Hardmoors 30m 2017

2016 had been a good year for running for me - 18 marathons/ultras and no injuries. It can't get much better than that. In January 2016 I decided that I would set myself a target to keep my motivation up. Normally, I react against targets, I prefer to just enjoy myself, but it was just me setting this one so I have enjoyed planning and working towards it.

The aim was to have completed 150 marathons/ultras within ten years of my first marathon in May 2007. But I was only going to do events which took my fancy and pace it steadily. It has worked, I enjoyed all eighteen events last year, which leaves me 6 more to do, so the Hardmoors 30 would the first of the 6 and would be number 145.

I have done the Hardmoors 30 three times and the Hardmoors Princess four times - the Princess is the same route, but run in the summer. I haven't done the Hardmoors 30 since the start moved to Robin Hood's Bay, so although I would be running over the same ground, it would be starting further round the route and a large part would be running the route in the opposite direction to what I was used to.

I was up at 5.30, left home at 6.30 and arrived in Robin Hood's Bay at 8.00. I had my kit checked, collected my number, had a cup of coffee, sorted myself out and chatted to a few people before the race briefing. Then it was outside and ready for the start.

As you can see it was cloudy and at this point there was little wind. The route started on the cinder track and there is a 3m gentle climb up to Hawkser before a lovely descent into Whitby. On the old route, this climb is usually at about 15m so I usually walk most of it. As it was the start, I ran it for the first time. As we went along the route, we were more exposed to the wind, so out came the waterproof top to put over two long sleeve layers. Every 30min or so it would rain briefly and a couple of times it was hailstones, but it was dry apart from that. It was a bit harder running into the wind, but once on the descent it was fine.

Whitby was much quieter than it usually is, but with this version of the route we were much earlier in the day. We came to the 199 steps up to the abbey

The views over Whitby are great

Finally we pass by the abbey itself

and follow the Cleveland Way along the cliff tops back to Robin Hood's Bay

Up to the lighthouse at Ling Hill, the path wasn't too muddy

There was a photographer just after this point and I thought I would try a leap but it didn't quite work out...

After this the mud started in earnest, it was thick and clung to the bottom of my shoes so I felt I didn't have as much grip as I would like. I felt I was running well though and making better time than I usually do on the section. The wind helped to blow us back to Robin Hood's Bay

I was very surprised to get back to Robin Hood's Bay in 2hr 40min, I would normally have taken much longer. I even started to dream of a sub 6 hour finish. However that soon went out of the window.

After leaving Robin Hood's Bay we went south on the cinder track. This descends gently for a mile or so, then there is a long ascent to Ravenscar. I decided to walk that section 

James caught me shortly after this and he and I chatted to a walker who was out for a stroll. On these Hardmoors events people just chat and it is lovely.

At Ravenscar the route was slightly kinder, we didn't need to go up to the Village Hall, we just carried on along the cinder track after a short road section. However, the cinder track now descended all the way to Hayburn Wyke, the southernmost point of the route. I ran this section, not fast but steady.

Came in to checkpoint and we were greeted by the usual 'encouraging' sign as we left

and descended into the Wyke

before being faced with the many steps out and back to the Cleveland Way

The steps seem to go on forever and I had pain in both feet when I got to the top. I have never had this before and I was struggling to walk let alone run and there was 8 miles to go ! It wasn't looking good at this point but the sun came out and coast looked lovely

The path here was muddy and slippy and again the wind was in our faces. I hadn't realised how much uphill this section was back to Ravenscar - I am used to going in the opposite direction.

It was starting to get a little darker as I finally reached the Ravenscar checkpoint to be greeted by Lorna who was doing a second shift as a marshall, she had also been at Whitby. The marshalls at Ravenscar looked very cold, it was windy and getting cold. We descended from Ravenscar back onto the Cleveland Way and passed Gareth and Lesley marshalling and jumping up and down to keep warm.

Only about 4m to go now but there were three sharp descents and ascents in that section. I managed to get through them without any more foot pain. The last climb was up from the bottom of Robin Hood's Bay itself and it was now getting quite dark by then, but there was street lighting so I didn't need to get my head torch out.

