From Petra Bijsterveld…
Photo credit Hardmoors / SportSunday
Having run a lot of Punk Panther ultras I felt it was time to enter a Hardmoors race and see a bit more of the eastern side of Yorkshire. The Hardwolds 40 race is approximately 47 miles (I call that value for money!) with 4300 ft of elevation from Beverley to Malton, largely on the Yorkshire Wolds Way, taking in Londesborough, Millington, Fridaythorpe, Thixendale and Settrington. I had reccied the route about a fortnight ago with my friend Gill, walking it in 2 days with an overnight stay in Fridaythorpe. It was pretty cold then, I remember regretting I had not taken my gloves! We found that despite the landscape being nice the miles did appear to be very long. Endless stretches between turns or gates under big open skies make for a very different experience than running in our Yorkshire Dales. In addition the first 10 and last 4 miles are largely flat. At least this recce prepared me well for the race. The course was absolutely bone dry which made for easy running, but temperatures on Saturday turned out to be very hot, even in the early morning (20 degrees already at the 8 am start in Beverley) with significant humidity for an added challenge to the body.
I had done my pre-race research into the other 2 women in my age category and knew that winning it would be within the realms of possibility but would certainly not be handed to me on a plate. I also had the aim of finishing in about 10 hours, though the heat soon made me realise that time would have to be adjusted upwards. My race became dominated by trying to keep the balance right between making sufficient forward progress to stay ahead of the other F60s but not be foolish and risk heat exhaustion. I was careful not to go out too fast on the initial 10 flat miles and adopted a 14 minute steady run/1 minute walk strategy, positioning myself towards the back of the field. Once we reached the hills the run/walk ratio dictated itself of course. It was a very tough day out and mentally I did have to work from checkpoint to checkpoint, though I was never in any doubt that I would finish barring disasters. My mood was boosted by a surprise visit from Gill and partner who had come out on the motorbike and found me at Thixendale and then again at Wharram Percy.
I had some painful leg cramps which at least did serve to keep me focused on my salt intake, but otherwise the legs held up well, thankfully no repeat of the quad issues which had plagued me on the Dales High Way, and my recent Achilles niggle was under control too. In fact my legs and feet could have gone a lot further which was good to notice, and my shiny new Hoka Tectons felt great. The whole body was struggling though due to the heat and humidity and it was very difficult to keep running towards the end. I had to suppress the busy negative chatter inside my head by telling myself that I seemed to be doing more running than most in my part of the field, and was still overtaking plenty of people. I was keen to at least have a finish time starting with a ‘10’, this necessitated a kind of sprint finish up the hill in Malton! I was delighted to finish in 10:58, 1st FV60 and 8th woman overall out of 41 woman finishers.
There will be a blog post including some more photos later this week I hope.