This blog is supposed to be about my attempts to complete the challenges listed in the first post over the course of 2013. I’m cheating a bit with this one as it’s all about the doing Hardmoors 55 run which was definitely not on the original list (and as am sure Laura, Nick, Kate, Al and Anne would point out – these challenges were not supposed to be running/outdoory type things). However, it did turn out to be very much out of the comfort zone and there’s been another large gap since the last post so hopefully I’m allowed a little leeway here………….
The Hardmoors 55 is an ultra-marathon starting at Guisborough following the Cleveland Way through to Helmsley. I’ve done a few marathons and a couple of ultras in the past and had been looking for an event to do early in the year after a bit of a break from running distance running since last November. A friend, (Flip Owen of Fetch and Elvet Striders) has always spoken highly of the Hardmoors series and it’s just down the road and so I thought I’d give it a go this year. If you want to check it out have a look at the website (http://www.hardmoors110.org.uk/cms/?q=node/48)
There’s 2700m of accent/decent on the course, 300 less than the L50 (the ultra I’ve done previously) and it’s generally regarded to be more “runable” – so I thought it would be a good challenge but not too extreme. How wrong I was!
I didn’t make things easy for myself by not really doing sufficient training in the build-up, the weather has been rubbish and my knee has been playing up so I only did 4 runs of 15 miles or more since Christmas, I then compounded this not getting my kit sorted out until the night before the race and then remembering that I’d broken my water carrier in Morroco and had never got round to replacing it – thankfully Penny was on hand to lend me hers. [for non-runners – this paragraph is what is termed as “feeble runners excuses” – it is traditional for me to get these in as early as possible before describing any race in detail]
The next challenge was getting to the start. The organisers put on a coach to get you from the finish, where you can park your car, to the start at Guisborough. This means that when you finish, assuming you are still capable of using your legs you can drive home with the minimum of fuss. The coach leaves at 6am so it was up 3:30 am for a 4am start. Thanks to the snow I got the car stuck on Sutton bank 3 times and it was only thanks to a fellow runner giving me a push that I made it on time. There was time for a bit of a snooze on the coach before we got to the start for registration and a kit check (a rucksack with full windproof/waterproofs, extra layers, map, hat/gloves, electrolyte drinks, gels, survival bag is mandatory for all competitors).
I couldn’t find an easy to copy map of the route, so this one is of the HM110, but we followed the route from the 5 marker (Guisborough) down to the blue flag (Helmsley) in the south west corner – you can find a better map on the weblink above.
135 runners/lunatics had made it through the snow for the start and in the race briefing we were warned of the risks of hypothermia by the race marshals. I should note at this point that it was fantastic that the organisers had decided to keep the race on, the weather reports were pretty bad and in a safety obsessed culture it was wonderful that these guys were essentially saying it’s going to be very cold and windy but you’re all grown-ups, and if you want to race it’s up to you, rather than taking the easy option and just cancelling.
The conditions at the start were cold, but with tracksters, a good base layer and windproof top quite manageable. The race started bang on time and we steadily worked our way up the first ridge and along to Roseberry Topping, it was a little windy but not too bad. I bumped into Flip Owen (a friend from Elvet Striders and the source of the photos below) and we had a quick chat about the conditions but we were both too cold to stick around for two long. It needs noting here that while ultras are running races, unless you are supremely fit then running the full distance is nigh on impossible. Most of us walk up the steeper hills and then run on the flat bits and the downhill sections (or just stop and pose for photos as below).
Coming back up the hill from Roseberry Topping (photo courtesy of Flip)
From there on to Kildale going stayed good with nice tracks and thanks to the cold weather all the mud was frozen. I was having great fun, I’ve always preferred running in the cold to the heat of summer, the countryside looked great and there were lots of nice fellow runners to natter to along the way. Just as was thinking about how great everything was it all got quite nasty, the climb up to the moor from Kildale is just about runable but once on the top there was a 25 mph headwind and as the path got higher there was more and more snow until it became ankle deep after about 2 miles.
Track along to Blowarth Crossing (before it got really bad)
This is what it should look like!
