I sent MelanieLH ahead and took a bit of break to eat a 9 bar. MelanieLH went on and did very well, less than two minutes away from setting a new pb and she finished twenty minutes ahead of me :-) :-)

But I never really got much energy back. I finished in 4hr 39min and I was happy with that :-)

A few of my clubmates did this event this year. I have been banging on about how good it is and it looks like it has had an effect finally :-)

My seventh Brathay Windermere marathon :-) Just remembered I had this photo of me at mile 21 on my first Brathay Windermere marathon in 2007 (my first marathon)



I didn't feel like that at mile 21 this year !