Man prepares to do Great North Run in medieval armour

Shields Gazette

Newcastle Castle employee James Lovatt is preparing to complete the Great North Run in medieval armour. The more funds that are raised for the charity that runs the atraction, the more armour he'll wear.

Transcript

00:00So my name's James, I'm a volunteer and a staff member at Newcastle Castle and I'm going

00:08to be doing the Great North Run in medieval armour.

00:11We've got a very small charity that operates Newcastle Castle and we've never had anybody

00:17do the Great North Run for us before and so when I thought about it, I thought well I

00:23could do the Great North Run but I could do it in soft sort of wool or linen medieval

00:28costume and then one of my colleagues said well how about you wear this armour that I've

00:33got.

00:34I thought well don't be ridiculous, that's a ridiculous idea.

00:37But the more I thought about it I thought well how about the more money we raise the

00:41more I'll wear so we can do it piece by piece and then it'll be really worthwhile.

00:45So I came around to the idea eventually.

00:48We did a first sort of trial in armour back in about March time I believe.

00:54We did about 8km walking around in the chain mail and it was a bit heavy on the shoulders

00:59but it was alright.

01:01And then the last couple of weeks I've stepped it up and wore the full armour over 11 miles

01:06and that was 20 degree weather, quite gruelling actually, yeah.

01:10It's quite flexible, it's quite comfortable, see that was the point.

01:14The smaller the rings are the more flexible and comfortable it'll be, it'll sort of hug

01:18your body.

01:19In this kind of stuff back in the day you would have had to pay quite a pretty penny

01:23to have this made.

01:24It's all hand made, it's all put together by hand and it was going to be tailored to

01:30your own body as well because it would need to fit quite smoothly.

01:33So yeah, you would have to be pretty rich to be wearing something like this.

01:38If we were going to be wearing everything it would be 25kg, that's about 4 stone and

01:43with the target that we've just hit which would be the padded under armour that we've

01:48got over there, we've got a padded cap, we've got the chainmail coif and we've got the

01:53chainmail shirt and we've got some shin pads now.

01:57So all of that is about half of the weight, we're looking at about 12-13kg with that stuff.

02:02Actually I used to be a 100m runner.

02:05So I used to run for Jarrow and Hebbin Athletics Club when I was a teenager, I was North East

02:10Champion in the juniors over 100-200m.

02:14So a half marathon is not something that I'm used to at all.

02:18I've heard that there's a car that sweeps at the back so as long as I'm ahead of that

02:22then I think I'll be quite happy.

02:24The 11 mile walk that we did in the armour took about 4 and a half to 5 hours so it's

02:30not going to be particularly fast, depends on how much I've got on as to how much I'll

02:36be able to run.

02:37Cool conditions would be nice, rain would probably make things a bit too heavy especially

02:43with some of the padded armour that we wear underneath the chainmail but cool would be

02:48nice.

02:49But beginning of September you never really know what you're going to get but we've tried

02:52it in 20 degree sunshine and we know that we can do it.

02:55The overall target that we've got is £5,000, that would enable us to really make a difference

03:02in terms of accessibility at Newcastle Castle, develop new materials, really change the experience

03:08for people with limited vision and mobility but at the moment we're just past the £400

03:15mark and that's our fourth target, I believe fourth or fifth target in terms of the actual

03:22items that I'm going to be wearing so it's getting there, it's certainly getting there.

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