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 😀