Never never never give up

I'm loving the new branding by Endurance Life - never never never give up - and that is certainly what we all needed to hear on last Saturday's Dorset Coastal Trail run.  Gary and I competed in the half marathon distance; 14.6 miles of undulating coastal trail.  The 'severe' rating given to the run was certainly justified, and the muddy conditions added to the difficulties.  But it was thoroughly enjoyable and I have to say up there with my favourites of the Coastal Trail series South Devon and Exmoor.

They adopted a different start this year with elites setting off at 10.30am in a mass start and everyone else dipping their timing chips and heading off at intervals.  I went off at the back of the mass start, I don't consider myself an elite, but Gary is competitive and really wanted to be in the top ten, so I thought I'd try to stay at the back of the top runners.  It was an uphill start followed by a number of gates to get through but once onto the coastal trail proper it was fantastic coastal views and rolling hills, or rather steep hills as you got closer to them.  The jurassic coast really does deserve it's world heritage site status.

The first check point was a 4.2 miles, which seemed to take forever to get to, skidding around in the mud.  I only managed to fall over once, but there were a lot of near misses, very glad of the trail shoes!  The second section had some fantastic down hills, which are always my favourites I love the sensation of being able to let go, just flying on the edge of being completing out of control, which I'm sure some of the other runners thought I was.  The hairiest of these was probably the cobbled steps heading down to Lulworth cove, just one trip on a stone and it would all be over, but thankfully I made it to the bottom and onto the home straight.

We turned the corner into a head on wind, no wonder I had being enjoying myself so much, I'd had the wind giving me a helping hand.  It is this section where I appreciated having my music with me, I turned up the volume and got my head down for a bracing few miles.  Thankfully just as my stamina was lagging, and I was giving myself a positive talking too, we turned out of it and onto the home straight.  One last very slippery hill, the only one I found myself having to walk up (that said while running up one of the coastal hills I'd been joined by another runner walking up, ummmm not sure my very slow run was actually achieving anything!).

At last we were onto the home straight and what a great finish to a run.  A final stretch of coast line and then a down hill sprint to the finish where I saw Mr G cheering me on.  I don't think I've finished a race so coated in mud, but very happy.  The great news is Gary managed 9th place out of 354 and I was 59th (9th woman) in 2hrs 26mins so all in all a very successful day.  We refueled on some fantastic veggie burgers from the mobile food van on site and then headed back to Gary's brothers for a well deserved soak in the hot tub, a glass of red wine and a play with their puppy!

To get a feel for the run check out this video, I think it is the marathon but it captures the run perfectly!

I am now really looking forward to January when we're running in the Anglesey coastal trail marathon.