UltraTrails26 Howgills marathon

Sedbergh, Cumbria, Sunday, May 26, 2013

26.6 miles

Dave Robson

This event was tougher than we expected. We probably should have worked that out after the Grisedale marathon which was organised by the same people (the ones who organise the Lakeland 50/100).

When I looked at the route beforehand I divided it into four quarters. The first quarter we knew was going to be very tough. From Sedbergh we were heading north onto the Howgills. After about 6m of climbing we would reach the Calf and the next quarter looked fine, a descent down into the Bowderdale valley and along there for a while then turn to the east towards Ravenstonedale which was the only checkpoint. Then a bit of a slog south back up the into the hills. The final quarter looked a lovely descent back to Sedbergh.

Mel shows Dave how it's done ...

In reality the first quarter was possibly a bit tougher than I expected. The climbs were steeper and seemed to just keep on going. It was a warm day with a breeze from roughly south. The second quarter was a bit of a surprise, the descent into Bowderdale was a little tricky and the path in the valley itself was narrow and technical. You couldn’t take your eyes off the path and it went on for a long time. The terrain in Bowderdale was a bit wet and muddy in places, but it would have been much harder if it had rained more recently. Finally we turned east towards Ravenstonedale, but then turned south and up again for a while before we came to a familiar section which we walked last year. Into the Ravenstonedale checkpoint to fill our bottles which were about empty.

We left Ravenstonedale and slogged our upwards on a deserted narrow road. We could see by now that our original estimates of how long it would us take were slipping away (MelanieLH guessed 5hr30 and I guessed 6hr).

Finally we reached the highest point of the second half and worked out way down into a valley and followed the River Rawthey back to Sedbergh. There were lots more stream crossing here and it certainly wasn’t all downhill, there were a few climbs as well. I was dunking my hat into the streams to keep myself cool by now.

The scenery was fantastic and I really enjoyed that last few miles. If you like the Lakeland Trails marathon, then you will certainly like this one.

They gave us a lovely cup of soup at the end of the race, the same butternut squash soup we had at Grisedale, we needed it after 6hr 40mins (so much for our estimates !). The goody bag contained a tee shirt, medal, lots of gels, flapjacks. They also gave us a roadbook which also contained a map of the route. However, we followed the gpx route they supplied which we downloaded on our garmins and the course was signed at most critical places

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