I huffed and puffed my way up the hill and turned into the car park and ran into the Village Hall to finish. 6hr 45min which was faster than any of my previous Hardmoors 30 times and equalled my fastest Hardmoors Princess time (there is much less mud in early September when the Princess is run). I was very happy with that, the change in the start point really helped me.

There was some lovely vegetarian chilli to eat before I started the drive home. Another lovely day out 😀

2014 blog

Hardmoors Roseberry Topping 2016

My fourth time running this one. It's called a marathon, but the distance on this one is over 30m. The Hardmoors events tend to have some motivational signs and the distance today was highlighted in this photo by John Freel of one of the signs

I was running with Sara today and we had a great run. Sadly, the other third of our running team, Kath, couldn't make this one. Melanie was doing the half marathon today and unlike last year, I didn't see her out on the course this time.

I was up before 5.00 to get to Guisborough. We started a little late, 8.10, but it was daylight by then and I took a photo of Guisborough as we started to climb up to the hills.

The climb up to High Cliff Nab wasn't too muddy, but it did get more slippy the higher we went. We chatted to other runners as we passed them and they passed us, it was a very social race today. Then after a few miles we came to Roseberry Topping, which looked awesome.

We went up and then down the other side right to the bottom, turned round and went back up the same way and then down another side. At the second time, the marshall kindly took this photo of us

As we came back up to the top of Little Roseberry we were snapped by one of the SportsSunday team

Then it was along to Gribdale and up to the James Cook Monument. There is normally a decorated tree on the way up, but this year there were two, which was great.

Just before the monument there was another SportsSunday photographer with Roseberry Topping in the background.

Soon after the monument the half marathon runners turned for home and we plunged down a road to Kildale and dragged our way up again and on almost as far as Blowarth Crossing before turning off the Cleveland Way and heading towards Castleton.

The route over the Westerdale Moor I love. It is part of the Esk Valley path that Melanie and I ran in sections eighteen months ago. Here is a view down into the valley

Onwards to Castleton station and the steep climb up to where David Toth was waiting at his checkpoint with drinks, food and his motivational sign.

Then it was along the undulating track to Commondale where I had an incident on the first running of this event. No problems this year, we didn't stop and climbed the hill to the final checkpoint at about 25m. In theory that should have been 1.2m to go, but it was another 5m across the moors as the sky darkened. We just about made it to Guisborough Woods without having to put on head torches, but it was getting very dark so we put them on for the muddy descent back to the finish.

We got into the hall and received our pink tee shirt and pink medal 

and then much to my surprise I was awarded the v60 prize again - my sixth at Hardmoors ! Thanks to Phil for this photo

A fantastic day out 😀

Hardmoors Goathland marathon 2016

I have done this event the last two years and the weather has been pretty bad. In 2014 it rained heavily in the second half. Here is a photo of Melanie and I approaching the finish

In 2015 it went the other way and it was heavy rain in the first half, but turned out to be a lovely second half. Here is Diane and I approaching Saltergate (this year's Saltergate photo is further down)

The forecast on the Thursday before this year's event was (click to see the detail)

So it looked like it was going to be very, very wet and windy. However, the forecast kept on improving, but it still had heavy rain and drizzle for the time I would be out there. As I parked the car in Goathland and walked over to the Village Hall there was a bit of rain, but not heavy. However, the wind was quite strong so I had waterproof top and bottoms on to keep warm.

The Village Hall was lovely and warm and I chatted to Garth and other people I knew. At the race briefing Jon threw in that there was going to be four and half hour cut off at Saltergate at 15m. So that was my target, get there in that time and I should be fine to finish in the overall cut off of 9hr. I didn't think I would take anywhere near that long as I had finished in a bit over 7hr last year, but you can never be certain that you won't injure yourself and have to slow down.

Outside at the start, the rain had now become light drizzle and the wind had dropped a little. I decided to keep on the full waterproofs as I felt that once on the moors the waterproofs would help keep me warm and that worked out well.

