55 miles and 7000' ascent in the North Yorkshire Moors, raising funds for Camphill Village Trust
After recognising the faces of so many people checking in for the Dalesman 100 (Strider 75, p53), I suggested to Ann that we ought to try a longer event. She had done the Cleveland Classic a few years ago, as practically her first event, so it couldnt be that bad (or so I thought). We often have to get up at 5.30am to drive to events and I somehow equated an extra-long-distance event with an extra-long drive. But Ann refuted this strange logic and insisted it was less than an hour’s drive away – which, to my amazement, turned out to be true. Of course, all the same faces were there – they must do an event every week for us to keep seeing them when we randomly choose a new event to do.
It began by raining but, fortunately, it cleared up after an hour and kept warm and dry for the rest of the day. The first 30 miles or so seemed to go quite well, though several people didnt seem to understand why we kept stopping to look at the map. "This way" they would cheerfully shout. "That may well be so", I thought, but Im not going to blindly follow you all over the moors because getting lost is so depressing.
Perhaps that was why we seemed to slow down suddenly after 30 miles. We took a wrong turning (and, yes, several people followed us!) and we didnt realise our mistake for about half a mile. Then we just got slower, and slower. I think we were a bit dehydrated because I downed two pints of tea at one checkpoint, and Ann was feeling rather ill. At Church Houses we broke into our "pep" rations. When you get tired of cakes its good to have something savoury – in my case it was a small bag of olives and some salted cashew nuts. We struggled on, with blisters beginning to complain and eventually made it to Botton Village where, as Ann had said there would be, there were marvellous, wonderful cakes and pints of coffee.
It was dark when we left Botton, so we plodded on, trying not to step in any rabbit holes. (I’ll get into trouble with some readers for saying this, but it was noticeable, by now, that walkers were overtaking us – we had moved well down the field.).
After creeping through a field of snuffling patches of darkness which I presumed were cows, there was flashing orange light. "That better not be just a hole in the road" I said to Ann, but it turned out to be the checkpoint – very thoughtful of them! Looking back there were a string of dim lights bobbing down the hillside. At the next checkpoint Ann’s queasiness got the better of her, and she was sick. More walkers passed us, and I think Bernie Pearson took pity on us, advising us to go along the road for the next bit. After a long weary trudge we approached the next checkpoint – a flashing orange light. Except that this did turn out to be a hole in the road, and the checkpoint was some half a mile further.
To cut a long story short, it was midnight, and we had ten miles still to do, and Ann was feeling very ill, so we gave up. I was glad to give up too, I have to admit, as I had some monster blisters. Back at the finish I tucked into a meal whilst Ann retched in the car park. Then we kipped in the car till it got light and drove off just as the last walkers were arriving back. Next year, I’ll do the whole route. Im sure its a lot easier when you know the route and have some experience of pacing yourself. I have equal admiration for the runner who completed it in just under nine hours and the last walkers who took over 22 hours, but I judge these events by how long it takes my legs to recover enough for me to walk downstairs properly. This has been five days on occasions; this time it was one day. Perhaps this bodes well for next year?