Norfolk: Sunset Half Ultra race recap

I signed up for this race back in the heady optimistic days of October 2020, when races had started up again and we all hoped we'd seen the last of Covid.  Sadly it was not to be, and a slew of cancellations followed, but this race hung in there.  The organisers clearly put a lot of effort into making it Covid-safe, including a set of competitor notes that ran to FORTY EIGHT PAGES.  I've more patience than most people when it comes to this stuff and even I thought it was excessive... I reckon Giles must be an air traffic controller, or a bomb disposal expert, or a member of MI5 in his day job.  Such was his attention to detail!

I'd originally signed up for the marathon, but decided as the race approached that the ultra would be more fun, so I changed my entry to the 35 miler.

Ben and I decided to make a weekend of it, as a weekend by the seaside in Norfolk is a holiday (for most people).  We drove up on Friday and mooched around farm shops and had a lovely dinner.  The race didn't start until 1:30pm on Saturday because the idea is to race the sunset. In fact, it had a rolling start, but I figured the earlier I started, the earlier I'd finish, so we got there in plenty of time.  It was a gorgeous sunny day and we stopped for fish and chips in Wells on the way - always a good start!

Here I am at the start line in Blakeney:

A tracker was attached to my vest and runners were set off at 1 minute intervals.  There was no particular order, you just milled around looking keen until it was your turn.  As I waited to cross the line, I chatted with the organisers.  I expressed a fervent hope that there would not be any sand.  One of them said to me, "just try not to think about it", which weren't quite the words of reassurance I was looking for!

The race is meant to be coastal, but because of the tides, there was not much visible sea for huge chunks of the race.  It starts out very flat and winds through grassy marshland.  In places, the nettles and thistles were up to my thighs - initially I tried to avoid them but soon realised it was impossible.  It was much too warm to switch into leggings but my bare legs were getting a nasty rash.  I decided to deal with this by not looking at them for the remainder of the race.

 

After a kilometre or two, I caught up with the runner ahead of me.  His name was Martin and he knew the area, having done the half in the opposite direction before, and we chatted for a while.  I lost him a few times but always met up again after I'd accidentally gone the wrong way a few times and added on extra distance.  At Stiffkey, I ran past a car park where I'd arranged to meet Ben but there was no sign of him.  Hmm.  Oh well! I figured he would find me eventually via the tracker.

After not too long I arrived at Wells-next-the-Sea  There were suddenly a lot of people compared to being by myself in the countryside and I dodged through them.  

Just after the town was the checkpoint, which also doubled as the marathon start, so there were loads of people milling around and marshals shouting instructions.  It was a bit chaotic and Martin wasn't hanging around so I didn't either.  We headed off into the trees which provided the first bit of shade of the whole race and a bit of a change of scenery:

Shortly afterwards, it all started to get a bit sand dune-y.  Martin told me he was going to walk, and I said I would too (it's always wise in longer races to conserve energy for later when you might really need it).  Energy-sapping sand is never fun to run on so I was very happy to walk.

Almost as soon as we started walking, Ben appeared out of nowhere.  He'd only just made it in time to catch me!  He'd brought me a can of Coke which was amazing.  We walked together for a while over the dunes and he told me about his adventures.  He'd got chatting to the boyfriend of the girl who'd set off before me, and they'd gone to get a coffee and talk about cycling, as you do, and he thought he had loads of time but then realised too late that he didn't. I was doing fine though - I think I'd done about a half marathon by this point and I felt good except I wasn't eating enough.  It's always tricky when it's very warm - I just don't feel like eating, but I know I have to.

After Ben left and I caught up with Martin again, I promised myself I'd stop for an ice cream if I saw one because I could actually face that, and lo and behold at the next town there was one!  A man in the queue kindly let me go in front of him (he asked me loads of questions about the race - I don't think he could quite get his head around why anyone would do that)!  In any case, I got my ice cream and it was great:

 

After that, there was a path through a cornfield that reminds me of the money shot from Race To The Stones - although actually I think this was nicer (!)

