Update about August Challenge - Great Yorkshire River Run

The previously unnamed multi-day run through Yorkshire now has a name, a provisional route and some other detail. Most importantly of all I have done some good training for it!

With the name Great Yorkshire River run I'm not trying to infer the greatness of the challenge - I mean it will be for me, but for some hardcore people it might be quite easy, afterall some people run across deserts and walk/run/cycle across continents or around the world. The river I'm talking about is the Humber estuary and for the purposes of this challenge two of its tributaries the Rivers Ouse and Ure. And it is a great river; a major boundary in past times seperating the kingdom of Northumbria from southern kingdoms (only becoming slightly less of a boundary with the advent of what was once the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world). I've also heard say it drains an impressive 20% of the total land area in England.

The River Ure near its source

But every huge river starts from a small gurgle of water somewhere, usually in several/many places. This challenge is based on the idea of following this Great English waterway from (a) source to the sea. I've chosen the source of the River Ure, predominantly because it seemed like an interesting route to follow (a must for such a long run). But I could have equally chosen several interesting routes, such as the River's Swale or Wharf. 

The River Ure source is high in the Yorkshire Dales and is called Ure Head. My challenge will roughly follow the river from here along it's course east through Wensleydale, then south through it becoming the river Ouse near York to join the Humber. It's roughly east again along the north bank of the Estuary following through Hull as far as I believe is possible to the end of the headland of Spurn Point. In numbers:

• More than 185 miles
• 5 days of running (I'll be stopping overnight on-route)
• Three days of near to or greater than 50 miles

The Humber Bridge

I don't plan on being anally-retentive about sticking as close to the river as possible and a good part in the interest of the route will be deviating off to explore landmarks and places of interest along the way. This will also be a journey of personal significance as this waterway passes close to the tiny village and area my mother was brought up in. To visit this area as part of a challenge, which will also pass my childhood home in Swanland, is tribute I wanted to pay having lost my mother to cancer in 2013. This challenge is raising money for charity in her memory.

The schedule

Day 1 - Travel to the B&B I'll be staying at in Garsdale west of Hawes to arrive mid afternoon. once checked in I'll set out and and run north up the hills (pathless in places by look of map) to seek out the River Ure's source, then follow it back to where it passes near B&B. Have tea, drink, bed. ~8m done as a bit of a warm-up.
Day 2 - Follow river to east the length of Wensleydale, then take south turn, staying in Ripon area overnight. ~54m.
Day 3 - Follow river roughly south through it becoming the Ouse, through York and stop overnight in Selby. ~46m).
Day 4 - Follow river to when it joins Humber and follow East. Finishing the day in Hull (so I can sleep at home that night). ~45m.
Day 5 - Short last day. Hull to Spurn point - ~35m (So about 187m+ total).

Training so far

With 6 challenges down I've been keeping a good mileage up all year which helps. But these challenges have been single day and in the range of 27 to 85 miles. Even with some of these being on tough terrain a multi-dayer with some days close to or over 50 miles is a 'step up' so my training has changed slightly. Within the constraints of maintaining as healthy as possible a family, work, training balance I've started running 6 days most weeks, to get in a few more miles and get used to often running on tired legs. Though many days are quite short (e.g. commute runs with pack), this does include at least one tougher effort run per week and a long run each weekend.

This peaked the Sunday/Monday just passed when I ran 18m and 30m respectively to see how well I could run the second run on tired legs. This is certainly not in the same region as back-to-back-to-back days of over 45m - available time wouldn't more. So I made these more difficult by running faster at over 6mph and 5mph respectively, during the challenge I'll be happy to run/walk around at 3.5 to 4mph daily. The good news from these runs is that I felt quite fresh on the second day at the start and only really suffered a bit at the pace and in the heat beyond 20m. So far so good...

Links:

• Route Breakdown (work in progress)
• Route map (red line to Hull, blue line therafter - the web-based software I used to map route started throwing errors after a certain distance/file size, so I had to generate map from two files and it shows as different colour lines)

May Challenge: The Centenary Way - 83 miles: part 2

Cows

Passing through Birdsall, which is less a village and more a large farmyard for a country estate with quite a grand church, approaching 40m I make two small navigational errors, adding perhaps a few hundred yards back-tracking and this gives me a keenness to make good progress. So into a very wet field I try to push hard over soft ground and mud. Then through a succession of fields I have to take a line along the lower edge of fields through very soft often tussocky ground, which is very hard work on the legs. Why.... well cows in these fields are showing too much interest on the higher ground at the other side of the fields, following me at a distance, making aggressive movements and noises. It all sounds quite ridiculous now, but was quite worrying at the time.