The remaining 4 miles to Blowarth crossing and the next CP were the nastiest I’ve ever run, the wind chill (-12) left me unable to feel my hands and snow drifts (up to waist high in places) made the track unrunable. There was nowhere to get out of the wind and put extra layers on so the only option was to keep ploughing forwards to try and keep warm – an attempt to have a drink at this point revealed energy drink I was carrying had frozen. It was around about this point that the demons started to visit – it’s pretty common thing for runners, you’re running along and starting to get tired and suddenly you start to question whether you can finish the race, blame yourself for not having trained enough, beat yourself up for not having the willpower to go quicker, question your own sanity for putting yourself through this yet again – a mate at Claremont Road Runners summed it up perfectly once at a cross country race “I was running along nicely till the second lap and then suddenly I just hated the world!” . The best cure for this is running with others who take you mind off it but on Blowarth there was no one within 100meters of me for most of the time and even if there had of been we couldn’t have heard each other over the wind. I also remembered at this point telling Nick and Kate not to mind the bad weather too much when we did the Lakeland 50 last year and that “bad situations make good anecdotes”, Nick pointed out that this statement would come back to haunt me and it most definitely was doing.
There was a self-checkpoint on top of the moor and thanks to my numb hands it took several attempts to punch my course card but then thankfully the track turned sharply and started to drop back out of the wind a little. The section over the next few crags was not as quite as exposed with the wind going across us rather than being a headwind and there were people to run with and natter to, my mood lifted and I started to feel good again. There was a lot of snow and ice on the downhill stretches so we were all being extra careful but there were more nice encouraging marshals at the checkpoints and even some hardy spectators/supporters along the way.
Another brave marshal (with a tent full of sandwiches and flapjack)
At 32 miles the course goes into Osmotherly and there was a checkpoint in the village hall, a welcome chance to warm up, grab some food and a mug of tea provided by the excellent marshals. Anna from Elvet striders was there and it was nice to see a familiar friendly face. It had taken around 6 hours to reach this far and I was a bit surprised at the time, I had expected to be going much slower but getting out of the cold was quite a motivator.
The second half of the run has a lot less hills than the first so there was a chance to speed up a bit, though there were again sections with large snow drifts and high winds. By this point a few of us teamed up to help get each other to the finish and make sure we didn’t get lost along the way. This really helped me out as with about 5 miles to go I started to feel a bit rough so decided to walk for a bit, when I got running again gravity had been tilted by 45 degrees, I lurched sideways across the track, overcorrected and then lurched the other way into a steep verge. The chap I had been running with (Doug) was suddenly quite concerned and saying something about gels, it didn’t really make much sense to me and I remember waving some shortbread at him before he told me quite sternly that I needed to take a gel right now! This cut through the fog and I found a gel in my pocket to consume. It tasted fabulous (this is a very worrying sign, energy gels taste repulsive!) and the fog cleared completely. My blood sugar levels had dropped badly and had Doug not been about to help me things could have gone bad quite fast. I took another couple of gels just to make sure I’d be ok and we started jogging again.
One of the excellent marshals near the top of Roseberry Topping
The last 5 miles were run in the dark but the route was well marked so we didn’t get lost. Annoyingly I somehow started to think about an Abba song and for the last 3 miles had to suffer Benny, Bjorn, Annafrid and Agnetha belting out Take a Chance on Me in my head for 30 mins, my head was definitely starting to go a bit. Finally at 8pm we jogged into Helmsley and staggered into the cricket ground (the finishing line) in a fraction over 11 hours (mercifully Abba shut up at this point). Of the 135 runners who started all but 10 finished, the winner completed the course in 8 and a half hours, incredibly not too far off the course record and he’d had to batter his way through the snow drifts first, making life easier for all of us that followed.
Its fair to say I was a total wreck at the end, I was absolutely delighted/gobsmacked by my time, I had thought that on a good day I might just have been able to squeeze under 12 hours but to get close to 11 was fantastic and it was really all down to the guys I ran with keeping me going. It took about an hour to warm up and recover my faculties – I think I may have been gibbering quite a lot - and I could drag myself to the car for the short drive to York where my mate Scott fed me, gave me some beer, listened to be gibbering on for a bit and put me up for the night.
Anyway, not on the list but definitely out of the comfort zone. I plan to get back on with the regular challenges and post some more updates soon. Particularly efforts to understand poetry a bit better…………