 

There followed a very long, very flat, very boring section through longish grass with the sun beating down on me which I thought was never going to end.  I caught up with the guy in front and chatted to him for a while (about how our adult daughters reluctantly had to accept that their parents were pretty cool for running ultras), but I couldn't keep up with him for long and had to let him go. 

Around here was the second checkpoint, I stopped for a short break and to refill my bottles and eat a satsuma.  At the end of this bit was Brancaster Sailing Club, where I was meeting Ben again.  This time he was going to run with me for a bit, which I'd been looking forward to.  I'd planned it to be this section because I always start getting a bit fed up around the 28km mark - I'm starting to get tired but it still feels like a long way to go - and today was no exception.  Almost immediately after we started running there was a kilometer or so of boardwalk.  Somewhere along here, I slowed down to overtake an older couple.  I apologised and said, "I'm afraid there's quite a few more runners coming," as I passed them.  The lady turned to her husband and said, "How very inconvenient".  Haha!  Excuse us for wanting to use the trails too!

The boardwalk opened out into a farmyard where we met these wonderful ladies.  I  had been moaning to Ben about how I wanted a banana and then these two angels magically appeared with a box of bananas and a box of wondefully cooling melon - literally the best thing ever.  They also had a water bottle spray  to help cool me down.  I stopped to thank them properly and it transpired the woman in the foreground was meant to be running today but had a stress fracture and had to withdraw..  How utterly lovely of them both to come and support the race anyway.  Ben said that by the time he went past there on his way back, they had already disappeared.  Like a dream...

Just after this, the path turned off down what seemed a very unlikely path through deep undergrowth.  Luckily there was someone there pointing us in the right direction or I definitely would've missed the turning.   If I hadn't got stung earlier, I was definitely going to get stung now!  Nevertheless we pushed through until we came out onto a quiet road that meandered gently uphill - the only summit of the entire race.   Ben stayed with me until we reached the top, before turning back and retracing his steps back to the car.  I checked out his Strava later and he was significantly faster on the way back!

After Ben had turned back, the trail was suddenly quite spectacular.  Still not much in the way of sea, but plenty of marshland and ? seawater rivers.  It was still really hot so I was very glad I'd put on plenty of suncream.

This section was pretty quiet in terms of other path users - I guess it was quite far from any car parks? so I put my headphones on for the first time in the race.  I had an urge to listen to Paperback Writer which I did, singing along, and that led on to my Summer Road Trip playlist.  Singing and dancing ensued as I skipped along the trails, feeling that everything was right with the world.

Around here a walker called out to me: "what are you doing?" I stopped and explained it was a race, when I said where it started and finished she was incredulous.  She said, "Some of the people running along here have looked bloody awful but you look fine," in a slightly accusatory fashion, which amused me.  I explained I do this a lot, for fun.  She looked at me like I was batshit insane.  It was funny!

 

I ran round a corner and came across this glorious beach, so gorgeous and empty that I had to stop and take a proper photo.  It looked like Barbados (almost)...

A rare view of the sea - this lasted for about 1 minute before disappearing behind a sand dune...

The loud engine noise above alerted me to the presence of these paragliders - looks awesome fun, I'd love to learn how to do it.  Especially on the Norfolk coast on a day like today.  Must have been absolutely epic

After this, the path gave way to loose, dry sand, reminiscent of the dreaded Suffolk.  After my conversation at the start, I was sort of expecting this.  It wasn't fun.  I was forced to walk and my trainers slowly filled with dry, gritty particles.  There was a long sandy section between beach huts where the path wasn't very clear which was particularly grim.

I caught up with a guy who was really struggling, he'd run out of water and couldn't eat because his mouth was too dry.  Both my bottles were half full and I knew I was only about 5k from the checkpoint so I let him drink one of them and gave him some jelly tots.  He perked up a bit before I skipped off towards the sunset.  I'm pretty sure he finished.

