Cleveland Way Relay, 12 June
Report by Anita Oldham
The Cleveland Way – Filey to Helmsley, 109 miles, rugged, coastal for a long way, then inland to the moors. Beautiful but challenging. For most of us, way to much to contemplate, unless you’re one of the Lena’s of the world (new respect, Lena).
So on hearing of the opportunity to tackle the route as a relay, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to have a crack at it. After finally tracking down the organiser, and the date, the next problem would be – were there any like-minded people within the club, who would see this as an adventure and be mad enough to commit? After tentative enquiries, yes, it seemed there were! And thus, the first Ripon Runners Cleveland Way Relay team was formed!
There are very few rules, a team of no more than 16 runners, each of whom must run a minimum of 5k and the team organiser must also run a leg. The race starts at 5am on Filey beach; there is a restart at 2pm from Clay Bank, irrespective of the progress from Filey, to ensure everyone gets finished in daylight. There are two doglegs – Roseberry Topping has to be topped and the White Horse has to be visited. And that’s pretty much it.
First issue – assigning people to legs. Some requested later legs, some requested early ones, some requested shorter legs. With absolutely no knowledge of the route, legs were distributed to try and cater for people’s initial requests. This didn’t always work out as planned, as some of the shorter legs contain some brutal climbs, as we discovered…
Next, recces were advised so we knew exactly what we had let ourselves in for and had a vague idea of the route, bearing in mind some legs had tide times to consider, some had diversions. Whilst the recces were sometimes time-consuming, considering the distances people had to travel, they were also invaluable in that they allowed us to work out where the handover points were and, roughly how long we were going to take. It became clear quite early on that we were in it to finish rather than to win anything. This suited me fine, as the thought of having 16 people dotted all over the Cleveland Hills, running away from their cars, was beginning to play on my mind.
There was a lot of working out of logistics, a lot of putting times together and sending out estimated times for handovers and a lot of guesstimation going on, but we finally had a plan.
Sunday 12th June suddenly appeared, seemingly from nowhere and it was actually happening! What teamwork! What an amazing, supportive group I was fortunate enough to have out that day? RR heroes, each and every one of them.
Michaela – being on Filey beach at 5 am, in order to set us off. (Thanks for the caravan, Michaela’s dad.) Then turning round and running back.
Andy – getting to Scarborough to take over and flying through to Cloughton, before deciding to carry on a few more miles then bus back to his car.
Phil – leaping out of the car and straight into the handover and off, not entirely aware of what he had let himself in for.
Harvey – Ravenscar to Whitby, making ground on a few teams for us.
Karen – from Whitby, “This may not be the time to tell you, but I’ve got a niggle in my calf.” No, it wasn’t the time to tell me, so off she went.
Hugh – from Runswick, fresh from the bed race, tearing up the ground to Ady – from Skinningrove who claimed the Strava crown for his section, for a couple of hours…
Graham – from Slapewath, loving the dogleg up Roseberry Topping, Carol – from Gribdale, had expecting to be running with Andrew for company, but fate had other pla… Stan – from Battersby Moor, apparently a flattish bit, aiming for Clay Bank where the mass restart had already taken place.
At 2pm Nicola (I’ll do you the shortest section) picked up the baton (so to speak) and ended up taking on the three sisters running from Clay Bank to myself at Lordstones, starting to feel as though I was having quite a long day out by now and probably not the best prepared for a decent run.
Lou – taking over at Osmotherly and flying up Square corner to what should have been Hazel at Sneck Yate.
However Hazel had ambitiously tackled the Hardmoors White Horse half a few hours earlier with dire consequences. Thankfully Andrew was en route to Carol’s leg so was swiftly diverted to cover Hazel’s section instead. (Thank God we’d thought of subs).
And finally…
Matthew – from somewhere up Sutton Bank, he kicked up a storm to see us into Helmsley square.
And it was done! The prosecco was popped, chips were scoffed, there was much congratulating all round.
Our total time was 18 hours and 58 minutes. We came 8th out of 13 teams. Amazing – we were fully expecting to come 13th.
This was a superb example of teamwork, flexibility, dedication and astounding support. All the things our club does so well, but attributes that shone in each and every runner that day. I am proud to have called this people my teammates.
And, yes, there are already vague plans afoot for next year.