Roche Abbey marathon

This was our first It's Grim up North (IGUN) event. They have quite a number of events now, but they seem to be out and back or lapped courses. We weren't sure how long the laps were going to be when we entered, but it turned out to be four laps for a marathon, which is much better than some of the events we did earlier in the year where it was sometimes eighteen laps for a marathon. At this event they also had 10K, half marathon, 20m and ultra (32m) distances with 6.5 hour cut off.

IGUN do have a good reputation for cake at the finish and this was the display awaiting finishers.

The ultra, marathon and 20m runners started at 10.00. The 10K and half marathon runners started at 11.00 so not too early a start - we had driven down to half an hour away so it was fine for us.

Each lap started with about half a mile of very quite country road before moving off road on to a path.

Some of these phots were taken by Melanie and Phil Owen so thank you to them 😀

Follwed by a nice long descent across a field

On to a bouncy boardwalk where you had to watch your feet - there were quite a few trip hazards on the route, I nearly fell, we saw someone else just catch themselves and somebody else go flying.

Through some woods to the stepping stones

before our first view of Roche Abbey (a National Trust site)

We diverted away from the abbey, through some more woods and, on tarmac, up a steep hill before descending back to the Abbey again (there was a drinks startion at halfway round the loop at this point)

Then a short out and back section

 more boardwalk and back to the waterfall just below the stepping stones

Through the woods again and up a steep hill to a path along field edges (no mud for us but I could imagine the route getting very muddy)

Through the village and past the church you can see in the distance above - lots of stone stiles in this section before a bit more downhill tarmac and a lovely descent through fields back to the checkpoint at the end of the lap, where there was cake, salted potatoes, jaffa cakes - quite a spread.

As you can see we tended to eat a little and still be eating as we left the checkpoint ...

The first two laps went fine, on the third we took photos to break it up a bit with the aim of just getting round the final lap. However, I struggled a bit on the final lap and encouraged Melanie to go ahead and she did for a while, but wasn't sure of the way so waited for me to catch up. Much to our surprise we finished under 5 hours which we were pleased with.

Melanie was even more pleased to hear she was third lady in the marathon. 😁😁

Here she is with her award (and a scone with jam and cream)

All finishers got the following:

It was good event to be my 1000th running event, very friendly runners, organisers and marshalls. Not sure whether I would do this route again as I am not the biggest fan of laps !