Hardmoors Roseberry Topping marathon 2019

This was my 200th marathon/ultra and by coincidence, my 50th Hardmoors marathon/ultra. As is the usual case with the Hardmoors marathons there were 'bonus' miles, in this case over four  as I measured 30.6 miles. The events are organised by Jon and Shirley and I can't thank them enough for putting on these friendly, challenging events. Melanie had contacted them to ask them to arrange for this to be my race number:

The temperature at this one was pretty mild and we only had occasional rain and hail, the biggest issue was the wind coming from the south west and gusting up to 40 mph according to the forecast. This meant the first half, where all the major hills and moors were, was particularly challenging. Dawn and I took about 4hr 25min to do the first 15 miles and 4hr 2min to do the second half.

We walked up the road from the start to avoid the usual queue at the first stile and it worked a treat, we did not have to wait at all. Then it was through the woods to the infamous Tees Link climb up to High Cliff Nab.

The mud was much less than last year

We had been sheltered from the wind on the climb but when we got to the top it was a bit of a shock to feel the full force, but the views down to the start at Guisborough were lovely.

Then it was across the moors towards Roseberry Topping

What can't be seen from the photo is the drop down Little Roseberry before you start the climb up. Then, as is now the norm in this event, you descend the other side, turn around and climb it again, descend by another route and then climb up Little Roseberry again.

This photo is looking back from Roseberry Topping towards Little Roseberry

On to a runnable section towards Gribdale and the climb up to James Cook monument where the Sports Sunday photographers were awaiting (thank you for these photos which have Roseberry in the background))

Through the woods to the next checkpoint, downhill to Kildale and then a very long climb up along the Cleveland Way almost to Blowarth Crossing. I found this particularly tough, the wind was in our faces and we were being blown about. We were starting to catch people in this section with some fast uphill marching.

Finally we made the turning point and with the wind at our backs we made some faster progress and headed towards Westerdale and Castleton and on to a section which we had covered on Fryupdale

From Castleon to Commondale close to the railway and to the final checkpoint (26.5 miles covered by this point). Then on to the moors, through some boggy parts, luckily it was still daylight. Jon had made the course slightly longer but easier by finding a track which was less boggy and when we arrived at Guisborough Woods we finally had to switch our head torches on. The usual very muddy descent through the woods was much less muddy and we made it back to the Sea Cadets Hall to find some vegan cherry bakewell cake which Yvonne, who did the 10K, had made us. That hit the spot.

The marshalls today did an amazing job standing around in that wind, thank you to all of them.

Dawn again drove me there and back and thank you for that, it made it so much easier. And thank you for your company, that always helps.

Melanie had put a lot of effort into my arrival at home and I was greeted with all these: