There is no better way to start the year than this.
The Hardmoors 30 follows a roughly figure of 8 route over 30 miles on the North Yorkshire Coast. It starts in the hamlet of Ravenscar, follows the Cleveland Way to Hayburn Wyke then loops back on itself up to Whitby via an abandoned rail track before travelling back to Ravenscar, this time via the Cleveland Way.
I ran the race last year with my brother in 5 hours 36 minutes. I was confident of touching the 5 hour mark this year. In my favour was the serious training I’d done in the back quarter of 2011, a two month break from any seriously long distance races and prior knowledge of the route and conditions. However, I did have some concerns. One was that intensive partying in West Wales between Christmas and New Year might catch up with me; the other was that I had not shifted my recent cold. But since the cold had not prevented a PB in the Chevin Chase a week ago, it didn’t count.
We started at 10am, an hour earlier than 2010. A good decision as it meant we probably wouldn’t have to run in the dark. My headtorch could thus remain in my rucksack, where, in my opinion, it belongs. Everyone bounded off down the road from the start to the Cleveland Way and in the rain we ran an enjoyable stretch of coastline down towards Hayburn Wyke. It is especially nice to run this part of the Cleveland Way with energy in your legs. During the Hardmoors 60 I already had 30 miles in my feet by this point and I suspect that when I finish the Hardmoors 110 in June this year, I won’t be bombing along this stretch.
A self-clip was stationed at the end of this stretch which need clipping before we made our way back up to the railway line. On the cliff top I had about ten people in front of me; when I descended into Hayburn Wyke, they’d all vanished into the forest. For some reason this coincided with me losing all confidence in my knowledge of the route. I cannot think what the link might be – something to do with cheekily relying on the person in front perhaps? What it did mean was that I emerged from the wrong side of the self-clip and had to run back down past all the competitors coming the other way. I must have lost a good five minutes and ten places here, combined with the ignominy of running in the opposite direction to everyone else. Still, my incompetence amused and motivated me and I ran down to the self-clip, did the business and charged back up the hill, determined to catch everyone to whom I’d just surrendered my place.
By Ravenscar I’d picked back another three places, although again I threw away minutes when I emerged up from the railway track and went right (on autopilot) instead of left (on the ball) and added on another unnecessary quarter of a mile to the day’s journey. I was straight in and out of Ravenscar checkpoint and rejoined the cinder track into Robin Hoods Bay. The usually mix of hungover New Years Day revellers, dog walkers and fellas on mountain bikes who move for no man were out and about as I tried to maintain 7.30 miles or less on the way into the handsome coastal village. Here I met my folks and exchanged drinks bottles and a few words, before again rejoining the track up to Whitby.
This was a long uneventful stretch and I felt strong. I passed three runners, two others went past me and the chief highlight was passing four teenage boys under a rail bridge arguing about how to light a cigarette with matches in the rain. Tempted as I was to help them, I pressed on and made it to Whitby in under three hours, where I had a chat with Steve Walker, ate some jelly babies and drank a large amount of water. With 11 miles to go and two hours to run them, a sub five hour finish was a definite possibility.
I pressed on into Whitby. But again, on autopilot, I followed the wrong side of the river Esk, and again added at least another quarter of a mile before realising my mistake. Cursing my laid-back approach to navigation I retraced my route and made my correct way back into Whitby, over the swing bridge and through the cobbled streets. Determined to reclaim some of that wasted time I made myself run up every one of the 199 steps to Whitby Abbey.

As I gathered my breath on the headland the wind and rain were picking up. The ground was extremely boggy. For the first couple of miles I kept to 10 minute miles, but as the conditions underfoot deteriorated, so did my speed. Fun as it was, on several occasions my slipping around in the mud more closely resembled bambi on ice than a focused ultra-runner. I kept the fuel going in, tried to embrace the wintery conditions and got my head down on the long stretch to Robin Hoods Bay. Luckily the coastline is breath-taking and a welcome distraction from the constant ups, downs, bogs and puddles.
At Robin Hoods Bay I quickly checkpointed, and impatiently told my dad I knew where I was going before immediately setting off in the wrong direction. Luckily about four people shouted in unison ‘It’s that way’ and so saved me a further self-imposed time penalty. By my reckoning Ravenscar was just over three miles away, but with lots of descents and ascents to and from sea level it would be heavy going. I plugged away at it, but by the final long, long stretch up to Ravenscar, my legs and my lungs, not to mention time, were getting away from me. I reached the finish in 5 hours 40 and made straight for the New Year’s Day buffet. Race One of the Hardmoors grand slam done. One down, three to go.
I was four minutes slower than last year. While frustrating, it is attributable to the extra mile added by navigational error, and to the great time partying with friends in Wales that does not fit into many peoples’ training regimes. But that doesn’t matter, because running 30 miles on New Year’s Day in challenging conditions is reward in itself. For £15 you get a well-marshalled, 30-mile trail race in a spectacular location, with a great atmosphere and a buffet at the end of it.Hardmoors is where it’s at. Bring on the 55.