Eventually I arrived at Hunstanton, and like Wells before it, was slightly taken aback to suddenly be surrounded by tourists.  The prom was busy, with a funfair.  Ben rang and was nearby so we hastily arranged to meet and he took this pic of me looking pretty badass.  I was beyond marathon distance by this point, feeling fine and easily on track to beat the sunset.

 

Ben and I had visited Heacham Beach yesterday so by the time I got there, I knew I didn't have far to go to the end.  It was pretty quiet around here.  In the distance I could see another ultra runner so I tried to catch him up.

After a while I caught up with him, his name was Nicola and he was having a hell of a day.  He explained that he had got very very lost and ended up on the mud flats, knee deep in water and having to scramble out - I would have been terrifed.  Look at all the mud on him!  He'd got lost a few times and done a lot of extra miles, he said he was ruined.   He didn't have a map.  I explained I'd been using my watch to find the way and he said he'd stick with me so he didn't get lost again. 

 

He was good company and we chatted about races as we headed inland once more before the finish. This last bit was really beautiful - the sun was just starting to go down and there were hundreds and hundreds of birds.  I kept stopping to take pictures because it was stunning.  There was one tricky turning near the end where Nicola would probably have got lost again because it wasn't at all obvious - though in fairness, the race organisers did make it very clear that this was a self-navigating race and provided a good GPX file.

Finally we could see the sea again.  It was 8:45pm by this time and the sunset was at 9:22pm and we were only about a kilometre away.  Nicola offered to let me run ahead and finish on my own but I said no - I've missed the social side of races and it's always nicer to share that moment of glory.  I've finished races with others many times - East Sussex,  Worcestershire, Northamptonshire, Shropshire, Rutland.  It's part of the joy if you ask me.

 

Here's the official pics from the race photographer as we approached the finish line:

This is the poster picture I reckon!

I absolutely love this one too.  The light, the way everyone is clapping, I can just see Ben in this picture, and even though I can't see it, I know he was smiling at me as I crossed the finish line.  It was a good moment.

After the race, I collected my cutesy wooden medal and buff and a much-needed bowl of soup and bread which they kindly provided to competitors.  

 

The bar was open so Ben got me a pint and had also brought me an ice lolly which I absolutely devoured.  We sat with Nicola, who I later realised was wearing a Hardmoors 110 finisher t-shirt and therefore is a much better runner than me, despite his efforts to hide it today!

 

I inspected the state of my legs - I couldn't be bothered to move to take a better pic than this - but you can definitely see the after effects of running through long grass and stinging nettles!

As we sat there, the sun did actually set, and suddenly I got very cold and shivery.  I had a jumper but was only wearing shorts.  Somebody reported I was shivering and the organisers whisked me indoors and got me a blanket - it was very sweet of them.  Ten minutes later I was feeling better and we headed off home.

Finally a request - if you are reading this and enjoy my reports, I am currently fundraising as part of Jog On June for Liverpool University Hospital Charity.  The link is on my Donate page (here) and I only need to raise another £40 to hit my target.  Any donations, however small, would be very much appreciated.  Thank you very much indeed to everyone who already has x

 

Addendum: a few days later when the results came out, it turns out I was 3rd female in a time of 7 hours, 17 minutes.  Not bad!

North Yorkshire: Hardmoors 30 ultra race recap

Ahhh, North Yorkshire.  It's been a long time coming.

I originally planned to do Hardmoors 55 as my North Yorkshire race, which I signed up for back in late 2019.  Sadly, after training all winter, the race was my first to be thwarted by Covid-19 in March 2020.   Here's what I wrote about that at the time.  Undeterred, I booked onto Hardmoors 30 on New Year's Day, deftly negotiating the NHS Christmas leave rota, only for it to be cancelled by Covid-19 as well.

