Morpeth 2 Newcastle 2016

Tips on how to run a road marathon from today's run:

Do the race with a sniffle, but take plenty of hankerchiefs
Leave your waist bag with your food, s-caps and phone (with the route on) by the door of your house
Choose a day when there is hardly any wind and it isn't too warm
Choose a marathon with a route which is fairly flat

Result: 4hr 28min 1sec which is the fastest I have done since Windermere 2015 seventeen months ago. 212th out of 337 finishers.

I had very low expectations from this event mainly because of my sniffle and forgetting my food and s-caps. I was sure the sniffle would affect my energy and I was thinking I would be lucky to break 5 hours. I was reasonably confident of making the cut off of 5hr 30min. The other aspect I was concerned about was the organisation.

This half marathon or so event had been running for almost 100 years and was claimed to be England's oldest race. I did it my first year of regular race running in 2004. The route took us for about half a mile down a coned lane of the A1. It turned out that was the last year it ran as the Police understandably said that couldn't happen any more and there was no agreement on a new route.

Today's event was organised by a company and their reputation took a nose dive when they moved the event from July to October. By that time some people had booked hotels and flights apparently.

Besides a marathon, they were also putting on a half marathon, a relay, cycle races and a children's race the day before, so there was a fear that they had taken on too much. Also there were a few early indications that it wouldn't go smoothly - you had to pick up your race 'pack' from Newcastle. The pack consisted of an envelope with your race number and throwaway chip. Also the buses to get you to the start (not actually in Morpeth but about two miles south in the middle of nowhere) did not leave from near the finish, but about two miles away so I had to decide whether to park near the buses and have a long walk afterwards or near the finish and have a long walk before the start - I oped for the latter.

However, having said that the organisation on the day was very good. The route was very well signed, they had professional event management staff with lollipop signs on even the quietest junctions - some of them had so little to do they appeared bored out of their minds, others were like very enthusiastic coaches. The aid stations, every 5K, had water and High-5 as advertised. Having forgotten my s-caps and food I knew I was going to be having High-5 at every aid station.

There were quite a few encouraging spectators about in the built up areas offering chocolates, jelly babies and orange segments. The chocolates and orange were lovely, but being a vegetarian I had to give the jelly babies a miss. One guy who was outside his house offered to go inside and get me a drink - I must have looked very bad at that point ...

The organisers claimed there were 1000 runners in the marathon, but it looked more like 300 or so to me, but it looked geared up for 1000. I started gently thinking this was the only way I was going to have any energy for the second half. I passed Tony from the ultra runner store in the first mile - he was spectating, no way would I have passed him running !

The first 5m were on closed A-roads and they were a little dull to be honest. Mainly flat, but not much to look at.

I noticed at about 2m I was starting to get quite warm and I thought this was a very bad sign as it was probably from my cold. It felt like the wheels were coming off earlier than expected. But it didn't get any worse, I did get one or two niggles after that, but nothing which lasted.

We finally made it to the outskirts of Blyth and went down the road to Seaton Sluice, where we turned closer to the coast and had a short off-road section (bliss). We were soon back on tarmac and past the end of the North Tyneside 10k race and we followed that route through Whitley Bay (halfway), Cullercoats and Tynemouth. It was pretty busy  with people walking on what was now a lovely day in this section but there was quite a bit of encouragement as well. I was aware that I was running along at better than 10 min/mile pace using the distance markers and my time but it suddenly changed and I was two or three minutes behind. Not sure why, but I will have to look at my splits. I was still thinking there was no way I would keep this up and I reckoned the 20m point would be the psychological point when everything would fall apart. I was regularly passing people and I think after about 4m only three people passed me and two of them I was just behind at the finish.

I talked to a few other runners and there did seem to be a number doing the event as their first marathon. It was a good one for that, fairly flat. The one exception was just before the Fish Quay in South Shields where we turned up a steep hill. It didn't last too long, but there was no way I was running it.

I was hoping to see more of the river after this, but we didn't see much. There was quite bit of pavements next to busy road, then onto a cycle track next to warehouses. The distance markers for 20m, 21m and 22m weren't there which was a relief, I got through the 20m psychological barrier without realising and I still had something in my legs. At this point I could see a chance that I would finish under 4hr 30min so I decided to try and hang on. Luckily a couple of other runners were just ahead of me and they were going at the pace I needed, so I tried to hang on to them. It worked, I was just able to keep in contact with them and came into the finish, with lots of very enthusiastic spectators, just behind them.

Would I do it again ? Probably not, the scenery wasn't great and I prefer to have some hills and be in the country. Still I am glad to have done it and pleased with my time.

There was a cotton tee shirt and a medal at the finish.

Spires and Steeples 2016

I did this one for the first time last year. It is low key event, there is no fuss. It follows the Spires and Steeples footpath from Lincoln to Sleaford. You park at the finish and a coach takes you up to the start. There is also a half marathon which starts halfway down the route and there are also walkers who set off an hour earlier on the marathon, so there are usually lots of people around.

After a lovely descent through Lincoln it is a pretty flat route which passes through numerous villages, crosses fields and and quiet country roads (and of course goes by many churches).

I came down the night before and as last year treated myself to this the night before:

I was up at 6.30 and left the Travelodge at 7.30. The dawn colours looked attractive

I caught the coach up without any problem. There was a different start from last year, just around the corner which made the distance about 0.25m longer which was fine.

