From Ritchie Williamson…
A 300 Km route across the North of England from St Bees on the West coast to Robin Hood’s Bay on the East coast. The route can be broadly broken into 4 sections, the mountains of the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales Nation Park, the Vale of York, the North York Moors and a final jaunt along the coastal path. Also known as Wainwright’s coast to coast route there is an estimated 6500m of ascent although my watch measured 8400 (I know which one my legs think it is). There is a mixture of terrain road (20%), track (24%), trail (54%), and pathless sections (2%). Along the route there are a number of support points, 4 of which you can get access to your drop bag and also sleep in tents provided. There are also cafés and pubs along the route where you can refresh and refuel should you arrive during opening hours. This was my second attempt at the Northern Traverse having tried in 2023 and retiring at Shap (94 Km).
So, with a new plan (everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth), I set off with 188 other runners (including Petra Bijsterveld, also making a second attempt) from St Bees at 08:30 am on Saturday the 5th April. I had planned for a 74hr total time. The first section takes you over the Lake District and there are a few less fun sections on this part, the path along Ennerdale Water, the descent from Kidsty Pike and the path along Haweswater are fairly unpleasant/difficult to move at pace for different reasons, although it was a treat to see the sunset from the climb up to Kidsty Pike. I was ahead of schedule by about 2 hrs when I made it to Shap. The section from Shap to Kirkby Stephen is less interesting and so it was a good section to run through the night (mostly farm tracks and fields). The clear skies and sunny weather of the day had turned into a very cold night and it was a reminder to keep moving. I arrived at Kirkby Stephen (130km) at 07:00 am (still 90 mins ahead of schedule), I refuelled and manged a 20 min nap followed by more fuel. My original plan was to make it through to Richmond (185km before sleeping). I then hooked up with a runner I’d ran with before on other events and we took a more relaxed pace (or at least it felt that way) to Richmond with a good 45 minutes cafe stop at Dales bike centre. This section which takes you over Nine Standards Rigg has a reputation for being boggy and slow, but the sunny dry weather and recently laid paving slabs meant it was less challenging than expected. We eventually arrived in Richmond 14 minutes behind schedule and just after the sun had set. I opted to have a good sleep here and avoid another cold night as I planned to not sleep again until finish. I slept for 6 hours and left Richmond before sunrise and took a quick march with the runner I’d hooked up with at Kirkby Stephen, unfortunately his knee problems flared up just before lunch and so I decided to push on. Just as you start your descent to the support point in Lordstones you get your first glimpse of the North Sea, the end is almost in sight. I arrived at Lordstones (234km) 1 hr ahead of schedule, had a big meal and headed out for the final 66km to the finish. I stopped for 45 mins in Glaisdale for a cup of tea and a cheese and mango chutney sandwich then headed out at around 10pm. I phoned home for a bit of company, put on some music and ran as hard as the body would allow for the final 31km. There is still a large amount of climbing in this last section (600m) and the path through Falling Foss is newly laid and rough underfoot. I’m also convinced those woods are haunted, but that may be the auditory hallucinations that were beginning to make themselves known. 2km from the finish I get an encouraging message off Petra, she is also making good progress and as far as I could tell was also running to plan.
I eventually finished at 03:13 am Tuesday morning in Robin Hood’s Bay after 66 hrs and 43 mins. 7 hours ahead of planned schedule and in 32nd place. The event itself is organised by Ourea events. The Support points are brilliantly staffed by a mixture of volunteers and event staff, all the food is vegetarian and there is plenty of it. In between support points I fuelled with a gel every 40 mins. You can volunteer on the events and gain credits for entering the following year, it is also a good way to gain insight into the logistics of the event, I did this last year and found it invaluable.
I was delighted to finish after running some amazing trails and seeing a number of sunrises and sunsets out on the route. Sometimes that punch in the mouth never comes!
From Petra Bijsterveld…
As Ritchie has written above, for both of us it was a second crack at the Northern Traverse following a DNF. I attempted the race in 2024 and got as far as Richmond (200km) when increasing back ache and the ultra-runners’ lean thwarted my progress until I ground to a painful halt and had to be picked up from the roadside. Since then I have had two more episodes of back problems and/or leaning sideways on multi-day races so I went into the event mentally prepared for potentially not making it to the other side. However, I had also done a lot of work to try and improve my chances of success, including much more strength training focusing on my back and core and lifting heavier, quite a few visits to the osteopath, and a new (slower) race plan which involved resting (i.e. lying down and not carrying that pack) as much as possible.
I had written a roughly 90 hour schedule which involved sleeping at every one of the four main checkpoints (Patterdale, Kirkby Stephen, Richmond and Lordstones). I made myself stick to it regardless of whether I particularly wanted to sleep, as lying down on my back would always be beneficial. At the support points that were not sleeping places I ensured I had a quick lie down to do my back mobility exercises, I even did them on the floor of the A19 services in the middle of the night! All this worked very well for me and to my delight I had no back ache whatsoever during the event.
What did hurt were my feet and I also got some painful blisters, which I normally do not suffer with. After the prolonged period without rain the ground was rock hard (or frozen at night), hardly a square inch of mud or bog to provide relief. Added to that there is a lot of work being done on the path now that the Coast-to-Coast is a National Trail, this involves laying slabs across moorland and also quite a few stretches are now ‘paved’ with hardcore and rubble. This is good for erosion control but was torture on the feet. As Ritchie mentions above, the path through Falling Foss was a particular low-light. I had only been there about 3 weeks ago when it was still a nice woodland path and now it was like running on concrete.
Having had to deal with Storm Kathleen last year we had a total contrast this time around. Daytimes were sunny though the wind was often chilly, and the nights were very cold indeed with temperatures below freezing. Coming off Nine Standards, normally a total bogfest, the ground was frozen which did make for good going. Later that night the water in the tops of my soft flasks had even frozen. As the race went on we all had to wear more and more clothes at night, because the increasing fatigue and calorie deficit (despite eating really well) messes with your thermoregulation. And I never moved very fast of course: start slow, get slower. The huge swings in temperatures required good planning ahead, as you could leave a checkpoint (and thus your drop bag) in warm sunshine but you needed to carry basically full winter kit for the night ahead. I think a few runners did come a bit unstuck here, despite warnings from the event organisers.
There were a number of amazing sunsets and sunrises to enjoy along the way and we also had a nice waxing moon to look at every night. I had to cover the last 19 mile stretch from Glaisdale in the dark which did make that fourth night feel very long, but I was lucky to reach the finish in Robin Hood’s Bay at 5 am when the first streaks of orange light were just appearing over the sea, which was beautiful. I received my medal, then threw my little pebble which I had carried all the way from St Bees into the North Sea. I wish I could say it felt like a fantastic spiritual experience, but it didn’t really, I was mainly just very tired in that moment. I actually think the two portions of pasta bake I ate in the Fylingdales Village Hall were more of a high!
I finished at 5:03 am on Wednesday, in 92 hours and 33 minutes. I was 107th out of 138 finishers. 49 participants had retired, including one of my friends who fell victim to the lean between the Lion Inn and Glaisdale i.e. only about 25 miles from the end. She too had to be ‘rescued’ from the roadside. I felt very sad for her, and very grateful that I managed to avoid it on this occasion.
I will be writing a much longer blog post in due course for those who are interested in reading more.