Tower to Castle Ultra 30 September 2023

 An inaugural 30 mile race from Blackpool Tower to Lancaster Castle. Two buses were provided to transport runners back to Blackpool at the end, but I don't know how this worked out in relationship to the difficulties at the ferry. Yes, there was a ferry crossing, which I have never encountered in a marathon or ultramarathon before ! Another attraction was running largely in a new area for me.

Melanie dropped me off at the famous tower

as registration was outside next to the Comedy Carpet

near the North Pier

The weather was good, a slight breeze from the south, ideal. Light rain was forecast from 11 with heavy rain later in the afternoon, but I was hoping to be close to the finish by then.

We ran above the promenade. This was a stretch I had done before on my one and only sub-4hr marathon back in 2009. My memories are the tough undulations in the last three miles, but running them in this race, they were really nothing at all. But I guess there is a difference between the last three miles of a marathon when you don't want to blow a possible PB and the first three miles of an ultramarathon.

I was just taking this stretch very easy as I knew there was going to be the ferry coming in just over nine miles.

We passed various illuminations

and the Rossall Point Look Out Building near Fleetwood

and shortly after we reached the checkpoint at the ferry terminal, where there was quite a queue for the ferry (which seemed to only hold about 30 passengers). It was operating non-stop but it was taking about fifteen minutes to do a round trip. It meant a forty minute wait from arriving at one side to starting to run at the other side (the crossing itself was only about five minutes).

Then we had a section on a breakwater close to the sea and some quiet roads before finally some trail after about 12 miles.

The route was very well signposted.

There were three checkpoints each with their own cut off which I made even after the delay at the ferry. I think they did extend the cut offs in light of the ferry difficulties.

We passed a brewery who were offering alcoholic and non-alcoholic beer, which I was tempted to take but resisted.

Once I had gone through the final checkpoint I knew I had loads of time to get to the finish so I slowed down and at 24 miles I basically walked the rest of the way.

At Glasson, about six miles from the end, we started on an old railway line which took us all the way to the river bridges at Lancaster.

This bridge has memories for me - I did the Trimpell 20 mile race in 2008 with Susan and I did my fastest ever 20 miles there !

From there it was the climb up to the castle and the finish

Nice hoody and medal at the end and when I got back to the van and Melanie, the rain came down in quite a downpour, so I was pleased I had finished by then. 

Many thanks to Melanie dropping me off and picking me up and also congratulations to her for her 75th different parkrun at Lytham Hall !

Saturn Running Time Turner August 2023

 I did this event mainly as a way to trying to get back to marathon fitness. Farndale at the beginning of the month showed me that I was definitely not marathon fit. We have had some good runs this month but I decided to do this event as the timing was right, it is very local for me and as much as I dislike laps there are some advantages - you don’t have to carry too much as you pass the aid starting every 4.36 miles. I also decided to take my car, park it just off the course and have lots of ‘just in case’ items and my food in there.

There were probably about 200 entrants - it was a seven hour event and you could run as far as you wanted. Some people were covering 5k others much further than a marathon. Quite a number were training for the Great North Run which is just two weeks away and it got very quiet after three laps.

My strategy was to start slow and try and keep that speed all the way through - 7 min/km (so an hour per lap) was the aim, but the first three laps were faster, 50 mins per lap including stops for food and drink.

Towards the end of lap 2 I was joined by Melanie who ran portions of each lap with me - she notched up 11.5 miles today. It really made a difference and definitely helped 😀

It was starting to get quite warm at the start of lap 4 and then we had the first of five downpours ! Very heavy rain, although it was still pretty warm. Melanie left me about half ways through lap 5 and headed home and I switched on my podcasts to keep me going. I soon caught up and lapped a runner who was walking and clearly had an injury. We started chatting about events and I walked with him for a mile or so. It didn’t help my time but I knew I had plenty of still to finish the distance I wanted to cover. It was fun chatting about events we had both done. It turned out he was 79 and had completed over 260 marathons/ultras, very impressive. I hope I will be able to run marathons when I get to that age (only seven years to go, which is a bit scary)

Lap 6 was a bit faster and overall I was under the 7 min/km I had set myself, so I was pleased. I could choose from whatever medals were left which were a collection from previous events and I chose one from a Hull event because I used to live there !