The route was advertised to be the same as it had been for the last two years, so I had no anxieties about finding my way. To be sure, I had the route on my watch and maps downloaded to my phone.

I stayed at the back at the start

as I wanted to take my time over the rocks at Mallyan Spout 

and not feel any pressure to go too fast. At this point the drizzle had stopped so my hat came off and remained off for the rest of the race. I kept the thin gloves on though.

After this there was a long pull up onto the moors

The visibility was quite good at this point. After the first checkpoint, we climbed up to Simon Howe and the mist got thicker. On the way up, with Jason, Paul and Dee, some other runners were coming across at 90 degrees towards us, quite how they had gone wrong I couldn't figure out. By Simon Howe I had left the others and started south towards Wardle Rigg.

The mist here was quite thick and at one point I had to think exactly where I was. With no landmarks in sight it felt disorientating and for a short while I thought I was going west from Simon Howe. I quickly pulled myself together and remembered I was going south, checked my watch for the route and carried on. 

Approaching the Wardle Rigg checkpoint we came across the very waterlogged section of the course. There was no alternative but to wade through some of it. I always wear waterproof socks for this event and they worked just as well as they have done before.

The descent to the railway line and the pull up to just below Saltergate were fine. The colours in the woods in the valley were lovely

In the previous two events this has always been a low point as I know that the Saltergate checkpoint is only half a mile away, 

but we have to go all the way 

along to Levisham Bottoms, climb up to another checkpoint outside Levisham and do a drag up Levisham Moor to reach the Saltergate checkpoint (probably about 5m in distance).

This year I didn't feel this low point, I just got on with it. The run along Levisham Bottoms was lovely, you could look across the misty valley.

As I climbed up to Checkpoint 4, near Levisham, we entered thick cloud with visibility down to about 50 meters. I got to where Checkpoint 4 was supposed to be and there were just two people standing there. I asked whether they wanted my number and they said no they were just spectators. This threw me a little and then Jon, the race director, appeared out of the mist and said I needed to go down to Dundale pond, up the hill to where the checkpoint was because the checkpoint wasn't in the right place.

This didn't make any sense to me, how did they get the checkpoint to be on the way to Saltergate, I couldn't remember any road access on that section. Oh well, off I went down to the pond where there was marshall who took my number and then said I needed to go back up another hill but not north to Saltergate, but in a roughly southerly direction back to Levisham but up another track which leads to a road end and that was where the checkpoint was. The marshall said I would then be coming back to him, so I imagined we were doing an out and back section to fit the checkpoint in. It wasn't quite like that, we did the other two sides of a triangle (you can see the triangle on the second map above) to come back to the marshall at the pond. As I came back back Jon shouted out that he had managed to lengthen the route and add more ascent ! I asked the marshall at the Pond whether this had confused the lead runners and apparently it had. I guess if you don't find a checkpoint you just carry on along the route, you don't go looking for it.

At this point I could see two other runners gently jogging up the hill and disappearing into the mist. I decided just to walk this gentle ascent, I felt tired and there was still a long way to go. I knew that I would make the four and half hour cut off at Saltergate which would probably be extended anyway because of the Checkpoint 4 confusion. It is a shame there were no views from here as the mist was so thick.

I made it to Saltergate in four hours. The road was busy there and visibility was probably less than 50 meters but the crossing was well marshalled. Thanks to Matthew Nelson for these two photos

I caught up with the other two runners who were just ahead of me, but again they started running as I continued walking up any ascent I came across. Again I caught them at the turn off the Old Wife's Way and again they ran on into the mist.

I came up to Malo Cross

which looked in danger of falling over. Then over the boggy section to Fylingdales and on to hard track. Again I nearly caught up with the two runners who looked unsure of the way, but once they saw me approaching they felt reassured and ran on into the mist and out of sight.

Again they were only just ahead of me at Lilla Cross. Rod, the marshall there, warned me that the beck at the bottom which we had to cross was in full spate, so I knew that would be fun. I went down the muddy path from the cross carefully and my two front runners vanished again into the mist. After the muddy path end the route goes along a well surface track before turning off onto the moor. The turn was well taped, but it came up suddenly (there is no permanent sign or I didn't see it) and I wasn't expecting it to be quite where it was. I trudged down this very boggy section crossing multiple small streams. This was part of the Lyke Wake route that I had done in July (but in the other direction). It was wet then, but it it was much worse yesterday. 

