This year was the 10th edition of the Hardmoors 55. It was slightly modified this time and called the "Hardmoors 50" to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Cleveland Way, but as the normal distance is 54 miles and this year's was 52, the titles are a bit academic anyway. But this in no way detracts from the fact that from fairly modest beginnings this event has developed into a truly great race, one that every UK ultra-runner should sample at least once.
On paper it's a fairly modest 50 mile run, rather like but maybe slightly tougher than the well-known 53 mile Highland Fling, with similar height gain and (in theory) a good runnable track underfoot for most of the distance, and certainly not in the same league of difficulty as say the two "Snowdon" 50's or even the late season "Lakes in a Day". The big difference is that while the Fling is traditionally run in the last weekend in April, the Hardmoors normally comes in the middle of March, and those five or six weeks can make a significant difference to the challenge facing the runner setting out across the North York Moors section of the Cleveland Way, which is where this race is run. In my eight participations in the "Fling" I can't ever remember putting a jacket on, and many times didn't even bother to carry one, whereas in the Hardmoors, to quote Forrest Gump's mom, "You never know what you're goin' to get."
In the inaugural running in 2010, fifty-seven of us set off from a damp Helmsley Sports Club, to find the moors that day covered in a thick layer of mist and fairly continuous rain during the daylight hours. We experienced the moors but never actually saw them. A few dropped out, mainly because they had or were approaching hypothermia, but 42 of us eventually made it to Guisborough. No tracking in those days of course, just hardy marshals to make sure no short cuts were taken, spending hours in miserable conditions in their tents at the Wainstones, Bloworth Crossing, Roseberry, High Cliff Nab and others. The race was won by Stu Mills, a Kiwi resident in the south of England, in 8 hours 54 minutes. We all used to have great fun arguing with Stu over his ultra strategy - "Run as fast as you can for as far as you can, because you're going to slow down anyway" - but it worked for him not only here but in wins in the Lakeland 100 among others. I was a relative youngster of 61 then, but my time of 11:52 wasn't good enough for the MV60 prize, I was beaten by nine minutes by local expert Adrian Dixon, who came home with John Kynaston, another of the "class of 2010" still involved today. When I looked back over the results I found that of the 42 who finished in 2010, there were 5 of us who also finished the 2019 race. I don't think anyone has completed all 10 to date, but at least one person (Mark Dalton) has done 9, my apologies if there are others who I didn't spot.
We all said the weather couldn't possibly be as bad again, so we turned up again in 2011 for wall to wall sunshine and unseasonal spring heat. One major problem was that there were no intermediate water stations between Os and Kildale, so eaking out the supplies over this 20 mile section was hard. I finished in 11:21, half an hour better than the previous year but still not good enough to beat the 10:54 of Tony Wimbush who scooped the MV60 win. As a late starter I reached my ultra peak somewhere in my mid sixties and during this period I squeaked sub 10 hour finishes in both the Fling and the Lakeland 50, but never bettered my 11:21 at the Hardmoors; this maybe because it's run earlier in the year but may also be because it really is a somewhat tougher course.
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| Sunshine in 2010 |
2012 was again fairly benign weather. I achieved a similar time (11:23) managing this time to get my only MV60 win (there clearly wasn't any real opposition this year!), but the event was chiefly notable for the Race Director Jon Steele deciding that his organisation was now sufficiently bombproof to allow him to compete in his own race; he finished in the definitely not shabby time of 11:02, claiming first Shire in the process. This was the year Mark Dalton didn't run; something obviously happened to him or me during the process because up until then I had managed to come in ahead of him each year - and this never happened again!
2013 was the first year the race was run in the opposite direction. It was also during a period when the country was in the grip of a severe cold and snowy spell, with bitter gale force winds from the east. Events were being cancelled all over the country. Jon held his ground, and those of us that made it to Helmsley had an interesting day out.
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| Kildale to Bloworth in 2013 (photo by Phil Owen) |
The period from 2014 to 2017 was not great for me, I had a series of injuries, surgeries, and bits of recovery time. I came back only once in this period, in 2015. It was an east to west race and I don't remember much about it, the weather was unexceptional and I finished in 12:12. But then in 2017 I had another bad knee injury from which I have never really recovered. That and the advancing years have meant that these days events like the Hardmoors 55 are now more of a challenge just to finish, rather than a nice day out with the outcome never in doubt. To call me a runner these days would be generous to a fault. But as I have declined, conversely the race has continued to grow in size, strength and status every year. It's always on my calendar and I'll keep coming back as long as I can.
