Hanging Stone Leap - Sunday 8 Aug
Report by Christy Irish
Traditionally an LDWA event, the Hanging Stone Leap is now organised by Shelli & Lee at Let’s Run. This year was the events 30th year and by all accounts some competitors 30th year entering the event. There are two lengths on offer 13 or 24 miles both open to walkers and runners.
The day started off with some naughty escapee cows so my legs had already had a thorough warm up before I had even set off to Guisborough.
We signed in and went through kit check then up to the start line for the mass start.
The first few miles saw us climb High Cliff Nab then head out onto the moors. Hanging Stone is a self-navigation event and whilst on the course you must find the self-clips at various points which we had been given grid references for. I had loaded the GPX file onto my watch and told my running buddy to not worry about the nav as I knew where we needed to be going. He had plotted the route onto his OS map which turned out to be invaluable as only a few miles in, the route had disappeared from my watch screen. For so long we managed to follow other runners but as we spread out further, it was time to dig the trusty map out. Check points and self-clips kept appearing so we knew we were still on course. The views were beautiful and this helped the miles fly by over the purple tinted moorland. Before we knew it, we were on the Cleveland Way and although there were still roughly 10 miles to go it felt like the home stretch.
As rain was forecast, we’d set off with our kit placed in dry bags and coats within reach. Thankfully waterproofs weren’t needed as we had nothing but glorious sunshine and could see the heavy rain clouds hovering over the dales.
Kildale, Capt Cooks, Gribdale – we kept self-clipping as we went, Hanging Stone and Roseberry Topping before the final descent into Hutton village and back to the rugby club. The final mile was down the old railway line and although it was flat, the heat made it hard work. On arriving back at the finish, we were greeted with homemade soup and cake. I finished 3rd lady in 4:47.