Sunday 29 April 2018

Hardmoors Wainstones marathon 2018

My fourth time at this event. I think it is one of the tougher Hardmoors marathons with over 4300 feet of climb. It has a lovely downhill finish but you have to climb ten hills to get to that point.

The weather forecast said very little chance of rain and the sun would come out. I thought I should put on some sun tan cream. Well that jinxed it, we hardly had any sun, it rained every now and then and there was a cold breeze. My gloves stayed on all day and I wish I had a better mid layer than a tee shirt between my thermal base layer and waterproof.


Thanks to Sports Sunday for this photo. It was hard to imagine that people were really struggling in the hottest London marathon that has been just a week ago.

I think there were three differences between this year's event and other times I have run it - the start, the druid and the eagle owl. There has been a lot of chat about the eagle owl online and a reference to it was on the race number.



The start was different in that normally within about 100 meters of the start there is a gate and a stile and in previous years everybody scrambled over one of the other. This year we were told we had to go over the stile and there were marshalls at the gate to dissuade anybody attempting to climb it.



The result was it took Elly, who I was running with, and I six and half minutes to cover the first 100 meters which must be the slowest start to a race I have ever done. It doesn't get any better after you have got through the stile as this is followed by the biggest and steepest climb.



Having got through that we ran along the top of the moors, which were mainly mud free and then descended to Scugdale. As we went down the rain started and we stopped to put on waterproofs, which came off as we got to the first checkpoint at Scugdale.

Then its the second climb up Carlton Bank which seems to go on for a long time, but the views are lovely. You can just see Roseberry Topping in the distance in the first photo




As Elly and I reached the top of Carlton Bank we could hear some banging in the distance. I put it down to someone working. On the way down we past this, which for once was accurate.


As we went down I realised the banging was the druid with his drum who I think first appeared on the Hardmoors 55. This was my first sighting and his banging was accompanied my a might roar.



There was a checkpoint at Lordstones and here we were joined by the half marathon runners.

Then it is the three sisters, three hills one after another. There are some great views.





On the third sister there have been reports that walkers and runners have been attacked by the eagle owl this year, but clearly it felt a bit outnumbered today and there was no sign of it.



Thanks to Sports Sunday for the photo.

After the third sister it is down to the checkpoint at Clay Bank and up the hill on the other side.

Then there is a nice bit along an escarpment before the half marathon runners stay on the escarpment and we go up a long drag to Round Hill and then down to the infamous Blowarth Crossing. As usual the weather at the Crossing was windy and wet. Elly had heard a lot about Blowarth Crossing but had never been there so we took some photos with the help of the poor marshalls stationed there.




A long drag up the ridge before the descent down to Bransdale and the checkpoint there.


Luckily we only had a bit over 6 miles to go at this point.

A lovely downhill before a long road climb to the final checkpoint and on to the moors. I was quite cold at this point as we were again into the wind but as soon as we turned for home it got a bit better and we climbed the final hill and started the descent to the finish at Chop Gate.


A chilly day, but it was lots of fun !

Sunday 8 April 2018

Druridge Bay marathon 2018

This event is well organised by the North East Marathon Club, and Melanie I are both members. They specialise in low cost, no frills events. They also give out medals when you have run various number of marathon or ultras so before the start Melanie was awarded her 50th marathon medal 😀







I have done this event once before in 2011 and the only thing putting me off coming back was that is a lapped course. However, we needed an event to keep us from training and so we decided to do it. It was good to see a number of people we know, Hardmoors friends and clubmates.




The weather was excellent, cloudy with a very slight breeze. The sun came out towards the end of the first lap, but soon went in again. The wind picked up a in the final lap and it became slightly colder, but overall very good conditions.

The  lap start round  Ladyburn Lake in the same direction as the parkrun here.




Just before the end of the lap we turned off on a muddy and wet path which leads to a quiet road. We ran on the road north for about half a mile before turning off on to the beach

The first photo is by Will Thompson (thanks)




and this photo is by Claire Stanton (thanks) of us coming off the beach




and going south for about a mile. Then we do a loop of the southern lake before returning to the start. Each lap is 6.5 miles and we did a little extra loop at the start to make it up to 26.2 miles.

We started off steadily, about 10 minute miles and we decided that we would do two laps at that pace and then see how we felt at that point. When we got there we both felt a bit tired so we slowed down a bit and took 1 hour 15 minutes for lap three - laps one and two had been done in a total of 2hr 15min.

We are not used to running continuously for 26 miles and it showed, on lap three we were walking the small rises which we ran up on the first two laps.

The plan became get to the finish in under 5 hours. So we had 1hr 30min to cover the final lap and still get under 5 hours. We were both feeling tired so we adopted a run walk strategy for the final lap and managed it in 1 hr 19min so 4hr 49min overall. That is 4 min slower than when I did it in 2011 but I am happy with that.

The finishing prize was a medal



and a North East Marathon club warm hat which was very nice. Sadly the coffee shop in the Visitor's Centre had closed by the time we got back but overall it had been a good day out :-)