I was back in 2018 for an event now inextricably linked with the "Beast from the East". In reality however, despite all the media hype that surrounded it, conditions were no more demanding (and probably less so, though comparing subjective memories several years apart is an uncertain business) than in 2013 and 2010. The race was west to east, windy and snowy, and quite late on was stopped on the advice of Cleveland Mountain Rescue, with no runners allowed to leave Kildale after around 8.30pm. I was lucky enough to have left just before this happened and finished in 14:38.
And so to this year, my seventh trip along the course. It was shortened by a couple of miles as I said at the start, but Jon balanced this by adding on a few hundred feet of extra climb by a double ascent of Roseberry Topping. I guess most people assumed that the effort required to complete the course would be about the same. In light of my last year's performance, and sadly not getting any younger, I planned to take about 15 of the 16 hours allowed to complete the course. This gave me an average pace in minutes per mile that I needed to achieve, and I made staying just ahead of this my way of managing my race.
As in 2010, we were going to get a wet day sandwiched by two quite pleasant ones, but by now this sort of thing seems to whet the appetite of the Hardmoors community rather than dampen enthusiasm. We were also going to get some gale force winds. On the plus side temperatures were not especially low and the forecast was for the weather to improve from late afternoon onwards, a factor of no interest to the front runners but somewhat cheering to those of us nearer the back of the pack.
So a well-waterproofed group of 435 runners (nearly eight times the field of 2010) set off from Guisborough slightly after eight o'clock. I started off walking up the road but showed willing by breaking into a slow jog along with everyone else around me after a couple of hundred yards. I needn't have bothered as we soon came to the first stile. Do the math, as the Americans say, if each runner takes 3 seconds to cross a stile then 435 runners will take 1300 seconds which is just over 20 minutes and, well you get the picture. I wasn't too bothered, I wasn't in a hurry, though if I'd known how important those twenty minutes would be later in the game perhaps I should have been. A shorter wait for the second stile - the field had been suitably attenuated by now - and we were free. A short wet jog through the woods led to the first obstacle, the infamous Tees Link. This steep and almost always muddy path normally features at the start of the Hardmoors 60 but not the 55, but due to our "shortened" route today we were afforded this treat. I was glad I'd brought my poles along, those without weren't having a great time after 300-odd runners had churned up the surface in the heavy rain.
Up to Highcliff Nab out of the trees and onto the moor and we had our first taste of the wind. It was not quite blowing you off your feet strength, but fierce enough for a certain amount of balance moves to be required fairly regularly, and to make progress when facing directly into it hard work, and it would stay like that for most of us all the way to the White Horse about 42 miles further on.
It was quite impressive to see the continuous stream of runners going up and down Roseberry Topping. I felt slightly impatient not being able to move at my own pace because of the crowds, but looking at everyone's splits afterwards there was really not much time to be lost or gained here, and I was soon on the faster ground over Cook's monument and down to the first real checkpoint at Kildale. I probably stayed longer than I should here with a change of vest, a few things to eat and a couple of cups of coffee, but on a day like it was you felt a bit of fortification was time well spent before tackling the next section.
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| Wet approach to Kildale |
After the long hill out of Kildale up to the start of the moor I expected to jog quite a lot of the section over to Clay Bank - it's a good track underfoot and any uphills are very gentle - but the wind made it such hard work that I ended up walking most of it. Even the change of direction at Blowarth Crossing didn't seem to make a lot of difference. Only when the track started to descend more obviously after the Round Hill highpoint was I able to put on a bit more speed. I wasn't too bothered though, the average pace on my watch was still showing between 18 and 19 minute miles, which I knew was good enough.
I was warm going into Clay Bank and I didn't want to get cold by hanging around so I pushed straight through without stopping. Having the two intermediate water stops at Clay Bank and Scugdale makes this long central section a lot easier these days and I knew I had enough supplies to reach the latter.
