John Boothman very much into ultra events, but this was a new one for him.  It follows the old Wainwright route from St Bedes on the West Coast to Robin Hoods Bay on the East Coast and takes in the National Parks of the Lake District, The Yorkshire Dales and the North Yorkshire Moors.  It is 300 km in length or 186 miles in old money.  John started this race in his usual way, which is steady away and he quickly settled down into about 40th position.  However, John's style is to keep going at a pretty consistent rate and this he did so and he started gradually moving up through the field.  The race started on Saturday morning and 24 hours later, John had left the Lake District behind him, having ascended peaks which are races in themselves, such as Fairfield and found himself in Kirkby Stephen in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  By Sunday evening, he had left another National Park behind him and had arrived at the CP in Richmond in 28th position overall and 24th male.   He had planned to get some sleep there, but as it turned out, it was too cold to sleep, so he wasted quite a bit of time there to no benefit.  However, by Monday morning he had reached his third National Park and he continued to keep picking up places to the so by the check point at the Lion Inn, he was 24th overall and 21st male.  At the next check point at Glaisdale, John took some time out as he had some muscle fatigue and his feet were sore and needed a wash.  When he resumed racing again, he was like a new man and he had a very strong last two legs to finish 20th male and 23rd overall.  He was naturally the first V60, in fact, he finished with a 17 hour lead of the 2nd V60 and 21 hours over the 3rd.  The reality was that John's age related performance was quite outstanding, having left his peers in the dust behind him and he was mixing it with much younger men, in fact the two finishers in front of John were not even in the Vet category.

This was the first time that John had taken part in this race and with the benefit of hindsight, he felt that he could have managed it better.  But that merely shows the competitive nature of the man.  In actual fact, his performance, particularly for his age was brilliant and overall, he was happy with how he had done.

23 John Boothman 63:05:08 (1st M60, 20th Male.

186 starters.
49 DNF

16 Dan Taylor 1:3:31