Saturday 25 February 2017

Endurancelife CTS Northumberland

This event has been held for about six years I think, but I have always resisted it because of the price. I have tended to do the Belvoir Challenge which is lovely event. However, it does involve an overnight stay, so when you add that in, the Endurance Life event wins. I have never run some parts of it, so that was also an attraction.

The event attracts people from all over England, I met someone from London, two from Sheffield and one from Brighton. There were a few local runners as well and some of them I have met before.

The route is essentially go east from Alnwick to Alnmouth and then follow the coast north to Bamburgh. They supplied a GPS of the route, but they changed the route in a few places. Luckily, the course was exceptionally well signed - they had even put up signs indicating this was not the path to take in case anyone was tempted to take a path off the route.

I left the house pretty early (5.30) and drove to Bamburgh. This meant passing Alnwick but we had to go to Bamburgh to register and be bussed to Alnwick for the start.

I managed to get to the Castle



in time to see Jules and Helen and Dougie off on the ultra, before going back inside to register for the marathon


It was pretty windy outside and we went out there for the briefing and I bumped into Claire from Fetch who kindly offered to take my photo for this blog


Then it was onto the bus and off to the start at Alnwick on the Harrier League cross country course



We had been warned there were no toilet facilities at the start which meant that everyone spread out all over the place - there were no bushes.

The first leg to the coast was attractive countryside, passing under the A1 and London Edinburgh railway line. We ran on the main Alnwick - Alnmouth road for a couple of sections, but these were relatively short, it was mainly trail which got very muddy in places. I got to the Alnmouth checkpoint 7.2m in 1hr 10min which I was happy with (we had devices attached to out wrists which we put into a box at checkpoint so we got a printout at the end showing when we got the the checkpoints)

I was surprised we didn't get onto the beach at Alnmouth, the route stayed in the dunes and went up the hill to the golf course, which then led to a very muddy and steep descent down to the beach at Foxton Hall. The route went off the beach and then onto a trail to Beadnell, familiar from the NEMC Coastal marathon. Then it was the usual route to Longhouton, with some lovely views




I reached the the checkpoint at Howick (13m) in 2hr 14min so this was all looking good at this point. I was conscious I was a bit tired - I had looked at my watch earlier and had seen we had covered 10m when it felt a lot more than that - not a good sign .... 

There was more trail all the way to Craster and on to Dunstburgh Castle


And then more trail through the dunes avoiding Embleton Beach (one of my favourites 😕 )




all the way to Low Newton. We did run near a nature reserve which I didn't know existed so that was interesting. Then up towards Football Hole, where it occurred to me that I usually run round this area in the summer and the route was much muddier than it is in the summer.

I reached the third checkpoint (18.5m) in 3h 35min - that was 1hr 23min to cover 5.5m from the last checkpoint, a drastic slowing down. My legs felt there was nothing left in them and I was walking far more than I would normally have done on that terrain. Then it was another long walk/run to the bridge over the river that flows into Beadnell Bay



And finally onto the beach you can see in the last picture. It turned out that running on the beach wasn't that easy (though it looked lovely 😀). 



The tide was in so it was a choice of running on soft sand (no) or dodging waves in an attempt to run on harder sand. I didn't always manage to dodge the waves so I ended up with wet feet, which wasn't too much of a problem, it had warmed up and the sun was out.

I walked/ran all of Beadnell beach, through some of Beadnell and then down onto the beach again. This was more tricky to run with rocks and stones close to the high water mark. Then we came across the route's major obstacle, a river coming into the beach but because the tide was so high the sea was going into the river. The result was a crossing where the sea got up to the top of my legs



The 'beach' after this was hard to make any quick progress on, it was rocky. This didn't last too long and we approached Seahouses, with a view of the finish at Bamburgh Castle just over 3m away



Down onto the beach between Seahouses and Bamburgh and the final checkpoint. The 'beach' here was tricky to make much progress on


If the tide hadn't been so high this would have been easier for runners to make good progress - not me, my legs had gone so I was walking all of this anyway. Finally the finish arrived, 5hr 53min for 27m. Pretty poor considering my time at 13m - 2hr 14m.

What went wrong ? Well maybe going to a posh meal at work (very enjoyable) the night before hadn't been the best idea. But sometimes you just can't figure it out. The Hardmoors 30m went much better than I expected, but this one went worse than I expected. Hopefully the next one (seven days time...) will go better.




Monday 13 February 2017

Hardmoors Saltburn marathon 2017

I was running this one with Sara


(this photograph was taken on the cliff tops between Saltburn and Skinningrove, not long after the start).

"Enjoy and don't die" were the final words at the race briefing from Jon Steele, the race director. Good words on a day when the weather forecast was awful.


The winds were forecast to be very strong and they certainly were. The route follows the coastal cliff tops for a while before heading inland towards Guisborough Woods. Then it is up onto the moors before heading back to Saltburn.

The start through Valley Gardens, which is well sheltered, was fine and not as muddy as I expected. Once we hit the coast and had climbed up the cliffs it was very different. 



Here there was occasional heavy sleet/rain showers, but it was the wind which seemed to be largely in our faces that made it tough.


The steps down to the beach at Skinningrove was amazing I felt like I was being blown back up again.



Then there was the inevitable climb out of Skinningrove.







We ran along the cliff tops a bit longer than last year (to avoid part of the Cleveland Way that goes through someone's garden) and there were some great views


I had hoped that with the wind behind us and moving away from the coast the next section, back through Skinningrove, past Brotton and North Skelton and on to Skelton Green would be easier. It was for a while, but the fields were muddy and at some point the rain became relentless. At Skelton Green, 12m, the half marathoners, turned for home (though they still had 3m to go ;-)).

After that we were back on the Cleveland Way to Slapewath and both Sara and I noticed that the weather turned distinctly colder. The rain also turned to sleet then snow at times. Down to Slapewath via very muddy steps and back up into Guisborough Woods where the snow was beginning to lie.


We descended down again to the bottom of the woods and ran towards the bottom of the climb to High Cliff Nab. One of the marshalls there asked if we were cold. I said I was fine, but I hadn't quite appreciated what was to come soon.

The climb up to High Cliff Nab was the muddiest I have ever seen and it was great to see the two encouraging marshalls cheering us on from the top


All the marshalls did an awesome job, at least us runners were moving but they had to just stand there in awful weather.

We continued on, mainly upwards through the woods on muddy and increasingly boggy trails. Finally we emerged on the moor which I had expected to be a bit boggy. It was worse than I expected and the wind and the snow and the hailstones were in our faces. It was a bit grim at this stage. We also seemed to be on the moors for much longer than I remembered. I wished I had put on another layer at this point, but the thought of stopping and taking it out of my bag and taking things off in that wind, well it wasn't going to happen. It was a big relief to get to the A171 and get off the moors. After that there was still plenty of mud and wind, but we were more sheltered.

It was only when I got into the Hall at the finish that I realised how cold I was. I sat down and found I couldn't undo my gaiters. Luckily Lorna could see I was struggling and came over to give me a hand. I got into the shower as soon as I could and that really helped.

I am struggling to remember a long event which I have run where the weather was worse than this. Would I do it again ? Yesterday, I would have said no, but today, well I am thinking about it .....