Forest and Moors marathon 2017

This event was organised by the Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team. They had organised the old Saltergate Circuit event (half marathon distance) which used some of the same area and some of the same paths and tracks, and because of that event we thought the navigation might be a little challenging in places. The event was billed as a marked course and they provided a GPX of the route. In three places the organisers had changed the route from the GPX. The marking was excellent in places and non-existent in other places so runners were going off in all sorts of directions. We tried to shout or whistle them back and sometimes that worked, but not always. Some runners waited for us to catch up with them to check they were going the right way. Then towards the end we made an error, not a major one, we just took an alternative route ;-) So it was a bit challenging from a navigation point of view. We were lucky as probably about a third of the route I had covered before.

The elevation wasn't too bad, but the ground was very muddy and boggy in places. The weather was cloudy and it rained a couple of times. The wind was light but picked up a bit in the second half, but that was fine we had completed all the headwind sections by then.

The start and finish was in at Adderstone Field in Dalby Forest, not somewhere I had been to before. However it had an Enchanted Wood, which sadly we didn't have time to explore

It wasn't a big field and the marathon and half marathon started together

It was chip timed with the chip attached to the race number. The start was immediately off road heading through Dalby Forest and we climbed a big hill to get to the Fox and Rabbit pub. We crossed the busy A169 and then started a steep descent into the lovely Cross Dale

and we saw our first directional sign at Farwath. It hadn't mattered up till then, there had been lots of marshalls directing us. At Farwath we had our first change from the GPX route, we headed towards Levisham initially and then had a steep climb into Levisham Woods before a descent back down into Newtondale again with the railway line to the west of us. There was a bit of a climb up to Levisham Elbow where the two routes separated. There were very few doing the marathon, sixty two had entered but I am not sure how many had turned up. We ran down to Levisham station which is lovely

and then started the muddy climb up to Newton Banks. As we reached the top there was a group of about eight runners all gathered with no idea where to go. Luckily I had done this section before so I guided then onto the Tabular Hills path and then after a two or three miles we arrived at the Snape Road. We crossed that and on to  a long section of forest roads. Soon after Muffles Farm we came across a group of runners we had helped earlier, again unsure which was to go. After this the marking got a bit better (it couldn't have got any worse) and they disappeared off in front again.

We finally left the forest and started the moors section at the halfway point, We were both a bit tired by now, some of the muddy sections had drained our energy. Initially, the marking on Wheeldale Moor was excellent, sometimes a bit too much. The ground here was very wet and boggy

We descended down towards the Wheeldale stepping stones

As we descended we could see the leading group hesitate about which way to go and they took the right route up towards Simon Howe. Melanie and I slogged our way up to the top 

and started our descent towards Ellerbeck. Shortly after Simon Howe the path splits and we could see the leading group who were now a long way ahead had gone right instead of left (there was no sign at the fork). We shouted and whistled but we only managed to attract the attention of one runner who had slipped behind the others. We descended down to Ellerbeck crossing the railway line again

We got to the checkpoint and explained what had happened to the other runners and the marshalls informed us that we were the first runners through for thirty five minutes and were twenty second and twenty third, which is not our usual position in these sort of events !

We crossed the busy A169 again and headed round the back of Flylingdales on a signed route which was different to the GPX route. Then onto a section I was familiar with the Flylingdales to Newgate Foot, although I had never done in that direction before. Soon after that one of the leading group caught up with us, he had managed to get to Ellerbeck okay and he soon went off into the distance. However, he waited for us at Malo Cross as he did not know which way to go and he decided to run with us the rest of the way.

We headed on to Stain Dale and came to a fork. Looking at our watches we decided right was best as left didn't seem to be heading in the right direction, and we seemed to be slightly right of the GPX route. However, we assumed this was a badly drawn GPX route. It wasn't, we should have gone left ! But we could see we were very close to the route and and made our way down into Stain Dale. There we saw a marker (which we learned later was a direction sign to the parking for the cars) and ran by the lovely lake in Stain Dale.

which was a bonus as it wasn't on the actual route ! We emerged on a road and luckily saw a checkpoint to our left. The marshalls were a bit surprised to see us, but directed us on to the next section which was clearly marked (but different from the GPX). After a big climb we arrived at the finish, tired and a little sore and collected our medals

Luckily we got back in time to go the Visitor Centre and get some coffee before the drive home :-)