They had the same checkpoint system as last year, we were given six elastic band with our race number on and we left on at each checkpoint and one at the finish.

A couple of people came and up and chatted as I was wearing my Elvet Striders hoody which as nice - one an Durham Harrier who now lives in Beverley and somebody else who is a good friend of one of our club members.

The start was well organised

Just as we left the rain which had been forecast arrived and it got quite heavy. We went down through the quiet Sunday morning streets in Lincoln. I didn't notice this in Lincoln last year

The rain lasted for about 3 hours so that wasn't great. The route also got quite muddy in places, much worse than last year. We crossed a few pretty bridges

and quite a few, probably ten, fields like this

These just got tougher as it went on, my shoes (Inov Ultra 290s) were picking up loads of mud and the only way of moving forward at any sort of pace was to adopt something like a cross country skiing action.

When the rain finally stopped, the sun came out but the wind picked up and it was a headwind. I was also a bit tired and I was walking far more than last year. Consequently, I finished 35min slower than last year. Not great but the conditions were definitely worse this year.

The course was signed very well except at one point (or maybe someone removed it the sign) where a few people made a mistake, but I was lucky as I could see them coming back to take the correct turn.

We ran through a field of chickens near the end, there seemed to be thousands of them

It was definitely worth doing this one again, but I think I was lucky with the conditions last year.

Round Ripon Ultra 35m 2016

This is a 35m run to the north and a little to the west of Ripon and mainly follows part of the Ripon Rowel footpath. I have done it one before in 2010. I got a little lost at one point that year, but I don't think I added too much to much my time which was just under 8hrs. I couldn't remember too much of the route, only sections which overlapped with the Rock and Rowel event, but they were in the last 7m or so.

This route has a little bit of everything - trails, farm roads, quiet country roads, woods, fields and moors. There was a little more tarmac than I remembered, even some of the farm roads were tarmac.

The first half lulled you into a false sense of security as it was pretty flat. There was a 4hr cut off at Masham which was at 16m, so my aim was to get there well before the cut off. The cut offs got even easier after that.

At the start I met up with Gromit from Fetch and chatted to her and two friends she was running with. Mark Dalton from Hardmoors was also there and we chatted for a while.

We started at the Village Hall in the lovely village of Studley Roger and we ran part of the Jolly Holly route into Ripon.

Ripon is lovely and we ran past the cricket club which is used as a base for the Jolly Holly

Then we turned on to the Ripon Rowel footpath which runs north and follows the river fairly closely. We went past some lovely farmhouses

The first checkpoint was at a caravan site, so there was access to some toilets there. I am not sure what was wrong with the womens' toilet, but there seemed to be lots of women using the men's facilities. 

We then approached the lovely village West Tanfield

We then went into the muddy woods between West Tanfield and Masham again following the river

There was one point where there was a choice of three routes. Two of the routes looked to be heading in the right direction, so I chose one up to a viewpoint and on the way down the other side met up with some of the runners. Maybe I should have taken the other route, but I don't think it was much different in terms of distance.

I ran through Masham (16m) which looked very busy and got into the checkpoint in 3h 2min which I was pleased with. I now had 7hr to do the last 19m, so that was going to be fine. I also managed to reunite a runner with his watch which I had picked up about 4m previously.

Shortly after we left the checkpoint we crossed a stile and were confronted by a field of 7ft corn with a faint path through it. That was the way to go and it was fun !

The route continued fairly flat with a few undulations, but after the halfway point the hills started in earnest. And there were quite a few of them. After halfway we plunged down to a river and had a long drag upwards, maybe 2m on a country road. At the top was the third checkpoint which was close to a cafe selling ice cream which was very tempting. A short descent across fields followed by a another steep climb on tarmac. The climbs and descents continued and we crossed moors a couple of times

At this point I was running with runner who had lost his watch, Ben, who turned out to live in Coxhoe near Durham and works in one of the Colleges. We chatted away and I was doing the navigating, but after a while I was slowing and he attached himself to another group. It was noticeable that runners were often running in groups, presumably because some of them were not sure of the route.

We finally reached the last checkpoint by which point I had used all my water. I filled up and drank loads. The weather had been fine, cloudy with the sun coming out only rarely, little wind, perfect running conditions. I had started in long sleeves as it had been cold at 9.00 and I didn't roll up the sleeves all day. We ran through a few fields with cows and I did think that maybe a red shirt might not have been the best choice ....

From the fourth checkpoint, most of the route was familiar from the Rock and Rowel events. There was a lovely stretch in woods along the side of a lake near Eavestone. At this point I had picked up a couple of shadows who weren't navigating who were about twenty yards behind me and following me because I looked like I knew where I was going. This was fine and there were occasions when they got closer and chatted and there were times when I shouted where I was when there were a couple of sharp turns in quick succession.

Finally we made it into the beautiful Studley Roger deer park, one of my favourite places

We were also running down the central path to the finish, which was great. I ran into the finish aware I was going to beat my time from six years ago. I came in 5min faster which was very pleasing. 

Finishers received a very heavy medal. We had been given a technical tee shirt before the start, together with a map book which I didn't use as I had downloaded the route to my phone.

My 140th marathon/ultra which is a nice round number.