day 6 - we can see the sea

day 6 - osmotherley to glaisdale, 28 miles 4000ft

another long day ahead of us with a lot of ups and downs and a fair bit that would be runnable. navigation would be straightforward too, especially having covered the first 12 miles or so running the osmotherley phoenix ultra previously.

an earlier breakfast meant we were away in better time today, 0900.

i love the cleveland way. it presents its challenges but then rewards you, once up high, with spectacular views and a lot of runnable sections.

carlton bank trig



having made an earlier start, we took our first pit stop at the cafe below carlton bank. a bit of an odd place with all sorts of birds imported in and making one hell of a racket. but the break was welcome all the same

another climb, up to cringle moor, and we got our first spotting of the north sea. still a long way away it lifted spirits even higher..i could start to feel the 'homecoming'

the sea! (from cringle moor)


it was another hot day and we made the best progress we could. as with previous days, time seemed to fly chatting about everything under the sun.








our pacing was pretty smooth and everything felt good. then with about 3-4miles before the lion at blakely, i felt pretty tired for the first time on the trip. we were only some 16-17 miles into todays run so it was a bit puzzling as to why now.

then it kinda dawned on us. whilst the previous nights pot noodle was pretty awesome (at the time) it was hardly enough to replenish what we'd used up over the 35 miles. maybe six of them would have done the trick but not one on its own, charged with refuelling depleted bodies. lets call it a rudimentary nutritional oversight cock up.
we have around a 2hr window of opportunity to replenish lost energy and protein after high and extended periods of exertion, so in effect we were simply running on very low tanks.

hotdog!


that's better


arriving at the lion at blakely there was no hesitation in our order..lashings of ice cold coke (again!) and a huge bowl of salty chips..just the job!
we lazed around for an hour or so, chatting to some more coast to coasters.

at around 1500 we bid our farewells and with some 10 miles to go headed off on our final bit of the day towards glaisdale.

on route, quite soon after leaving the lion, came the groundhog moment supplied everyday by richard. sometime between 2-3pm without fail he would pipe up...'where is everyone?!'. quite who he was expecting to see i'm still not sure. on day one i'd offered up what i thought was the answer, and on day two, three, four...
i can see why he asked it once..but everyday! maybe it was his afternoon joke.
for the first 1-3 hours of each day we'd meet and pass quite a few fellow coast to coasters. come the afternoon..none, zilch..just the three of us on our solitary way. the answer was simple..covering twice, sometimes three times the distance than the walkers each day meant come the early afternoon most of them had finished, like the girls at the lion, whereas we still had a bit to do. i quite liked the idea of our extended daily crusades.

heading towards glaisdale


we got going for a bit after the lion, probably desperate to reach our destination, the arncliffe arms, as quickly as possible. and bouyed by coke and salty chips we were making time quite nicely round rosedale and across the very empty (of people) glaisdale moor.

but with just 4 miles or so to go, we hit a long and arduous stoney track and our progress slowed dramatically. silenced ensued, barring the occasional tourettes-like outpouring, as we both felt the aches and pains with every uneven footfall,a culmination of 170 miles of daily battering. i popped some more ibuprofen. this section was just dragging on and on. the 'just ten miles to go' ended up taking the best part of 3 hours!



nearing the bottom of the track richard came up with what seemed a cracking idea..getting a couple of beers in straight away upon our arrival at the pub..an idea that seemed to perk me up a bit!
pulling out of the low, i started singing as we jogged through glaisdale. one of amy macdonalds numbers, 'run' (she didnt record one called 'jog', otherwise i'd have sung that instead). i thought i was on key too!
then a text came in. i guessed it would be from will with another world cup update.
wrong! it was from richard, 25 metres behind me..it simply said..'shut the f#@k up!'

upon arrival at the rather bedraggled looking arncliffe arms, we sat outside with our beers. the intention to have one, shower, then down for supper and a few more. it was a belting night and the beer was having a good effect, so we continued with a couple more, chatting again to other c2c'ers (who'd finished hours ago ;-) ), before cleaning ourselves up.

being creatures of habit we sat on the same outside bench for supper and what a belter it was (the supper not the bench). the food , proper gastropub stuff , totally defied the look of the place. my third consecutive plate of fish and chips and by far the best. dont judge a book by its cover as the saying goes. we washed it down with a couple more sherberts then time for bed (my bedroom a rather spacious affair, richards the size of a shoebox at best)

what happened thereafter that night/next early morning will remain a mystery to you. the reason why i was standing with charlie in the pub car park, locked out of my room, at 3am in the morning, lobbing stones at richards window to let us in, will as they say ' stay on tour'.