I'm glad to get into North Grimston away from wet fields and cows for the minute. 9hrs 33mins run / 5:04am. I text Clare my progress, "over 42m done, all ok here xx" and I'm onwards across more fields to and through Settrington. After my efforts descending to Birdsall and through the fields I'm in need of a boost as I follow field-edge tracks and emerge onto a road outside Norton. I run and walk into the town hoping I can find somewhere in Malton/Norton that I can buy some food or drink for a more substantial feed after surviving so far on flapjack, biscuits, chocolate, energy bars and sandwiches. I'm in luck - there's a One Stop open from 6am. I figured I might be an unusual sight walking in covered in mud and sweat with a backpack at such an early hour, but nobody passes comment.

I feel that little bit happier walking into town drinking a capri sun and eating a cheese and ham slice. I have half of both and stash the rest for later. Malton is just waking up as I pass through the middle of town, some people walking dogs, going to work. I'm moving slow, digesting food and trying to track the route through the town, eventually joining a grassy path along the River Derwent, heading out of town south-west. I'm past half way and can soon look forward to some company.

Company

Ruins of Kirkham priory

 Although there are no food checkpoints as in organised challenge events I can't claim this was a fully unsupported venture. As my good friend Mark Dalton would be joining me not long from now, off the back of a night shift too, so we could share in running through sleep deprivation. In fact Mark would also be working this evening so would only have a small window to get some rest today. But he didn't mind as it was all good sleep deprivation training for the upcoming, inaugural, Hardmoors 160 that he would be running in - and I thought 83m was tough!

But I couldn't wish away the miles between Malton and Kirkham Priory where I'd be meeting Mark at 8.15am. Though, with hindsight, if I could wish away a chunk of mileage this would be it! The rain returned for an hour or so and these miles along the riverbank were on wet, muddy, almost flooded grass paths at times. and the foliage was well grown in places too and soaking me as I whipped past. These were slow miles, but I could afford to do a slow run/walk and still arrived down the Hill into Kirkham (53.5m) on time to meet Mark driving into the village. After he parked up he offered me some water to top up on and some donuts from his work, fresh(-ly defrosted) this morning, still tasted good.

We crossed the Derwent and walked through the riverbank woods before climbing up to Crambeck and crossing the A64 (where cars seemed to be driving past all at 100mph). It was nice to walk, run and have a chat rather than just listen to what was in my head for awhile. The sun even came out for awhile around about the time we started to round the Castle Howard estate, which was an unexpected bonus.

Howardian Hills

We were now in the midst of the Howardian Hills 'Area of outstanding natural beauty' so we started to pick up a few hills again climbing in the woods north of Coneysthorpe. Heading just north of east we picked up a succession of woods along ridge with views to our left of the North York Moors and White Horse at Kilburn. With the trees trapping warmed air and lots of water and mud on the ground it started to feel a bit sticky in the woods.

More ruins at Sheriff Hutton, maybe they thought the same of me?

After a few miles we dropped out back on to farm land at Hollin Hill, and through a grassy valley before climbing to and through Terrington. A long lane followed to Mowthorpe on this undulating stretch of the route, before a trudge uphill to High Stiffenham (70m). About this time is started to feel quite sleepy and lethargic so took onboard a caffiene gel and water to wake me up. This may explain why on the way down we missed a path through a field as I lazed in navigation. This meant go around the large field, or through it. I figured I'd tackled some pretty sodden terrain already this day so we may as well go through the thigh high crops, giving us a good soaking after drying up in the last few hours.

More was to come, on the way into Sheriff Hutton the variable weather of our journey added another factor, a cooling of the air and a sudden blast of hail and sleet. We decided this was enough to don waterproof top and bottoms and I rapidly cooled as I struggled to unzip a crystalised zip on a leg of my montrail overtrousers. The hail only lasted about as long as my efforts to get the trousers on - but after this I kept them on throughout the rest of the journey. Partly becacuse of the unpredictable weather, partly as I knew getting them off again would be hard work.

I stopped to take a few pictures of the castle in Sheriff Hutton, before we pushed on along long gravel lanes and tracks southwards. After a slowing for a few miles in the undulations of the Howardian Hills, we were now running more again, although now I could only run for 5-10 minutes before needing a walk break. Mark drove me on well on this section of long field edge tracks, running for longer at a time than I might have asked myself to had I been alone.

Snow in York ?!

