It was the 7th Hardmoors 55 for John Boothman and this year, he drove his camper van to Helmsley, parked up and rested for the night, ready to get the bus to the start of the race, the following morning.  It was an early start as the coach left at 6:00 am and arrived at 7:15 am leaving plenty of time to get kit checked and fitted up with a tracker ready for the 8:00 am start.

The weather forecast had been for cool weather and rain so John has dressed accordingly.  It was raining for the start of the race, so his choice of clothing looked good.  Early on in the race, John got swept along a bit faster than he had intended and not only that, but the rain stopped and he was getting way too hot.  He rolled up his sleeves and his running tights above his knees  and despite drinking as much as he could, he was dehydrating, resulting in him suffering some serious bouts of cramps.

At Osmotherly CP he saw a runner in the same age category who beat him last year, so he made sure that he got out first and tried to put some distance between them, but after a few miles, that other runner caught him up and passed him.  With about 8 miles to the finish, it started to rain hard and John had to stop to take out his waterproof jacket, hat, gloves and head torch as it was now becoming obvious that he would not finish before nightfall.   Another runner asked John if he could get his head torch out of his bag which saved him taking his bag off and after all this, he set off in pursuit of that elusive other runner.  John finished just over 2 minutes behind his target and the thought went through his mind, "If only I hadn't stopped to help that other runner".  But in actual fact, had he been closer, no doubt it would have spurred the other runner on.

68 John Boothman 11:47:15 (4th V60)

Much Longer Version of the Race, written by John

7 Lucy Brown 24:20
23 Emma Pease 27:34
60 Robert Cranham 39:55