This year it didn't really suit the programme to hammer out the ONER with travelling to Washington and my 3 hour busting attempt, but I thought the three day challenge would give me a chance to actually enjoy myself and cover the distance of the old course albeit split into three pieces.
I had roped Pete into doing this one with me. I had run his first marathon with him last year and also the Country to Capital 45 miler in January. This was going to be his first multi-day so had raised around £1000 for charity. Paul Rowlinson a friend of mine from the Sahara Race was also running so we all took the train down together after work on the Thursday night.
The base camp for the race was Chesil Beach Caravan Park in Weymouth. We got there about 8pm and ate a plate of lasagna before heading back to the caravan. The caravan was FREEZING on account of the paper thin plastic walls and I had to bang the 4 ring gas hob on for 2 hours to get it warm enough when we got in.
Caravan Bedroom: £19,250 new. RIP OFF.
One very good thing about this race was the down time. We'd be running from about 10:30 each day for between 4 and 6 hours, then back to the caravan park where we could put our feet up in the freezing cold in front of a tv and get fed in the mass cook tent each evening.
We got up on Day 1 about 9am & head down to the race briefing. It seemed pretty straight forward, we got in the bus and head south west down the coast to the start point. The finish that day would be 26.2 miles later back at the caravan park. They started us on a stretch of single track just before Golden Cap, a mightily impressive and extremely steep climb & the highest point on Englands South Coast. We ran down the hill and then began the hike up it. Immediately I settled in behind the front 10 runners or so and everyone power walked it as opposed to running, it was that steep. From the first slight incline my calves felt like they still had a lot of stiffness and soreness from last weekend in them. I definitely pushed myself harder in Washington than I would usually but Im still unsure why it took that long to get back to 100% again, usually Im ok within 48 hours of a marathon or most ultras. My plan was to go reasonably hard and see how I felt towards the end but this turned out to be a SHOCKINGLY bad strategy. The first section was extremely challenging to say the least. We climbed repeated hills and dropped down which tends to be as hard on legs as the climbs.
Early Climb Day 1 its steeper than it looks trust me
Start of Day 2 heading out to Portland
Once through CP1 the hills petered out pretty quickly and we were into running along a muddy farm track alongside of the beach, flat but still very slow going due to the thick mud, regularly flooded. By CP2 I was gone. I hadn't eaten much and knew that I was about to start slowing down. As we progressed towards CP3 a few runners came past me and I began to pass a lot of runners and walkers from the earlier start times. To CP3 I was kind of all over the place actually feeling like I was pushing myself too hard but going way way slower than usual. I began to pick the pace up after CP3 and actually managed to make some pretty good time up in the final stretch but at that point I went wrong along the beach and lost a few minutes whilst i retraced my steps. In the end I came into the caravan park in about 4 hours 49 and went back to the caravan. Pete came in only a quarter of an hour later so a great first day performance from him. I had had a shocking time, hadn't enjoyed any of it and generally felt tired and p*ssed off about how badly I was running and not overly delighted to be back in the caravan. Despite all that I had actually finished 15th overall so not a disgrace out of 240 starters. Today totaled 3160ft of climb.
Day 2 I woke up and generally felt pretty tempted to get back on the train and go home. I just had no interest. Id heard good things about the views and the stage in general was touted at being faster than yesterday but I had ZERO motivation. In all honesty if Pete hadn't been there & more to the point if I hadn't dragged him down to the race I would DEFINITELY have canned it. Instead we put on our wet, muddy trail shoes and walked down to the bottom of the caravan park where todays start would be. The first 13 miles of todays stage were out across Portland Harbour onto the island of Portland itself, followed by a circumnavigation of the island via Portland Bill lighthouse before coming back down the ferry road into Weymouth. At that point we'd head East through the town and along the beach before the final 10km section of climbing up and over the hills past Durdle Door and into Lulworth Cove. I could NOT BE ARSED. We started running and Pete was quite clearly feeling pretty good and motivated to do well. I really envied how he was feeling right now, a bit daunted Im sure by the 2 marathons still to come but believing 100% that he was going to finish and therefore knowing that he was going to achieve something really great this weekend. I had discussed with Paul the previous evening how we on the other hand had entered on a whim because we felt like it and therefore had no motivation to compete other than to enjoy ourselves. When you're hating every single minute you do have to question WHY you still get up and carry on but WTF as Hully always says, any day on the trails is better than any day in the office....
I kind of got dragged around Portland by Pete running as slow as I could whilst not losing him into the distance i really did not give a toss about times and positions at this point but we'd decided to run together for Stage 2. Paul and his mate Jonesy an ex MdS runner were also with us. I had bruised the top of foot the previous day and that was really starting to affect my ability to run downhill jarring the front of my shin bone into the front of my shoe. Still it was fine on the flats and ups and I think we went through 13 miles in 2 hours 10 and then out along the coast we made good progress. By the end of the day the sun was out and we were on a stunning section of coastal path. I actually started to feel better about things probably because as a result of not running as hard I was eating constantly & had more than the 20% energy I felt like I had the day before. Pete seemed a little out of it towards the end but stayed extremely strong and actually managed to take a couple of photos of the scenery (below). We dropped down the steps into Lulworth Cove and finished in just over 5 hours. A much better day all round, 3195ft of climbing today.
Descent and Climb towards Lulworth Cove Day 2
Day 3 I went to the paramedic in the morning about the bruising all over the top of my foot. She said it didn't look good but that I should be ok to continue so I thought I would. The day began with the biggest climbs yet. For the first 10 miles it was pretty relentless culminating in one ascent which involved scrambling with use of hands & then this insane giant staircase climb into CP2 at 13 miles. In fact the days total climbing far exceeded either of the previous two at 4360ft.
13 miles into Day 3
Those two miles preceeding that staircase took us 24 minutes and 18 minutes respectively. I guess that 42 minutes for 2 miles puts the terrain in perspective, especially given that we finished in the top 20% of the field. Anyway at CP2 I met James Adams for the first time, running the ONER. James is running Badwater in July also so it was great to finally meet him. He looked tired but went on to finish the 78.6 miles in one hit a brilliant effort.
The last 13 miles again I was just out of energy, not motivated, needed the lav and my foot was starting to punish me. We ran all but the now dwindling uphill sections and then emerged out onto the beach at Studland with around 2 miles to go. It should have been a pleasant way to finish but I was totally uninterested. On each days run I had ended up just switching off and putting one foot in front of the other to cover the distance. It wasn't overly hard, I always felt like I had running left in me and that I would finish without any issues if I could be bothered (which it turns out I could) but with just no motivation at all to go faster or to enjoy the stunning coastline which the last day showed the best of to us. Again Pete kind of dragged me over the line, we or rather he could probably have gone faster Im sure but I genuinely couldn't be bothered to push the pace anymore. We went up and over a sand dune and down a half a mile of flooded track into the finish area. Pete had done a great job and he was understandably pleased to be done. I grabbed my bags and we hitched a lift to the ferry across to Bournemouth, from where we got a taxi to the station. I got home about 8pm, actually not that tired because we hadn't gone that hard over the previous 2 days.
As long as you don't mind caravan parks this is a good event and actually quite challenging. I think I finished 28th and Pete 34th overall so we did ok and really didn't go that hard (apart from my blow up on Day 1). I will be back to do the ONER but will make sure I don't rush to the States and back in 48 hours the weekend prior to run a sub 3 marathon next time.
Finishing Photo
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