Sussex Coastal Ultra

Why do we run marathons? The most common answer must be that for most it is the ultimate physical challenge that we can undertake. It is said that the human body can generally store enough energy as glycogen for about 16 to 18 miles of running. Glycogen is the preferred energy source for the body to use when running. Fat reserves and the protein of ones muscles are another source. So once your glycogen stores are depleted the body switches to other sources of fuel to keep it going over the final 8 to 10 miles of a marathon. This is also why people talk about hitting the wall, it is simply the point were there is no glycogen left and the body stutters for a while whilst it makes the switch to burning more body fat, or even muscle, for fuel. Speaking from my own experience this is the point that running then starts to feel uncomfortable and becomes a mental as much as a physical test.

Once the body has run 20 miles and the legs are starting to hurt the mind needs to stay strong in order to keep the legs ticking over and to carry on running the final 6 miles of a marathon. Like many of my marathon running peers, I have reached the point where to run a marathon is no longer intimidating. To run 6 to 8 miles in pain isn't so bad, the time will pass fairly quickly. Whenever I stand at the start line of a marathon I know I will complete the distance. The only question is how well will I do?

So, why do we run ultras? For me it is to recapture some of that fear and apprehension that I used to feel when I first started running marathons, and it is to test both my mental as well as physical limits. At times I never doubt that I will finish, but I always know that the run will be a serious challenge. However, just occasionally I am filled with the dread that I might just fail to complete the distance. I had these doubts Saturday morning. Somehow my head wasn't quite in the right place to take on a 34 mile run over the Sussex Downs and coastal paths.

In the week between Pitsford Marathon and the Sussex Ultra I had run just three times. Twice with clients and once with the Sweaty Betty running club. Each time my legs still felt slightly fatigued from running a hard marathon and a fast half marathon the previous two weekends. This was partly why I doubted whether I'd finish. I also have to confess that I had felt some knee pain in the previous week and questioned my judgement about running at all. 

On my drive down to Eastbourne on Friday I wondered whether I should speak to the organisers and see if I could downgrade myself to the marathon distance. The fact that the marathon distance was also an option didn't help with my mental preparation to run 34 miles. I had a convenient get out clause dangling just before me. I could run the marathon instead of 34 miles and it would still qualify towards my goals for the year, i.e. to run 26 races of marathon distance or more. However, I had originally picked the ultra marathon because I thought it would also be good training towards the 119km TDS race in the summer. I'd been weighing up my options all day, but in the end went to bed Friday night resolved to have a go at the ultra as planned.

After a fairly sleepless night I drove to the start of the race at Birling Gap, just outside Eastbourne. The drive to the start brought home just how hilly this part of the country is, and my fears came flooding back. Birling Gap sits between two famous coastal landmarks; Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters, which would both feature in the run.

The event is organised by Endurancelife, and there were four distances on offer, all with different start times: the 34 mile ultra at 08:20, marathon at 09:00, half marathon at 10:30 and 10k at 11:30. The idea of the different start times is to ensure that people competing in each distance are all out on the course at the same time towards the end of their respective runs.The routes for each race varied slightly, and the ultra was made up of both the marathon and 10k race combined. During a race briefing we were told that at the end of the marathon distance we were free to abandon if we felt we couldn't complete the final 10k. You can see the various routes here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bx-hf2EWX3p7T2RWc1FVUjR5LWM/edit

If the hills on offer were not enough, the weather forecast for the day was also predicted to increase the level of difficulty, with an ever strengthening wind and scattered showers. Lining up at the start was very different to the bright sunshine and warmth experienced at the start of the two previous weekend runs. Most runners were wearing their waterproof jackets to protect them from the icy wind. 

The start of the ultra marathon.

At 8:20am we were set off to first tackle the Seven Sisters. The profile of the Seven Sisters doesn't look too bad, until you try to run over them in a strong headwind. I felt that I needed my jacket to protect me from the wind, but it was also acting like a sail and making running into the wind strenuous. The wind was also quite blustery, so one second I felt as if I had an invisible force pressing against my chest holding me back, then it would suddenly die down and I would lurch forward and almost topple over. I have never experienced wind like it whilst out on a run. By the time I had reached the fourth cliff top I decided I'd warmed enough to ditch my coat and to remove some of the drag factor. Removing my coat did make running over the final three cliffs easier. I wasn't carrying my camera on this run, but here are a couple of photos from Google, the first shows our view of the Seven Sisters, the second is one of the few photos I could find that show all seven white cliffs.

View of the Seven Sisters from near Birling Gap.

The Seven Sisters

We then headed inland and a few minutes later the sky darkened and then pelted us with hail which then turned into freezing rain. I wrapped up in my coat once more, but I still felt as if my body temperature was dropping. Thankfully we soon started to make the steady climb towards the highest point of the course at about mile 9.5. The effort of plodding uphill helped raise my body temperature again. At some point I drifted off slightly and found myself taking a wrong turn. I suddenly realised that I couldn't see anyone on the path ahead of me, so I turned back. I think this cost me about 10 minutes and added almost a mile.

Just before the climb we passed underneath one of the other notable land marks in the region, the chalk figure of the Long Man of Wilmington. The figure was once believed to either date from the neolithic or iron age period, but recent studies indicate it dates to either the 16th or 17th century.

Long Man of Wilmington

At about the 17 mile point on the marathon course we were joined by runners coming from a different direction who were running in the half marathon. The runners taking part in the ultra marathon had become very dispersed. I was glad to suddenly have a large pack of runners around me.

