The Haweswater Half Marathon...

The agony of Michael Pluckrose in second place

"In the splendid surroundings of the Lake District, any race could be a success without too much effort." 2008 race report for the Haweswater Half Marathon, Runners World

This might have a grain of truth to it, but certainly over the last 4 months or so, there seems to have been a lot of organising to be done. Admittedly, on a good day, with a following wind, the race does just happen. But this year, a series of perfect storms have conspired to make it feel like organising through treacle.

With a slight combination of naivety and arrogance, I blundered into the role of race organiser. After all, how hard could it be? It's true, the race is organised by a team of Eden Runners. But as race organiser, you get to carry the can. Take the flack. Do the worrying.

The first whiff of trouble came when we sleep-walked past a brewing race-number crisis. Of course we needed the race numbers quite early to start sending them off. But we couldn't have predicted how hard it would be to get a print run of numbers done, when we relied on the goodwill of sponsors to provide them.

Then the vagaries of Cumbrian road running in remote locations took over. A matter of weeks before the race, the route had become 13.1 miles of sheet ice and landslides. And not any old landslide, but a really, really big one. Four foot deep. Massive. A 'ready for anything' bunch of Eden Runners had set to with spades (and in one notable case, a hastily grabbed coal shovel), to remove it last year. But this year, it was way too big for that. In the end, the Red Adare of Eden Runners, Andy Walker, managed to pursuade United Utilities to return our race route to its former glory. And thankfully, they did.

There were other laughable hurdles, but the race did, somehow, just happen. Over the years, it's grown from strength to strength, happily existing for most of its life with 300 or so runners. This year, with its pivotal position in the race calendar, 600 runners entered, and more were turned away. In a tiny hamlet like Bampton, this is quite a logistical feat.

It's been a tiring few months, but seeing the runners having had a good race in stunning scenery has got to be worth it.