Sussex Coastal Ultra - Event Update

The results from Saturday's running events over the chalk cliffs and South Downs of Sussex were published late on Sunday. My official finishing time was 5 hours 42 minutes 27 seconds. A total of 83 people lined up to run the ultra marathon, of which only 63 finished the full distance. It would seem that two people abandoned before they'd even reached halfway, 17 abandoned at the marathon finish point, which I myself was so very tempted to do. One person made it to checkpoint 4 and then must have thrown in the towel when they got back to Birling Gap with perhaps just 4 miles left to go. So almost a quarter of the field did not finish the ultra marathon. This is a good indication of how tough the event was.

The winning time in the ultra marathon was 4 hours 59 minutes. I finished in 14th place and was the second vet over 45. However, the winning vet over 45 was someone I knew well, David Ross, who also came 2nd overall with a time of 5 hours 14 minutes. And if you're interested, the last person to finish the ultra came in with a time of 8 hours 25 minutes.

Here's a summary of the other races:

• 10k - 207 finished, 9 DNF, winning time 55 mins 46 secs.
• Half marathon - 368 finished, 10 DNF, winning time 1 hr 34 mins 46 secs.
• Marathon - 147 finished, 8 DNF, winning time 3 hr 26 mins 13 secs.

Because I love statistics and analysing data, I can report that only 13 people taking part in the marathon reached checkpoint 3 in a time quicker than me. Also, I reached the end of the marathon in a time of 4 hours 17 minutes, which would have been good enough for 17th place in the marathon, if I had stopped at that point. The last 10k of the race actually turned out to be 12.5k, and this took me 1 hour 25 minutes. And finally, for the lover of stats and the running nerds, my average pace was 9 mins 47 secs per mile, or 6 mins 7 secs per km, or a speed of 9.8kph.

At the time I wasn't thinking of the Endurancelife motto, but I will try to make it my default motivational phrase to repeat to myself in times of difficulty in future. Never give up.