Hardmoors Goathland marathon 2019

A different course for this event and we were warned it was going to be muddy. It was very muddy and one five mile section was very bad and it was difficult to run at all. In one mile Dawn and I managed a 26 minute/mile and there were no hills in that bit !.

However, it was a lovely day and the scenery more than made up for our slow progress through the mud.

The start as at usual at Goathland Village Hall. It was bright and still a little icy with a little bit of black ice on the initial short tarmac section.

Then it was down the old railway line to wards Mallyn Spout

which was in full flow. A steep climb up out of the valley, which is where I noticed that we were just in front of a sweeper. This happened at Fryupdale and we ended up catching quite a few and the same happened again at this event.

On to the moors and a quick look back at Goathland

and on toward the first checkpoint

and up towards Simon Howe ( a gentler way up than we usually do on this event). Past the SportsSunday photographers

It was warming up a bit now although there was still ice on the pools of standing water. At Simon Howe we headed south towards Wardle Rigg checkpoint. This was the vew back towards Simon Howe.

Then down into Newton Dale and towards Newton Dale Halt, a bizarre place for a station with no buildings anywhere close.

The next climb up through Talbot Wood I had bad memories of when I did it on the Crosses. However, it was a very long way into that event and this time teh climb did not seem so bad. Lovely views from the top.

We then headed towards Skelton Tower (after I made a minor error in navigation) with more lovely vies back into Newton Dale

Then some climbing towards the village of Levisham

About a mile after this we reached the very heavy mud. Melanie and I had run part of this in September and it was nowhere near as bad.

There was no easy round most of it. We both had waterproof socks and poles which really helped.

Finally we reached the next checkpoint at the south end of Levisham (17.5 miles into a 28.5 mile event)

The mud didn't finish there but it did get a bit easier. Onwards into the Hole of Horcum, a first time actually in the Hole for both of us.

Then a steep downhill towards the railway line

and back up the final big climb to Wardle Rigg again. It was starting to get dark now, so our head torches came out for the return to Simon Howe and then a direct line back to Goathland across Two Howes Rigg. This section wasn't fun, boggy, very cold and it wasn't easy to see the tape in the pitch black. Also Dawn was getting very cold so once we got to a grassy section and then tarmac we ran faster than we probably had all day to get to the end and warmth.

Dawn had done the driving today and it was lovely to be driven home after a long day.

During the run I had found that various items (such as my mug, poles etc) had had string attached to them as a joke by Melanie. When I got home I came into the house to this 😀