Ultra Distance Running

Round Ripon Ultra ‘35’

Well, I thought, it can’t be that difficult. In fact, it seems quite fashionable at the minute, this ‘ultra’ lark. Filling in the form was certainly easy enough, following one of the lovely Jo’s links, so easy that I filled it in for Bernard, too. He seemed like a gullible enough fool, whoops sorry I mean a canny enough chap, that he’d do it too!!

The reason that I was drawn to this event was the fact that it was relatively short for an ultra, quite local and the route was (allegedly) way marked trail and road. It was still a journey into the unknown and applying the usual lack of preparation and training ie nothing other than a 20 mile run along Hadrian’s Wall path, my destiny was uncertain at best!! Bernard had done a few ultras before and had recently won the Cheviot marathon in ridiculous conditions with enough spare time for a cup of tea and a sarnie on the way round! As for me, I had done a few 5k races so should be ok there then….

Anyway the route cards arrived and we even looked on the OS map to see where we were going to run. The race starts and finishes very close to Fountains Abbey in the village of Studley Roger, near Ripon. So with our rucksacks packed, off we went in the early hours of Sat 1st October, still not really realising that I was going to do an ultra! The race started in pleasant conditions as we trotted along the road and across some fields, heading for checkpoint 1. Bernard and I had decided to run together. I knew from previous results that this was around an hours run and sure enough we got the in just under the hour, feeling comfortable with around 7 and a half miles done. There was water and fruit cake to be had. The checkpoints were to be similarly stocked throughout. This was another ‘unknown’ in the race as we didn’t know how much food and drink would be available en route. The other ‘unknown’ was that I was actually leading the women’s race, but bizarrely no-one mentioned it at that or the next checkpoint, when after a further 8 or so miles. I apparently had a lead of over 15 minutes!! The intention, for me, was always just to get round without too much distress. At checkpoint 2, I actually took my waterproofs out of my bag and gave them to the marshal. It was SO hot, there was never going to be any rain. In fact, my cheese and pickle sandwich had turned into little balls of inedible matter!

The route to the 3rd checkpoint was mainly road and mainly uphill or that’s how I remember it! There was a bit of moorland, too. Luckily it was only around 4 miles long. This was another strange thing in the race, to me, that there was no detail in how far it was between checkpoints and no real agreement in how long the race actually is! We had been running with various people on and off and using the written route description to find the way, but this leg had some places where the Ripon Rowel signage was less than obvious, but we managed not to go too far astray, although a lady came past us during this section.
The distance to checkpoint 4 was said by various other competitors to be over 9 miles, making it the longest section in the race, but psychologically I knew that once I got it over with, there was only another 6 ish to go. From previous results, this was by far the slowest section and I had it in my mind that it would be hard work and it was!! Somehow this part of the race was disproportionately slow, perhaps it was longer than predicted. I think it had more off trail miles and moorland than the rest of the race, but we were still moving well and ‘zoomed’ by people on the fell like sections which reminded me of the Hobble terrain. We overtook a lady again, but I have no idea whether I was in the lead or not, it never really entered my head that I would win the race. This section was incredibly hot and we were pleased to finally get to the last checkpoint.

The race organiser was at checkpoint 4 to meet us, but amazingly even he didn’t know how far it was to the finish!?! Any distance between 6 and 8 miles was suggested! I liked the idea of 6 miles and it seemed the most logical, unless all of the previous leg distances were wrong too (possible!) In another strange action, he suggested a simpler route to rejoin the Ripon Rowel path rather than the actual route! By this point, Bernard and I were running together but there wasn’t anyone else with us as there had been most of the rest of the time. I was feeling remarkably good physically and mentally, just very hot. Bernard seemed to be coping similarly well. Off we went into the unknown once more. And this is where it all went wrong…….
We didn’t take the ‘official’ short cut, instead deciding to keep to the way-marked path as we didn’t know where we were aiming to short cut to! After following the arrows across some meadows and through a wooded area, we continued uphill through a field and arrived at the end of the field!! No more signs, just a wall and a barbed wire fence!! By this stage, the route instructions, which we had no idea would be so important, had disintegrated in my pocket in a similar manner to the cheese sandwich. My jelly sweets also did the same but they moulded themselves around my Blackberry (you had to carry a phone). We knew we needed to head East but couldn’t get there. We retraced our steps but couldn’t find any signs apart from a public footpath sign which went towards a farm, so we followed this, hoping that it would have a name and we could identify it on the route card. No such luck! The place was deserted and the track out of it went in completely the wrong direction. Superb! Just what you need 30 miles into an ultra!! Anyway, Bernard decided to turn into Action Man and scrambled down a ravine so I thought I’d better follow, after all he said it’d be fine!! We aimed for another farm and the farmer pointed us in the direction of the road. We decided that we would have to run along the road side to the last village (Sawley) where an additional water station had been laid on. This detour cost us around 40 mins, probably, but when we got to the finish, we found that it wasn’t as bad as some! We joined the path again for the last 3 miles heading towards Fountains Abbey. The last mile was through the deer park at Studley Royal which is a nice finish. I hadn’t realised how close we were to the end when we turned the corner and there it was! Knowing that we had messed up the last section, we walked and wasted more time than we would have usually done on the way to the finish. We crossed the line in just over 8 hours. We think that our detour added on 4 or 5 miles and realistically we could have finished in 7 hours, but you live and learn!

The main thing, for me, was that I survived much better than I thought I would. Physically, my lack of preparation clearly didn’t wear me out too much – there was no danger of over-training! Mentally, I was fine, but this was probably helped by running with Bernard and others from time to time so I was never alone and struggling.

Would I recommend this race? In lots of ways, I would, but it needs more careful navigation than it implies as the route is not clearly marked. Perhaps we were naïve with this, but there were no grid references supplied or distances indicated on the race description. The route is actually quite runnable and the finish is lovely. We happened to pick the hottest day of the year (or pretty close to it!) and there was plenty of water available and I topped my drink bottle up as I went and drank their water at the checkpoints. I think you would need your own food as theirs was mainly fruit cake. We both wore road trainers and I think these would always be fine. There is a lot of tarmac in the race, maybe 6 or so miles and some good trails.

The race can also be done as a relay so if you fancy the route and have enough friends, you can always put a team together!!

Steph