The Foss walk

Just before Strensall we joined the River Foss, along the banks of which the majority of the rest of the journey would follow. This varied from 'improved' paths, to semi-solid paths, to wet and grown-up foliage. And as with most paths improved around urban areas. The minor-frustration during this section, whilst tired, was the large meandering curves of the river we had to follow. By now I just wanted to bash-on as straight as possible. 

Through Haxby and Huntington the green areas gave way to suburbs and then light industrial units as we hit the edge of York. The sun came out near to the end and I decided to risk changing out of my 20 hour worn and stinking running base-layer top into a nice airy t-shirt. Although the waterproof over-trousers stayed on. I must have made quite a fashion statement to those we passed from now on.

Our game of "spot the Minster" didn't deliver till surprisingly close to our destination. Once in York we had to find our way to the finish as my garmin battery had finally given way a few miles back, OS maps are difficult to follow in town and the Centenary Way signs again seemed to disappear, or we'd strayed off route. Luckily Mark was pretty astute on his York navigation and was able to guide us in as well as Clare to a car park (via me text messaging). 

There was still time for the weather to change once more and the rain came back within a mile of our destination prompting the jacket back out of the bag. we also came across the quite bizarre sight of snow on a path! I kid you not, I thought I was hallucinating at first, but it was very real and I pictured to prove it.

Leaving the Foss near Foss Islands we battled through Saturday afternoon York crowds along the famous York narrow, cobbled shopped lanes and arrived at the giant York landmark. 

With my garmin battery having ran out of juice in in the Huntington area and me not accurately remembering finishing time my estimate time/distance for completing this - probably accurate to a few minutes and tenths of a mile - was 21 hours and 85.4 miles. And although not a challenging hill route for the most part about 6150ft of ascent and descent.

Me at the Minster, probably
needing to lean on that post

Mark my run-companion, pace-setter, navigator
and sanity-keeper for the last 30 miles

'Normal' people and the Minster

All that now remained was for us to take some pictures and head back to Foss Islands where Clare and Isaac met us - afterall,what hardship is another half mile on such a day? After a quick catch up Mark and I ventured into Morrisons to grab food and drink. I'd been running low the last few hours so was glad of a 500ml bottle of fizzy drink and a couple of steak pies! Not ideal post-run food, but will do for now.

How not to implement your recovery strategy!

We then all crammed in Clare's car and gave Mark a lift back to his car. Clare and I stopped on the way back for fish and chips, which we took to our hotel. We were in the third floor of the hotel I booked, which wasn't ideal for my tired legs, but meant a nice big family suite with a separate room Isaac could sleep in so we could put him to bed before we went. 

A nice idea in theory.... in reality after what turned out to be disappointin fish and chips I was cold and got in the bath. As I struggled to keep awake Clare battled to set an over-excited Isaac down. I think I spent an hour-and-a-half in that bath in a pattern of fall asleep, wake-up, run more hot water to get washed, fall asleep again, repeat till wrinkly. 

I eventually crawled out of the bath, feeling quite nauseous and decided this might be a good time (or bad time) to have my post-run bottle of 'for goodness shake'. The vitamins and nuitrients in this must have been what I needed after the fried and baked food of the last few hours. And I was able to settle down to sleep.

In the morning I was able to patch up my feet, which weren't as battered as feared and stiffly get up and down the strairs to deliver bags back to car and enjoy a nice hotel breakfast or cereals, toast and full english.

The day was spent doing the normal weekend things, shopping in York at Clifton moor, me struggling to keep up with a toddler :) In many ways after a day spent doing the out-of-the-ordinary it was nice to get back to doing what would be considered by most as more the ordinary. But more than that it was a source of happiness, pride and some relief that I'd achieved what I set out to do. I often do long runs and races, but this was significantly longer than most challenges I'd taken on in the past year. I could now look forward to a holiday and then some peak bagging in just over a months time.

June, July and August Challenges

Although I'm only halfway through my report on May's challenge I couldn't resist a quick post to say I took on my June Challenge - the 10 Peaks - the Lakes (short course) - at the weekend. Despite being the shortest of the courses - 30m+, others were roughly 45 and 62 I believe - it was really tough due to over 10000ft of Ascent AND Descent on route. I'll let you know how I did in a report soon.

I also couldn't resist spilling a few beans on my August Challenge, which is to be a multi-day run through some fine areas of North and East Yorkshire (stopping overnight). It's still early in the planning, but will be a unique (as far as I know), and exciting journey between two remote points in the "Gods Own" county, linked by a very important waterway.... that's as much as I'm giving away for now :)

As one of my own route challenges I'll be responsible for carrying all my own gear on route for - days and nights, hot or cold, wet or dry - and carrying or seeking out all of my own food/drink, to keep me going on a challenge that will burn epic numbers of calories. As such my challenge for July will be two back-to-back long runs in two days to test my preparation.

