My Forum

I really enjoyed this, but agree with comments about the lack of publicity. Given the location and relative dearth of small-scale half marathons up here, I would have thought this would be an easy one to sell. Would recommend the organiser does leaflets for running shops, events, clubs etc next year, and I bet the local media would be interested as well.

It was only my 2nd half marathon, and I've never done any fell running before, so next year (if I do it) I'll be wiser! eg My limbs were frozen by the time I walked to the start (yes, definitely longer than 18 mins). Long sleeves next time, can't take a chance in the north east in June!

You're obviously not going to do a fast time given the terrain, queuing to get over stiles etc (and getting laces caught in barbed wire if you're me...).  However, I felt fine for most of it (the rain helped), got to 10 miles in 1 hr 32 and thought I would break 2 hours pretty easily, but then the huge hill at the end did for me and I finished in 2hr 5!

Agree with Ian above that it was well-marshalled and signed until that last hill - I couldn't see anyone ahead or behind me at one stage so got quite worried about going off-course. However, I thought the rest of the route was pretty straightforward in terms of navigation and terrain, and I'm notoriously poor at such matters being a complete townie. If they could just move that hill for next year, I'll do it again.

 I wish it well for next year - with events getting more and more ginormous and glitzy, I like these smaller scale races.