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.
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