A memory from my June Challenge. Where's this?

May Challenge: The Centenary Way - 83 miles: part 1

My task today, follow these signs -
if they are there to be followed

The Yorkshire Wolds aren't exactly the Wild West or the Sahara desert, but covering them at night, on your own, as part of a non-stop attempt at the Centenary Way (CW) adds enough challenge to make it one of the toughest ventures I've taken on. Statistically its not a tough 83 miles, no mountains or huge climbs, no areas particularly exposed to harsh weather, but the distance is challenge in itself and can make even minor difficulties seem a lot more challenging as the miles clock-up.

Friday Evening - the off

Mood lighting above Filey at the start of my run

Clare had agreed to give me a lift up to Filey and see me off on Friday 9th May and we arrived just after 7pm on a sunny and moderately temperatured evening. Clare thinks I'm mad, but know's what this means to me and her support at the start really means a lot. As does being able to see my boy Isaac before I set off. After an afternoon off work to pack my gear and get ready and a large pizza lunch I'm in a quite relaxed mode, somewhere between too worked up/stressed and too laid back, which is ideal at the start of something like this. Stress can rob you of needed energy, being too worked up can cause you to set off too hard and being too laid back means your maybe not taking it seriously enough and may give up when the early signs of difficulty occur.

The first minor inconvenience is that I don't know exactly where this long distance footpath starts. I know it shares a start/end-point of Filey Brigg with the Wolds way and the Cleveland Way. But I expected a sign to say the route starts here as per the aforementioned two, more established, LDPs (Long Distance Paths). So after some wandering around the end of the Brigg fruitlessly I decide I'm at the grid ref of the start and that will do, so after a few final pictures I set off at 7:36pm. It's a sunny evening, a bit blowy on the clifftops above Filey, but a comfortable 14c.

What do you mean you've got no food?!

The first steps are quite literally steps after following the grass path south along the clifftop I dip in and out of a ravine and then drop down to Filey and jog along the prom. Down here its soon apparent that I'm dressed too warm at the moment. Away from the clifftop winds the windjacket comes off and I'm able to move on comfortably in Devold base layer, Ronhill DXB tracksters, sturdy Drymax socks and Inov8 trail shoes.

I'm quickly getting an idea I'm not going to be treated to the constant waymarking of the Cleveland and Wolds way's as I pass through Filey without any sign of a sign. Part way up Martins ravine the map and GPS trace I have on my garmin suggest a left turn, up the bank and I'm out of town. I follow the path, then road - stopping briefly to photograph some donkeys, who get grumpy when they realised I'm not going to feed them - and emerge onto the A1039 where I see my first Centenary Way (CW) sign. 

I follow the road south till the roundabout where I cross and take the path across fields to Hunmanby. There's a slight uphill into Hunmanby and I take a right turn at the pretty village centre. I then follow the road east for a short time before heading out onto a farm track and out onto the Wolds. Before Hunmanby Grange I take a right and dip into Stocking dale and then follow this north till turning into branching Camp Dale. 

After a climb to run along near the top of the dale I see a great red sky sunset, which I try to photograph. All of a sudden I'm conscious my back seems wet. I remove my back pack to check the bladder for leaks. Nothing apparent, or if there is its only a small leak, maybe I'm just sweating a lot. It's near dark as I turn west through dipping in and out of this dale and then following Raven Dale eastwards.

The Night

I'm now heading roughly eastward, dipping in and out of dales for a few miles before I take the descent to join the track past Staxton Wold RAF base. I'm reminded of the dangers of lone running at night as the drop to the track is steep and the track greasy. i build up speed and then kick a tree route and briefly look like falling over forward down the bank, but I correct in time for nothing worse than a slight tear to the arm of my windjacket from low hanging foliage.

The sun sets over Camp Dale

Passing the RAF base I feel almost like I'm in company for the first time in several hours, I've not seen a soul since Hunmanby. It's strikes me as funny how I crave company when on this singular endeavor, yet I'm usually more than happy enough in my own company for long periods when company can be found nearby. Heading away from the base I cross the B1249 and then undulate gradually down the northern embankment of the Wolds passing through Ganton - the first of many tiny villages I'll see on route tonight.

Leaving Ganton its flat track through Potter Brompton - with a name like that have I left the mortal plain and run into a childrens story? A little after this village I head back up the embankment and then undulate on a roughly eastward bearing through woods and fields and then some road near Sherburn. I get back atop the embankment soon after and continue east on often wet field-edge grassy tracks past a few isolated farms.

