Jurassic Coast Ultra 2019

June 23rd 2019

30-mile ultra run

My parents live in Bridport, and whilst staying with them at the start of the year I decided to look-up local races and came across this one, by Climb South West. I took the plunge and entered the shortest of their three (100 mile(!), 100km and 50km) distances. Typically a week later I injured my knee...

Move along three months of pain, misdiagnosis, stretching, physio and endless boredom (this was my first injury where even cycling and swimming aggravated it), and I found myself at the start of May, ready to slowly build up the running again, with an ultra potentially just 6 weeks away. Starting with run/walks of a mile long, lots of stretching and glutes work, I gradually moved up to longer runs of 3 miles or so, then a parkrun, then a run with the buggy, then a run of 7 miles or so with some intervals. Most of my runs were slow and on soft surfaces, focused on keeping my knee tracking straight and avoiding consecutive days. This careful approach seemed to work - and with a couple of training races in Shrophshire and the Yorkshire Dales, I surprisingly - apart from an irritating chesty cough - felt ready for my first 50km!

The start was just 15 minutes from my parents' house so I got dropped off in good time to register. This is the first time where my surname upgrade from Scott to Chandler hasn't done me well, and everyone else in the queue seemed to have a pre-Cr### surname. However, registration was low-faff (no check card or electronic tag, just a number "222") and I was soon back in the car with Molly, desperately trying to encourage her to take a milk feed - selfishly just for my own benefit!

Feed done, there was a short safety briefing, walk to a car park and we were off! Lyme Regis was a bit of a blur (I managed to go wrong within the first half mile, oops!) and I soon found myself in a forest with a few ladies behind me. This was a lovely soft, muddy, rooty and slightly undulating path, my favourite type of technical trail. Conditions today were pretty perfect (16 deg, slight cross-tail breeze, cloudy) but had it been sunny I would have been glad of the shade. The wooded path lasted for nearly five miles, and I found a comfortable rhythm behind a pair of brothers, one of which sounded very experienced on this particular route. I also had a girl behind me whom I kept encouraging past as she looked speedy/athletic but she seemed reluctant so I stopped worrying about it after a while.

Out of the forest, it wasn't far to the first checkpoint at Seaton. Here I topped up with a bottle of water, having drunk a surprising amount in the rather humid forest. The breeze once out of it was very welcome and the girl who had been following me (whose name I learned a good 9 miles in was Polly!) jogged on alongside me away from the town, following a road to start with, then turning left onto the cliff tops. A down then up section followed around Branscombe, which was apparently nearish to Polly's home and familiar turf - her navigational skills and local knowledge certainly saved me a bit of backtracking....

The next down and up was somewhat larger and steeper, just after we had bypassed somewhere called "Weston" (and seen a 100 miler in a bad way, I can't really fathom that he had already completed an incredible 83 miles though! from the results it looked like he DNF'd, along with more than half the other 100 milers :o). This involved a lot of steps and I was careful to look after my knee as we still had half of the race to go. One more large undulation later and we were making our way down towards Sidmouth, the next checkpoint, at about 18 miles. Here they had slightly cruelly located the food and water upstairs, but I was in need to supplies so wandered up to fill both bottles, and grabbed a bit of lemon cake as it looked tasty! The slice was slightly too big but I couldn't politely take half. However, this turned out not to be a problem, as after taking it outside again to nibble, a nearby seagull clearly found the cake appealing too, and very deftly robbed me of the remainder...ooops! At least I could provide some amusement for the locals...

Sidmouth had a lengthy promenade, which was quite hard on my trail shoes (Salomon Speedcross, great on mud but awful on hard surfaces - no shock absorption and very slippery!). I was glad to find some trail surfaces again - but noticed that the cliffs had changed in character to a red muddy type stone, rather than the chalk of further east. The next section (relatively speaking) was quite flat for about 5 miles, enabling me to fuel well and take on a good amount of water. The coast path then took us inland to cross the River Otter, where we were joined by Polly's very attentive support crew - a definite lift of the spirits as we headed back out towards the sea, and the last checkpoint in Budleigh, which was at about 25 miles. Until this point we'd been unsure at exactly how long the race was (50km = 31 miles, yet the GPX I had read more like 30) so we were pleased to find out that we had just 5 miles to go!

Both of us felt better than at this distance in previous races, and we pressed on through the town to what was the last major climb. Polly seemed to be feeling a bit more sprightly than I was here, but I did my best to keep her pace on the uphill section, alternating walking and running to keep my HR in its box. After a mile or so we made it to the top - I was very relieved as I'd had to dig deep for this! The top was fairly plateau in its nature, and another holiday park loomed ahead before too long. I'm really not a fan of the character (or lack of) that holiday parks add to the coastline, and our route took us literally right through the middle of this one. The surface was smooth and tarmac-ed and I very nearly slipped over here too which made me very tentative with my footing until we were out the other side.

From here we could see Exmouth, and it really did look close! Spurred on by the sight of civilisation and the finish, we jogged on along the last bit of grassy trail, zig-zagging off the cliffs on a formed ramp and down onto the promenade. As we dropped onto the flat, I could see a couple of runners ahead of us, but had no idea how far along the beach the finish line was. Turns out a fair way - I think it was about a mile until we finally reached the finish line. I was excited to be crossing the line together with Polly, to take joint 3rd lady!

For us both this was our first time at this distance (having only done marathons prior) so I was incredibly pleased to have made it through the whole race to the end. Compared to my last race I was a lot slower, but I also felt an awful lot better after twenty miles than I had then. I would certainly recommend this race to anyone looking for a nice local event. The field was fairly small, but navigation wasn't too bad and everyone seemed very friendly indeed. I do think we were blessed with perfect conditions and can see why in last year's thirty-degree head times may have been slower (for instance, the winning lady from last year was slower than us) but it would always be an interesting route - with the Jurassic coastline scenery to enjoy.