Jon had taped the crossing of the beck, but it looked like you had to wade so I ignored that and went to where I normally cross (I heard later that people who crossed there had water way above their knees) and got across without getting wet.

Down and out of the mist and I couldn't see my two front runners anywhere. I thought they had either made very good progress on this boggy section or possibly they had missed the turn on the moor (it turned out to be the latter as they finished after me).

Now the clouds had lifted, it was turning into a lovely evening. I got to the last checkpoint at Ellerbeck where I was directed across the road and not over the bridge, so I was jumping across the stream again ! Then down into the valley and across the railway line again and up to Simon Howe where the two marshalls were in good spirits despite being out on a hill top all day. Photo taken by Mark Dalton

Then it was the lovely descent back to Goathland and the Village Hall. Back in 7hr 3min which was better than in 2015, but not as good as 2014 when I ran it with Melanie.

A hard but a lovely day out on an attractive route. 

Part of me wished that the route had included the stepping stones at Wheeldale which were on the half marathon route. The stepping stones looked like this on the Lyke Wake

Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday (photos by Valerie Kidd)

2015 blog

Morpeth 2 Newcastle 2016

Tips on how to run a road marathon from today's run:

Do the race with a sniffle, but take plenty of hankerchiefs
Leave your waist bag with your food, s-caps and phone (with the route on) by the door of your house
Choose a day when there is hardly any wind and it isn't too warm
Choose a marathon with a route which is fairly flat

Result: 4hr 28min 1sec which is the fastest I have done since Windermere 2015 seventeen months ago. 212th out of 337 finishers.

I had very low expectations from this event mainly because of my sniffle and forgetting my food and s-caps. I was sure the sniffle would affect my energy and I was thinking I would be lucky to break 5 hours. I was reasonably confident of making the cut off of 5hr 30min. The other aspect I was concerned about was the organisation.

This half marathon or so event had been running for almost 100 years and was claimed to be England's oldest race. I did it my first year of regular race running in 2004. The route took us for about half a mile down a coned lane of the A1. It turned out that was the last year it ran as the Police understandably said that couldn't happen anymore and there was no agreement on a new route.

Today's event was organised by a company and their reputation took a nose dive when they moved the event from July to October. By that time some people had booked hotels and flights apparently.

Besides a marathon, they were also putting on a half marathon, a relay, cycle races and a children's race the day before, so there was a fear that they had taken on too much. Also there were a few early indications that it wouldn't go smoothly - you had to pick up your race 'pack' from Newcastle. The pack consisted of an envelope with your race number and throwaway chip. Also the buses to get you to the start (not actually in Morpeth but about two miles south in the middle of nowhere) did not leave from near the finish, but about two miles away so I had to decide whether to park near the buses and have a long walk afterwards or near the finish and have a long walk before the start - I opted for the latter.

However, having said that the organisation on the day was very good. The route was very well signed, they had professional event management staff with lollipop signs on even the quietest junctions - some of them had so little to do they appeared bored out of their minds, others were like very enthusiastic coaches. The aid stations, every 5K, had water and High-5 as advertised. Having forgotten my s-caps and food I knew I was going to be having High-5 at every aid station.

There were quite a few encouraging spectators about in the built-up areas offering chocolates, jelly babies and orange segments. The chocolates and orange were lovely, but being a vegetarian I had to give the jelly babies a miss. One guy who was outside his house offered to go inside and get me a drink - I must have looked very bad at that point ...

The organisers claimed there were 1000 runners in the marathon, but it looked more like 300 or so to me, but it looked geared up for 1000. I started gently thinking this was the only way I was going to have any energy for the second half. I passed Tony from the ultra runner store in the first mile - he was spectating, no way would I have passed him running !

The first 5m were on closed A-roads and they were a little dull to be honest. Mainly flat, but not much to look at.

