Race registration was in the lovely Chop Gate Village Hall. I was running this one with Dawn and Kath and parking was in the field next door. Jon's sense of humour was displayed on some of his signs...
The start leads to a stile within about 100 meters and you are not allowed to climb the gate. It took us about 7 minutes to get over the stile and on to the big climb
We had all taken poles and I found them useful
The views are amazing and it was a clear warm day. Out first mile took us over 28 minutes...
We soon went down into Scugdale and on to the Cleveland Way towards Osmotherley. However, we turned off it soon to head towards Square Corner on a loop. Must to our surprise we saw Mark, the lead runner (from my club), running towards us. It turned out that the first seven runners had gone round the loop in the wrong direction.
Jon had more of his signs on the approach to Square Corner...
Back onto the Cleveland Way in the opposite direction towards Osmotherley
We made use of the public toilets in Osmotherley, walked up the hills to the radio mast
and down over Scarth Moor
and back onto the section we had done in the other direction
and back to the Scugdale checkpoint where Jon had put another sign up. Now technically this was correct, we had covered about 17 miles which meant about 11 miles to go. But the hills in the the next 8 miles or so were just never ending - Carlton Bank, the three sisters and the climb out of Clay Bank
the view on the way up Carlton Bank with Roseberry in the distance
Carlton Bank, this was followed by a steep descent to Lordstones where there was an extra water station - thanks Jon and Shirley !
The view from Cringle Moor, the first sister and the next two in the distance
Kath and I climbing up to the third sister, Wainstones with the second sister, Cold Moor, behind us
The view from the top of Wainstones
My hamstrings were starting to ache badly on the climbs now and on the one out of Clay Bank I was starting to struggle.
We ran along the escarpment to the east of Chop Gate and reached a section I had never done before. It contained a hill, which I hadn't expected. Just a small one compared to what we had done, but my hamstrings were now getting very painful. Luckily it was all downhill to the finish after this and we were pleased to get back in 7hr 54min.
It was a warm day, but the extra water station was great. The marshalls and volunteers in the hall did a great job and as usual Jon and Shirley had put lots of work to make it an enjoyable but tough day out. And special thanks to Dawn and Kath for their company 😀
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