As it turned out, the rescheduled 30 was my first race of 2021 that hasn't been cancelled.  However, it wasn't yet possible to stay in a hotel due to Covid-19 regulations, and self-catering accommodation in Whitby was well over £200 a night.  I turned to the Hardmoors community, asking for somewhere to stay the night before and was showered with offers, eventually going with the lovely Dave in Pickering who very kindly put me up in Covid-secure accommodation.  If you're thinking of a holiday in North Yorkshire - and you should, it's stunning - I can highly recommend his place (see Low Costa Mill website).  Massive thank you to Dave and his family, without whom I would've been sleeping in my car in Whitby Abbey car park and would have had a very different race experience.  Instead, I awoke in Pickering after 10 hours sleep, had breakfast and coffee and set off for Whitby at 7:30am.  The only stressful part was realising that despite downloading the GPX file, I had failed to put it onto my watch, so I was going to have to navigate manually.  Luckily I did have the course on my phone OS map app and a paper map as part of the mandatory kit.

I arrived with only 20 minutes to pay for parking, hand in my drop bag and go to the loo before my allotted start time of 8:36am.  Groups of six were called every 2 minutes and (wearing masks and sanitising hands) received their race number and pins before being set off.  The organisation was spot on - every detail had been carefully considered.

 

The race started more or less in the car park and then quickly looped around to the coast.  I knew the race largely followed the coastline and the weather was perfect for running. 

So far, so good as far as the route was concerned.  It wasn't really marked, but it was totally obvious as there was only one path (the Cleveland Way) and for the first 11k or so I could always see people ahead of me due to the open vistas.  Great for navigation, great for views - not so great when you need a wee.  I eventually found a partially secluded spot but managed to scrape my legs and ankles on the very scratchy gorse!

The pre-race email (actually there were a LOT of pre-race emails - if you enter a Hardmoors race be prepared to do a lot of careful reading!) suggested that road shoes would be better than trail as it had been dry for quite a while and the trails were all bone dry.  I don't think I would've considered running in road shoes otherwise and am very glad I did.  I barely saw a streak of mud the whole day.

 

I had decided beforehand to walk all the hills as it's been difficult to do much hill training due to Covid.  I came to a little hill with a sign saying "Camera ahead!" - why do photographers always sit on top of hills? - but insisted on walking it anyway to conserve energy.  I haven't run further than a marathon since Day Release last November... better safe than sorry.

As I got further up the hill, a lovely view of Robin Hood's Bay opened up so I took a photo.  Just as I did so, the photographer shouted, "Get running lass! Never mind taking photos!" which made me laugh.  Obligingly I ran towards him.  The photos were, as usual, hideous, so you can have the one I took of the bay instead:

 

Shortly after this, the race turns inland and onto a path called the Cinder Track, which was accurately named as it was dark and dusty.  I had to scrub it off my ankles later in the shower.

Around this time I phoned Ben, my lovely new boyfriend.  It was his birthday today, but it wasn't practical for him to come to North Yorkshire and I couldn't miss out on my first proper race in six months so we made do with chatting on the phone for an hour or so whilst I ran.   Time passed quickly and I passed a couple of checkpoints - the marshalls were very friendly and the Chia Charge bars were much appreciated.  I joked that they were flapjacks for people with dental problems.

Even the inland sections of this race often had views stretching out towards the sea.  It was really pretty and starting to warm up a little now.

Hardmoors are famous for a few things : being very friendly (the marshalls were without fail absolutely charming), the races always being longer than the advertised distance ("bonus miles") and the motivational signs along the way.  There were probably about a dozen of these, I only took photos of two.  The hill I'd just walked up was absolutely massive, haha.

The race wound onwards.  There weren't so many people around by now and I had to check the route a couple of times on my phone.  I felt fine though - this was my 7th marathon this year as I've been running them on my own to keep my mileage up.

The route turned back towards the sea at this point and I realised we must be coming up to the 17 mile checkpoint.  I knew this was called Cloughton Wyke (although I still don't have a clue how to pronounce it!) as this was where the drop bags were.  

