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 !

Valleys and Views 2019

There were lots of marathon events on today - Boston (two of them), Paris, Peterborough and Durham. But we chose to do the Valleys and Views which we did five years ago (it is near Corby, Northamptonshire). We didn't remember much about it apart from it being good countryside, cheap and very laid back.

Well it has doubled in price since we last did it, it has now risen to £8 each ! That included food on the way round, but not at then end - that could be bought for £1.

One thing that hadn't changed was that you only know where you are going when you get to the start in Wilbarston Village Hall. Although we had done it before, we knew that it was a completely new route from last time. There was a map on the wall in the hall and we were all given a route description. The route description had been good last time we did it, so we were hopeful that it would be this time. And it was apart from a couple of places where it could be polished up a bit.

It was good to drive for 3 hours to an event and still meet friends from the marathon circuit - three sets who we had not expected to bump into 😀

Walkers and runners were going off at different times and we set off shortly after four runners who we soon overtook. The first mile or so was on quiet roads and then it was off into fields, over stiles and gates and it was quite undulating.

It was sunny at this stage and the wind was behind us.

Melanie was reading out the instructions and I was trying to spot which way to go and that worked well.

We always have to have a pond or a lake on our events and here was today's

After a while we came to an old railway line which we followed for about 4k into Market Harborough and the first checkpoint at 8m. They had run out of food and one of the marshalls had bought some which was nice !

We ran through Market Harborough making one minor mistake, but that was soon corrected. After a while we came to the Grand Union Canal and followed that for about 4m

to Foxton locks. Sadly we didn't get to see the lock closely and we left the canal soon after and started to head back into the wind. It got a bit cold here so we donned our waterproofs to keep a bit warmer.

Shortly after the church above, the route description was confusing. It said something like at the signpost with Welland on it turn right. However, the direction for Welland was straight on. Luckily we had an OS maps on my phone and we were able to look ahead on the route description and the OS map and go right. We heard later that several people went straight on though and added a few miles.

The last checkpoint was about 3m from the end (the checkpoint food was adequate without being plentiful) and shortly after this we came across this six way sign in the middle of nowhere.

Finally we came across this lovely sign. One quarter of a mile to go (shame it included a hill...)

and our Certificates at the end.

2014 blog