Friday&Saturday 22&23 September - Hartington

Where was Erica? She spent Friday night at Peak View campsite, a basic place (sloping & unmown field with a tap) right by where the High Peak Trail meets the Tissington Trail in the Peak District, at a cost of £15.

Weather: Friday showers; Saturday sunshine

After my 12-hour race in mid-July, I had a decision to make: was I going to spend August training for a 24-hour race (18 September) or for a half marathon (today)? I entered the half marathon in question in 2019, for the September 2020 event. As with most events in 2020, it got cancelled, and I couldn’t make the dates for 2021 or 2022. This year was the last chance I had to use that place.

After much dithering between the two options, I got to Scotland and quickly decided that I didn’t want to train for either; instead I wanted to have unstructured fun on the hills – and that’s exactly what I did.

Knowing I was capable of covering the half marathon distance (even if not of meeting the objective I had in mind when submitted my entry 4 years ago), without doing any specific training for it, it seemed silly not to use my place. So, on the way back from Scotland I did my only real bit of preparation for today: we stopped off and I ran the route. I’m not sure that there’s any coach who would recommend doing this as one’s one and only training effort – and in reality it was solely a psychological exercise and a confidence boost when I ran the course just 2 minutes slower than my PB.

The only other bit of preparation was that I booked us onto Peak View campsite for the night before. The race is a linear one, with buses laid on to get you to the start with a good half an hour to spare, so you can queue for the Portaloos and get jolly cold, as you have to arrive ‘ready to run’ with no baggage transfer (I used the bus in 2018 and it was 2 degrees and foggy on arrival). The campsite I’d booked was 800m from the start line, so I was able to leave Erica at 0940 and arrive in plenty of time for the 10am start, completely omitting the Portaloo experience.

After yesterday’s showers, we woke up to a fine sky this morning. There was an excellent 360 degree view from Erica; this snap was taken from her rear bumper.

It was a bonus that the campsite had direct access onto the Tissington Trail; it was a downside that it was through unmown wet grass. I found a solution:

A rummage in Erica’s collection of bin bags netted two of suitable size – one of which was a bread bag.

As soon as we got onto the grit trail, I removed the bags and switched into my runners, putting my sopping shoes into a bag for Mick to take back for me.

Ten minutes after I arrived at the start line, we were off.

All started well: my splits for the first 4k were all within 2 seconds of each other, and whilst slightly faster than target, not so much as to make me think I’d gone off too keenly. My pace dropped on the next 3k, but only because they’re gently uphill. At 8.5km, without breaking stride, I executed a faultless bottle-swap with Mick who was standing at the edge of the trail (I was carrying my own water, to sip as and when, rather than needing to slow down to drink out of cups at the three water stations on the route).

Mick took a photo of me …except it wasn’t me. Granted, it does look like me and I do often wear a blue t-shirt. 

Me - not wearing my blue top today. 

From around 13km things started to go less smoothly, with cramp threatening in both feet and my right calf. Entirely my own fault for neglecting strength work (not to mention failing to train to do this pace over this distance). Given how good I felt otherwise, I asked them nicely, and repeatedly, to please just let me get through the rest of the distance without impediment.

This race route has a sting in the tail. About 200m before the end, one of the old railway bridges wasn’t reinstated when the leisure route was made, so the trail descends steeply down then immediately steeply back up. A surprise to some of those around me, but I knew it was coming and that the finish line was just ahead. Further ahead than expected – they’ve finally moved it so that the route doesn’t measure short (as it did in both 2018 and 2019).

My time was 1:55:53 - three minutes faster than my PB, set in 2018. I’m rather chuffed with that, and it seems to establish that hill bagging in Scotland is excellent half marathon training*.

(*Makes sense really. I ascended most of those hills without pause, at a pace at the top of end comfortable, then jogged back down, so I was generally putting in sustained 1.5-2 hour efforts on the uphills, before conditioning my quads on the downs.)