My First DNF ('Did Not Finish')

'You don't have to finish to reach your goals'

At the end of March, I ran a race that is one of my favourites: the Hardmoors 55, a 55-mile route along half of the Cleveland Way long-distance footpath. The race begins in Guisborough, a market town on the northern edge of the North York Moors, then the path strikes off west to the (very) mini-Matterhorn peak of Roseberry Topping, and then heads south: past the monument to Captain James Cook (who grew up in the nearby village of Great Ayton), up onto Battersby, Ingleby and Greenhow moors, to the old mining railway cross-roads at Bloworth, over the ‘three sisters’ hills, down through the village of Osmotherley onto the cliff-edge ridge that marks the western border of the Moors, all the way south to the chalk-white Kilburn White Horse hill figure, and then, finally, an 8.5-mile descent through lush banks of woodland to the finish in Helmsley. And I loved it all, except for that final descent, which I didn’t see on this occasion (although I’ve run it many times before), because I DNF-e…