My new road shoes, Hoka Bondi, were great, but got very wet from all the puddles. 

There were also quite a few people I knew so it was lovely chatting to them 😀

Hardmoors Farndale marathon 2023

 

This photo sums up this event pretty well. Lovely views, but you have to climb hills to get those views. Bits of the route were muddy, but the muddy bits weren't that often. The weather was pretty perfect, a cooling breeze, some sunshine and cloud. Pretty perfect running weather.

I haven't done this event for four years but it was the same route apart from one small change. It was all very familiar and I knew exactly what was coming next for almost all of it. This has advantages in that you can hold back a little, but there is a slight sense of 'hmm that big hill is next'....

The start took me a little by surprise, it seemed to happen very suddenly, but there was the usual queue at the first gate so there was no need to rush.

There were undulations in the first few miles as we worked our way to the west. I was gradually catching people at this stage which was probably a mistake as I ran out of energy later and some of them caught me back up. The paths through the woods are always my favourite bits.

My training for this event had not been good. One 22 mile run and lots under a half marathon distance. This certainly had an effect and I need to either do these events more regularly as I used to do before the pandemic or do some proper long distance training.

At the furthermost west point there was a muddy section. I seemed to be getting through it without any issues and I remember thinking that I was glad I was wearing the shoes which had the most grip. A few seconds later I was on the floor in the mud !! No harm done and I just laughed at the irony as I went down.

This section was followed by a number of downhills and uphills as we traversed some of the dales. We passed the lovely abandoned Stork House.

After another big climb out of a dale we came to the 16 mile checkpoint and went into the wind, uphill on a road section. This is where I first struggled. We did descend into the lovely Bransdale and that was fun.

Then another big climb which was slow but I seemed to be stronger. At the top there was a flat section and I had just no energy left at this point so it was now only running on the downhills and walking the rest. Down into the lovely Farndale at High Mill and following the daffodill path to Low Mill before the next big climb (the second last, I was counting down at this point...). This path up this hill is normally covered in bracken and difficult to force your way through, but Jon and Shirley and a band of helpers had spent some time cutting the bracken back and it was no where near as difficult as I expected.

I was trying to hide how tired I was in this photo

Back down to the valley before the final climb up a quiet road and the run down to Hutton-le-Hole and the finish in the Village Hall !!

The marshalls at Hardmoors events are really supportive and it was good to see some familiar faces. Jon and Shirley have these events really well organised. A good, but tough day out 😀

Golden Fleece 2023

This event from South Cave, near Hull is one I thought I had done maybe three or four times. I was a bit surprised when I checked to find I had already done it six times. It din't feel that often.

What keeps me coming back ? It's s not a long drive to get there - two hours, it's cheap £18 (and for that you get some well stocked checkpoints, a basic meal at the end and a good bag containing the usual lovely badge. It is a very friendly event, the marsalls are all very encouraging and the route is very runnable (if you have trained well and I hadn't !)

It was the usual route card

The start was a little different to what it had been in 2020, we started a little further into the route and they had cut a bit of the route out for some reason.

There was the usual queue of runners at one of the early gates

The first 5 miles were into the slightly cold breeze but it was nothing that slowed me down - my approach to this was slow and and steady and enjoy the countryside and the pretty villages.

At 6.5 miles the 27m and the 17m routes split and it gets much quieter on the 27m route. The hills start as well and the route takes us up a typical Wolds

valley.

On top of the Wolds it was lovely with the birds singing, the sun came out, you could see for miles. It was just great to be out !

I reached the 19m point in under four hours which is good for me at this event. But then there is a very long drag where my motivation dropped considerably and it was slow progress. It picked up a bit after that and I was coming to Brantingham, one of the prettiest parts of the route. Melanie was there waiting for me, which was a lovely boost.

That left about two miles of hilly countryside before a lovely downhill into South Cave and the finish.

The vegan stew at the end was lovely !