Wilmot Wander 32m 2020

This is a very friendly, low key event. They provide you with a low quality map and apart from three signs there are no other directions on the route. The other years I have done it the mud has been pretty bad but the weather has been good.

I always travel by train to this one

and stay before and after at a local Premier Inn near the start/finsh. Well it is usually near the start/finish but they are always doing things to the roads round here and one of the the latest projects is replacing the footbridge. The new bridge is there but it is not in place yet. This was going to effect the event as well so it probably added another half mile as we were sent to the next bridge.

The start is the Scout Hut in Chaddesden.

They usually set us off in groups of about four every two minutes and my start was 8.20. However, they made it a bit easier for themselves and they set us off in groups of about twelve every ten minutes. Here is a group ready to leave out of the back door.

They offer an alternative route soon after the start. I have never seen anyone take it, but I thought that just for a change I would give it a try. Needless to say everyone else took the normal shorter route and and after a short while, I realised I had not made a good choice. My route had more undulations (although some nice views),

probably more mud and some very wet ground......

When the two routes merged, my starting companions were nowhere in sight. I went though Locko Park

through some lovely woods,

muddy fields and had a nice view of the village of Stanley.

The first checkpoint was there and the organisers had promised to set aside some vegan biscuits for me (I had vegan soup at the end as well, the organisers were just great !)

More woods

before passing under the M1 and on to one of the steepest climbs before some seriously muddy fields. It was worst at stiles of gates, there was just no way round it all. On to the next checkpoint where I found another vegan runner asking for biscuits, over a river and towards the bridge over the main north/south railway line

Across a busy road and into a narrow alley before another long muddy climb.

Good views at the top

Eventually we had some downhills after I had chatted to a Hardmoors runner for a while.

Soon after this about two hours early the rain arrived. Not heavy so it could have been worse. Some more ups and downs and muddy sections

before arriving at the third checkpoint which was heaving (the walkers had started from 7.00 so we were catching them all the time at this point). I headed through quickly - we didn't have printed race numbers, this is a low key event, we just had to make sure we gave our race number to someone at each checkpoint. Past the local church

About seven or eight miles later and the hairy crossing of the A38 where traffic is travelling at 70 mph, we made it to the canal.

It is basically 4m of muddy canal towpath followed by 5.5m of cycle path to the finish. But of course I was starting to feel a little tired after 23m and the hills and mud to take much advantage of the lack of hills. I tried a new approach, run and count to 100, then walk and count to 50 and repeat. And it seemed to work. I got back to the Scout Hut in 6hr 59min (pure luck I wasn't looking at my watch) which was 16min faster than two years ago and 31min faster than four years ago and I had run a bit further as well. I hadn't seen that coming.

Here is my before picture (with my lovely Saucony KOA STs which had only done about 5m)

and here is my after picture

Overall I enjoyed it !

2018 blog

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:

2018 blog

Hardmoors Goathland marathon 2019

A different course for this event and we were warned it was going to be muddy. It was very muddy and one five mile section was very bad and it was difficult to run at all. In one mile Dawn and I managed a 26 minute/mile and there were no hills in that bit !.

However, it was a lovely day and the scenery more than made up for our slow progress through the mud.

The start as at usual at Goathland Village Hall. It was bright and still a little icy with a little bit of black ice on the initial short tarmac section.

Then it was down the old railway line to wards Mallyn Spout

which was in full flow. A steep climb up out of the valley, which is where I noticed that we were just in front of a sweeper. This happened at Fryupdale and we ended up catching quite a few and the same happened again at this event.

On to the moors and a quick look back at Goathland

and on toward the first checkpoint

and up towards Simon Howe ( a gentler way up than we usually do on this event). Past the SportsSunday photographers

It was warming up a bit now although there was still ice on the pools of standing water. At Simon Howe we headed south towards Wardle Rigg checkpoint. This was the vew back towards Simon Howe.

Then down into Newton Dale and towards Newton Dale Halt, a bizarre place for a station with no buildings anywhere close.

The next climb up through Talbot Wood I had bad memories of when I did it on the Crosses. However, it was a very long way into that event and this time teh climb did not seem so bad. Lovely views from the top.

We then headed towards Skelton Tower (after I made a minor error in navigation) with more lovely vies back into Newton Dale

Then some climbing towards the village of Levisham

About a mile after this we reached the very heavy mud. Melanie and I had run part of this in September and it was nowhere near as bad.

There was no easy round most of it. We both had waterproof socks and poles which really helped.

Finally we reached the next checkpoint at the south end of Levisham (17.5 miles into a 28.5 mile event)

The mud didn't finish there but it did get a bit easier. Onwards into the Hole of Horcum, a first time actually in the Hole for both of us.

Then a steep downhill towards the railway line

and back up the final big climb to Wardle Rigg again. It was starting to get dark now, so our head torches came out for the return to Simon Howe and then a direct line back to Goathland across Two Howes Rigg. This section wasn't fun, boggy, very cold and it wasn't easy to see the tape in the pitch black. Also Dawn was getting very cold so once we got to a grassy section and then tarmac we ran faster than we probably had all day to get to the end and warmth.

Dawn had done the driving today and it was lovely to be driven home after a long day.

During the run I had found that various items (such as my mug, poles etc) had had string attached to them as a joke by Melanie. When I got home I came into the house to this 😀

2018 blog