RAF Staxton Wold lighting the skies - One of my
few brushes with civilisation all evening

At this time I make my first slight navigational error as I hit a t-junction in a small wood and blindly take the left option. I soon realise I'm heading at 90-degrees from marked route, but I'm on a good track and the map says I can soon turn to parallel my true route again and rejoin soon after. I pass a campsite where there are still people up and about having a midnight chill-out by moody floor-level lighting on the site. This strikes me as appealing and reminds me of camping before and after runs in areas I down't know well, chilling with a beer and friends. 

But this isn't enough to distract me for long and I'm consulting map and GPS to find the tracks to rejoining the CW. I make good pace on a track likely better than the actual route and don't add much distance. Upon rejoining the planned route I leave the eastward bearing for about a mile to head south through Deep Dale plantation. A brief steep and carefully trod descent brings me out near Wintringham.

I'm feeling the miles a bit now, but still maintaining a good pace somewhere between 4.5-5mph through the night and nearly 24m done in a little under 5 hours. It's nice to pass Wintringham because I know from the travelling this ground on the Wolds way 3 years previously - which has been paralleling the CW route for nearly the last 20m now - that this is a move away from the northern embankment of the Wolds for awhile and a sign of progress.

I edge the village and its uphill through field, on track and then steeply through field again to climb to higher Wolds ground through a plantation to Settrington Beacon (199 metres / 653 foot). The up and down hills are set to become more difficult for the next few miles, but my early progress is good, backed up by on the hour watering and feeds on: sandwiches, chocolate, flapjack, energy bars, fruit, nuts/seeds (for more detail see my previous post, I carried on the day much of what I said I would on that post). I also alternated this feed with a few mouthfuls of Chia Charge drink on the half hour.

'Selfie'  while running at night

From Settrington beacon I hoped for a fast few downhill miles to Wharram le Street, but it wasn't quite that simple. A wide, sometimes wet track took me downhill via a plantation and then an s-bend through Wood House Farm. Then the rout took me down a steeper grassy bank where it was hard to discern a path, before a beck crossing and back up a similarly un-pathed bank. Back on a track there's a climb back up to 557 foot, before dropping again and joing the road through Wharram le Street. As I run along the B1248-side path a few cars past at ludicrously fast speed making me think perhaps my whole sensory process has slowed down after a few hours of nightime running and being up well after I should be sleeping. And also remind me I'm not alone.

I turn off down the station road and follow the road down into the cut of an old railway line. I follow this muddy/wet track close to Wharram Percy. But then unlike the Wolds way and the recent Woldman event the Centenary way takes me up the hill back to the car park for the heritage site and then down the road back up to over 670ft before a westward turn to rejoin those Wold routes and track Deep Dale from above - one of a few similarly named dales in the Wolds - keeping at roughly the same height along a grassy track.

I then diverge from the Wolds Way again to follow a wriggling track south towards Thixendale. About now the cool air moves in, the drizzle follows and the jacket comes back on. Robbed of many of the visual queues of daylight and without other distractions I was surprised how a suppressed instinct kicked in and I could feel in the air the imminent arrival of rain and imminent acceleration of its fall.

I'd slowed a bit as I got down to the village, at around 35m / 7hrs30 run / 3:30am I reminded myself I shouldn't be too concerned and that this was just a lull in spirits brought on by the cold, rain and a few miles of hillier going and wetter underfoot to slow me down. Tougher was to come up the hill before light though as I left Thixendale and the rain kicked in heavy for the first time on my run. Despite a slow section - as the Centenary Way again followed the Wolds Way - I had to stop and change from jacket to waterproof as quick as possible as the air and rain cooled me rapidly.

The hillier miles continued a little longer, off Cow Wold through Vessey Pasture dale, back to the west end of the Deep Dale I'd tracked an hour or so previously. Here I turned West then North and I left the Wolds Way for the rest of my run, which qualified to me as another section of progress, almost a metaphorical halfway point (if not quite the physical one just yet).

During my descent off the grassy hill from Birdsall Brow the rain started to ease and would soon stop. I had a bit of energy return as the new day dawned and was lookimng forward to some fast and flatter miles to take me to Malton where I could treat myself to a larger snack for breakfast.

But, I couldn't wish the run away yet as Malton was still a number of miles away. Before then I had a few miles of pasture fields and that meant cows! And at this time of year when they are protective of their young and also if their is a bit of rain they seem hell bent on making my life tricky...