I noticed at about 2m I was starting to get quite warm and I thought this was a very bad sign as it was probably from my cold. It felt like the wheels were coming off earlier than expected. But it didn't get any worse, I did get one or two niggles after that, but nothing which lasted.

We finally made it to the outskirts of Blyth and went down the road to Seaton Sluice, where we turned closer to the coast and had a short off-road section (bliss). We were soon back on tarmac and past the end of the North Tyneside 10k race and we followed that route through Whitley Bay (halfway), Cullercoats and Tynemouth. It was pretty busy  with people walking on what was now a lovely day in this section but there was quite a bit of encouragement as well. I was aware that I was running along at better than 10 min/mile pace using the distance markers and my time but it suddenly changed and I was two or three minutes behind. Not sure why, but I will have to look at my splits. I was still thinking there was no way I would keep this up and I reckoned the 20m point would be the psychological point when everything would fall apart. I was regularly passing people and I think after about 4m only three people passed me and two of them I was just behind at the finish.

I talked to a few other runners and there did seem to be a number doing the event as their first marathon. It was a good one for that, fairly flat. The one exception was just before the Fish Quay in South Shields where we turned up a steep hill. It didn't last too long, but there was no way I was running it.

I was hoping to see more of the river after this, but we didn't see much. There was quite bit of pavements next to busy road, then onto a cycle track next to warehouses. The distance markers for 20m, 21m and 22m weren't there which was a relief, I got through the 20m psychological barrier without realising and I still had something in my legs. At this point I could see a chance that I would finish under 4hr 30min so I decided to try and hang on. Luckily a couple of other runners were just ahead of me and they were going at the pace I needed, so I tried to hang on to them. It worked, I was just able to keep in contact with them and came into the finish, with lots of very enthusiastic spectators, just behind them.

Would I do it again ? Probably not, the scenery wasn't great and I prefer to have some hills and be in the country. Still I am glad to have done it and pleased with my time.

There was a cotton tee shirt and a medal at the finish.

Spires and Steeples 2016

I did this one for the first time last year. It is low key event, there is no fuss. It follows the Spires and Steeples footpath from Lincoln to Sleaford. You park at the finish and a coach takes you up to the start. There is also a half marathon which starts halfway down the route and there are also walkers who set off an hour earlier on the marathon, so there are usually lots of people around.

After a lovely descent through Lincoln it is a pretty flat route which passes through numerous villages, crosses fields and and quiet country roads (and of course goes by many churches).

I came down the night before and as last year treated myself to this the night before:

I was up at 6.30 and left the Travelodge at 7.30. The dawn colours looked attractive

I caught the coach up without any problem. There was a different start from last year, just around the corner which made the distance about 0.25m longer which was fine.

They had the same checkpoint system as last year, we were given six elastic band with our race number on and we left on at each checkpoint and one at the finish.

A couple of people came and up and chatted as I was wearing my Elvet Striders hoody which as nice - one an Durham Harrier who now lives in Beverley and somebody else who is a good friend of one of our club members.

The start was well organised

Just as we left the rain which had been forecast arrived and it got quite heavy. We went down through the quiet Sunday morning streets in Lincoln. I didn't notice this in Lincoln last year

The rain lasted for about 3 hours so that wasn't great. The route also got quite muddy in places, much worse than last year. We crossed a few pretty bridges

and quite a few, probably ten, fields like this

These just got tougher as it went on, my shoes (Inov Ultra 290s) were picking up loads of mud and the only way of moving forward at any sort of pace was to adopt something like a cross country skiing action.

When the rain finally stopped, the sun came out but the wind picked up and it was a headwind. I was also a bit tired and I was walking far more than last year. Consequently, I finished 35min slower than last year. Not great but the conditions were definitely worse this year.

The course was signed very well except at one point (or maybe someone removed it the sign) where a few people made a mistake, but I was lucky as I could see them coming back to take the correct turn.

We ran through a field of chickens near the end, there seemed to be thousands of them

It was definitely worth doing this one again, but I think I was lucky with the conditions last year.