Hardmoors 160, 21-23 Aug
Report by Claire Baker
It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write a race report. For runners that are keen to get back out there competing it’s good to see that some events are starting to commence once again.
The Hardmoors 160 is ‘The Ring Of Steele’ Ultramarathon, which starts at Sutton Bank and heads east along the Cleveland Way to Helmsley. Leaving Helmsley the route continues east across the moors following the Tabular Hills route to Scalby and the clifftops of the Cleveland Way to pick up the Hardmoors 110 route and follow a further 100 miles of this route to the race finish at Helmsley. The Hardmoors 160, as the name suggests, is a 160 mile single stage ultra with over 7,000 metres of ascent. Competitors this year had 50 hours to complete the race.
There are various points within the race with cut off times and if runners reach the designated checkpoints after the cut off time they have to withdraw from the race. For all but the front runners the cut-offs set in this race are challenging and become more so as runners head through the second night of the race. Due to Covid rules there were no indoor checkpoints, making the race much harder.
It’s fair to say that most runners on the start line never really knew for certain whether the race would go ahead until a few days before and any training leading up to the race would have been very different to the preparation for previous ultras. As a result many runners who had entered prior to lockdown restrictions deferred their place until 2021. Despite these challenges Colm O’Cofaigh and Lena Conlin both stood on the start line. Due to Covid-19 restrictions runners start times were staggered in groups of 6, Colm and Lena were in the same group and headed away from Sutton Bank at 5:30pm on Friday night.
Colm executed a brilliant race from start to finish overcoming the inevitable exhaustion all runners would feel when a race goes through a second night and into a third day. No doubt his wealth of experience in such long races will have been invaluable (but it never makes it any easier). Colm left the final checkpoint at Osmotherley Square Corner with only 1 minute to spare before the cut off. This had many of us that were watching the tracker shout at his dot to get a shifty on! It transpires that Colm was however oblivious at the time of how close he was. Despite injuring his knee on the descent from Roseberry Colm went on to finish in a fantastic time of 50 hours and 22 minutes. Taking 7th place overall. 30 runners started at Sutton Bank but only 8 finished the race. A DNF rate of 73% puts Colm’s achievement in perspective.
Lena showed her experience at ultra races and despite making a couple of navigational errors during the first night was in good spirits when she hit the Cleveland Way. The coastal path was busy making progress slower than would be in May when the race is normally run but Lena arrived at Saltburn with two and a half hours to spare before the cut off. Unfortunately Lena took a nasty fall after High Cliff, opening up an old wound on her knee and this along with the sleep deprivation was slowing her pace. Lena showed great tenacity and determination and really gave it everything but despite her great efforts she was outside the cut off at Osmotherley Square Corner and withdrew from the race after completing 138 miles in 44 hours and 24 minutes.
As a club I’m sure that we will all congratulate both Colm and Lena when we see them on their amazing performances and hope that they are both enjoying some well earned rest and cake eating – although knowing them both I suspect that probably lasted a day and they’re both now looking to their next impossible challenge.