Over the three sisters, I think for me the most enjoyable part of the course even in a day of wind and rain, I ran into Sarah Fuller who I had met once or twice but never really talked to. She told me about her plans for the Dragon's Back in May; I was interested because although it's an event that's beyond me now, it's a great course which I have been reccying with John Kyaston over the past year - John is also entered for this year's Dragon-slaying. I was going slightly faster than Sarah on the ups but she was really leaving me on the downs so we kept meeting and parting. Eventually after some food and water around Lord's Cafe I pushed on and opened up a gap going up Carlton Bank; I expected her to come cruising past down the other side but she never did and I didn't see her again. She can't have been far away though as we finished within a couple of minutes of each other. After the continual battering it was good to get down to slightly lower levels from Scugdale to Osmotherley - you could probably describe it as merely "rainy and windy" rather than "torrential and gale force".
I was looking forward to a bit of R and R at the indoor Osmotherley checkpoint; it had taken me just about six hours from Kildale and I would welcome a bit of respite from the conditions. I wasn't sure what the cut-off at the checkpoint was but I assumed I was OK as my overall pace was still getting me home in just over 15 hours. On reflection, I stayed too long here again, but I didn't really know what was to follow. I changed my top again and found some fresh dry gloves and socks (at the start carrying extra kit seems a bit excessive but I know if I'm going to be out a while in these conditions that I will be glad that I brought it along eventually). I also had plenty to eat including some freshly-heated pizza, lots of biscuits and a couple of hot drinks.
Leaving Os I guessed I had an hour or so of daylight left in the conditions which should get me beyond the Square Corner, which it did. I finally stopped to dig out my torch right at the top of the hill where the track levels out at the top of the moor. Two guys both called Peter caught me while I was faffing and we carried on together. The four or five miles or so from here to Paradise Farm was another section I had expected to jog, but now we were up high again the wind was still debilitating so we walked or shuffled most of it. It was good to lose a bit of height and get into the woods for a short while before the checkpoint at Sneck Yate.
I lost the Peters coming out of the CP because we were all doing different bits of admin, but caught them up again a bit further on. The rain was finally stopping but the slippery mud on the few grassy fields leaving the CP should have been a bit of a warning. We were also walking/jogging with a lady called Mandy at this point and the four of us pressed on together to the road crossing at the top of Sutton Bank. Runners were streaming past in the opposite direction on the out and back to the White Horse, reinforcing what a big field there was out today. In the early years of the HM55 it would be unlikely to see anyone else over the last five or ten miles. The track down to the White Horse checkpoint was muddy and slippery, and this was another place where I would have liked to push on a bit faster but it wasn't really possible to overtake in the conditions so you just had to relax and go with the flow.
A final top up with water and a handful of biscuits and we were off on the last leg. . Again I wasn't sure what the cut-off at the White Horse was, or even if there was one, but we were there just on 13 hours from the start. I knew I had done from here to the end in previous events in a range of times from 90 minutes to just over two hours; in the direction we were going it's a gentle downhill pretty well all the way so a final time somewhere around the 15 hours still looked OK. We seemed to have lost one Peter and Mandy over the last mile or so, so Peter Hatch and I set off up the steps. These can pray on your mind a bit but realistically it's not a very big climb and it was soon done. We caught our breath along the well-made level path along the cliff edge and looked forward to the final easy run-in.
The first couple of hundred yards along a level, grassy path through the trees from the turn-off back to the Sutton Bank road set the scene. A few inches deep in mud, nicely churned up by at least a couple of hundred runners ahead of us made it hard enough to stand upright, let alone make progress. Instead of an easy jog it was a slow walk. Apart from a mile or so of road past Riveau, the rest of the course through to the finish was much the same, a fairly slow controlled slide. Well, if you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined I suppose. But it became clear by the road section that although we were travelling a lot slower than we had hoped, the time would still be OK, and we eventually made our way through the Helmsley Sports Club doors with just under twenty minutes to spare.
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| At the finish with Peter Hatch (photo from Peter Hatch) |
I finished in 15:42, my slowest time over the course by a country mile. I was 241st out of 435 starters so I guess many others were spending longer than they expected on the course too, so no complaints. As always the Hardmoors 55 had delivered another cracking day out. Keep it going, Jon and Shirley, it's now an undisputed classic!
PS: After the 30 and 55(50) this year, I'm hoping to drag my bones along the 110 in a couple of months time, on the way to my first (hopeful) Grand Slam. I won't complain if the weather is a bit more "clement" by then.