This race doesn't usually have drop bags but because the race organisers were unable to stock the checkpoints with as much food as usual, they decided to allow them.  I haven't done many races with drop bags but I knew it was good to have some food in there that was different to everything else you were carrying so I'd added chocolate marzipan balls and Kendal mint cake.  I'd also put in a clean pair of socks as that can really help, however by the time I got there I couldn't be bothered to change them as I was keen to just crack on.  In truth, I needn't have bothered with a drop bag at all.  Anything left behind would be thrown away so I stuffed the contents into my already very full race vest.  Hardmoors races have an extensive mandatory kit list - I have no issue with this - and there was a spot check here.  One of the marshalls also complimented me on my rainbow shoelaces!

Here I am walking up a hill eating marzipan balls.  Note to self: chocolate-covered treats are best when not kept in direct sunlight for several hours.  Still nice though!

The rest of the race follows the coastline back to Whitby, so my worries about navigation were largely over.  Phew!  The coastline continued to look beautiful and was very very quiet - when I came to North Yorkshire before to recce for the Hardmoors 55 I was amazed at how much space there is and how few tourists there are - compared to the Lakes which are absolutely rammed.

It was still pretty undulating though.  I could see runners ahead of me again at this point - I would slowly gain on them on the flats and downhills and overtake, then they would pull ahead on the uphill, then repeat. 

Somewhere around this point, one of the people I'd been leapfrogging had stopped to check the route.  I got OS maps out to check and we got chatting.  Her name was Suzy and the reason she was so great on the hills was that she came from Durham - no shortage of hills near there!  Suzy was in with a chance of getting a prize as she was in the next age category up from me.  We soon established that she had started 8 minutes after me but we were running at a pretty similar pace and ended up running together for the next 10 miles.  Before the race I'd aimed to finish in 6 hours 30 minutes, so we pushed each other to try and manage that.

At some points the race came right down to sea level and then back up roughly hewn steps to the cliff.  Suzy was much better at this than me!

The time passed quickly.  We talked about where we worked (Suzy is a physio so a fellow allied health professional!), how we met our partners (I always enjoy finding out other peoples stories and Suzy's one was just lovely), other races we have run/have planned, our children, etc etc.  At one point we were interrupted by the screaming of birds and suddenly saw a whole wall of kittiwakes:

Zoomed in version - it was a pretty awesome sight and sound:

Suzy had only run a 30 miler once before but has a 60 miler coming up in the summer so we talked about strategies to manage it.  I pointed out that the end of a 30 feels totally different to the mid-point of a 60.  You never think at the end of a 30, "oh I could easily do that again" because you're expecting it to end.  So much of long-distance racing is about monitoring your mindset and not allowing yourself the luxury of expecting it to end until it is the end.

The GPX sent out by the race directors was 52km which is just over 32 miles, but the actual distance we ran was 54km, so just over 33 miles.  We kept going right to the very end - without Suzy I definitely would have started to slow down over the last couple of km as I was expecting it to have ended!  Due to the staggered start there was no way of knowing how well you'd done, as the people around you may have started before or after you did, but my watch said I'd finished in 6 hours 22 minutes which I was pretty pleased with.  Suzy finished in just slightly over 6 1/2 hours.  It was a week before the final results came out, in which Suzy missed out on a prize by 11 flipping seconds!  Ahhhh!!  She was much more magnanimous about it than I would've been though!  We got our medals and swapped numbers.  Here's my finish line pic with the Abbey in the background:

Here's the remains of the cinder track on my ankles and the graze from the gorse (which still hasn't fully healed a week later! - that stuff is vicious).

And here's Garmin's summary.  Plenty of ascent, plenty of calories burned (and plenty of marzipan eaten), all in all a pretty good day out.  Nice to be out on the trails, particularly lovely to have crossed off North Yorkshire after all this time, and just great to be racing again.