Ingleborough Challenge marathon 2019

This was a new event for Melanie and I, I cannot recall how we came across it. I was holding out a slight hope that it might circumnavigate Ingleborough rather than go up it but that was not to be. We have been up Ingleborough on a marathon before - the Settle Saunter (which has since been re-routed to be less than a marathon). We enjoyed that one so I wasn't too disappointed that we were going to the summit. My hope for circumnavigation was to do with having done two marathons in the last two weeks, the second one being particularly hilly, I was wondering what state would my legs be in for more climbing. As it turned out climbing wasn't going to be too much of a problem.....

The event started at Clapham and was being organised by the Cave Rescue Organisation. They had a good system for checking that everybody who checked in to get their number actually started the event. They had marshalls and/or signs at most tricky navigation spots.

The race starts uphill and goes through a couple of tunnels that we had encountered at the Settle Saunter.

After this it just continues mostly upwards all the way to the summit of Ingleborough, about six miles into the route. Thanks to Melanie for some of these photos

The summit is the hill to the left of centre on this photo

We made it to the summit in about 90 minutes which we were very happy with.

There had been one bit where you would not want have wanted to go off the path to the right, there was a big drop. I haven't got the best head for heights but it wasn't too bad on the way up. We had to double back down that way and I took it nice and easy.

It then got a bit easier, we had now separated from the way we had come up and were heading in the direction of Chapel-le-Dale

but this was a false dawn as we came to a section which was extremely steep. I could have managed this fine going up, but down I found very, very challenging going down. I was quite scared. The poles helped a bit but sometimes got in the way. Melanie estimated we did about a mile and half in an hour and this was nothing to do with her. These photographs do not convey the steepness !

Finally it flattened out and I caught up with Melanie who would have had time to eat a two course meal in the time she had to wait for me. We started to speed up a bit, we were the last of the marathon runners at this point although we had passed a couple of marathon walkers (who had set off an hour ahead of us)

Ingleborough and 'that descent' behind Melanie

Checkpoints were just water stations on this event and at the next one we left behind the crowds who were doing the three peaks. Gradually we started to overtake other runners.

We had not expected to see this Ribblehead Viaduct so this was a nice surprise.

The route was now across fields, moors, under railway lines, across bridges, along the Pennine Bridleway and the Pennine Way. Undulating but nothing challenging

We came down the Pennine Way into Horton in Ribbledale, over the railway line and up again

Then a lovely gentle descent on a path with bluebells

A few more climbs (and a couple of minor navigation errors as we now getting tired) before we made it back to the tunnels and into Clapham - back in about 6hr 45min and we were happy with that. This was followed by tea and cake in the Cave Rescue building 😀