At 18.5 miles we were back at Birling Gap and heading eastwards along the coast away from the Seven Sisters and towards Beachy Head. Beachy Head is the highest chalk cliff in Britain, rising to 162m. It also has a dark history as the number one suicide spot in the UK. The approach to it's summit was certainly intimidating, but I wasn't quite ready to jump off. I was certainly feeling completely exhausted by this stage, and was often reduced to walking.

Beachy Head

I was passed by a steady trickle of half marathon runners, although I should add I was keeping up with many and overtaking a few. I was only aware of being passed by one marathon runner. It was easy to identify the half marathon runners. Marathon runners and ultra runners had to carry a mandatory kit list that included jacket, gloves, hat, foil blanket, first aid kit, some food and drink. This pretty much meant we had to have some sort of backpack. The half marathon runners and 10k runners didn't have to carry any of this kit, it was at their own discretion. Our race numbers also indicated which event we were doing. Every now and again a half marathon runner would run past, look at my number and wish me luck or say "well done".

We continued along the coast until we reached mile 22.5 overall. This was where we'd find the third checkpoint of the day and would then turn inland and then back towards Birling Gap. I was starting to seriously consider abandoning at the end of the marathon distance. I didn't know for sure but suspected that the race results would show a DNF (did not finish) next to my name, rather than giving me a marathon finishing time. This did plague me slightly. If I felt that I was running with an injury or liable to cause an injury then I would have no problems abandoning a race. But my earlier fears about my knee or general fatigue in my legs just hadn't come to anything. I really felt as if I was running well, but I still felt as if my head wasn't quite together. To get back to the race HQ and then head out again for another 10k was a daunting prospect. If the ultra event didn't go back to the start then I'm sure I would have been fine. But to have a hot cup of tea and my warm clothes within reach made it so very tempting to stop.

At about 24 miles I was joined by a particularly affable half marathon runner. He asked how I was doing, so I told him that I was struggling and thinking of calling it a day at the marathon distance. "You can't do that," he told me. "You look like you're running fine. I'm sure you can go the distance." This vote of confidence from a complete stranger was a real boost to my confidence. So much so that my pace almost instantly quickened and I left him behind before I'd had a chance to thank him. However, he caught me again at the next hill. He wasn't a fast runner, but he could run up hills that I had to walk up. "How you doing?" he asked me again. "Not bad, mate," I responded. "You're not thinking of giving up, are you?" he enquired. "We'll see," I said. "Come on now, you're doing great, you've got to carry on." His continued enthusiasm definitely raised my spirits.

At 26.5 miles (according to my GPS watch) I passed a sign saying 1 mile to go. This of course was for the 10k, half marathon and marathon runners, many of whom I was passing or at least keeping up with at this point. This was helped by the fact that the finish was mostly downhill. The finish straight had a left fork for the ultra runners, and everyone else turned right for the finish line. At this point there were far too many spectators around to even contemplate stopping. The shame would have been unbearable. So I carried on running. Just around the corner there was a table with large water containers for re-filling bottles. Three half marathon runners, who had obviously been finished for some time, were making use of the water containers but immediately stepped aside when they saw I was an ultra runner. They congratulated me and wished me luck for the rest of the race. Before I finished filling my bottle I was joined by two other ultra runners, a male and female. We left the water station together to tackle the final 10k.

The 10k course took us back towards the Severn Sisters, but this time we only had to go over the first three cliff tops. Just as well as the wind had increased in accordance with the weather forecast. I was still running with the two runners I'd met at the water station (I'll know their names when the results are published). In order to make any progress into the headwind the three of us were bent over double and plodding forwards. To my mind we must have looked like people bent over working in rice paddie fields. I don't have any photos, but we kind of looked like one of the trees that grow on these cliff tops, except we were bending into the wind.

A tree distorted by the winds on the Seven Sisters

As we turned away from the cliffs and slightly out of the wind I slowed to a walk to eat some banana loaf that I had been carrying. The other two runners then spread out in front of me, with the male leading. We then seemed to stay about 200m apart up until the long descent down to Birling Gap. It seemed that the guy in the lead wasn't as fast on the descents as the girl or myself. I could see that the girl was gaining on the male runner and I was gaining on the girl. The three of us were back together by the time we reached Birling Gap, and once again we headed eastwards towards Beachy Head.

The turnaround point for the 10k course was the top of Beachy Head. Endurancelife don't necessarily measure their courses accurately. Why make a course exactly 10k when adding a few hundred metres will take you to the top of a landmark? This is kind of their philosophy, as well as generally making the runs as challenging as possible. Me and my two running companions stayed together to the final checkpoint on Beachey Head. Up to this point we hadn't seen any other ultra runners on this part of the course. Between us we started to question whether we'd made a mistake and gone the wrong way, so it was a great relief to finally see the last checkpoint. It was then mostly downhill to the finish. I was amazed at how strong I felt. I left my two companions behind and overtook a steady trickle of marathon and half marathon runners over the last mile.

I have to end by saying that this was one event I was glad to have behind me. The scenery was spectacular, the conditions testing and the weather extreme. Given that I wasn't necessarily in the right place mentally both before and during the race, I felt both relieved and quite proud to have finished. I was very glad that I hadn't succumb to the temptation of stopping at the marathon distance. Although I could have argued that I had completed another marathon in this marathon year, I'm sure I would also have felt that I had failed. I believe that the experience from this run will help when I face tougher challenges later in the year, not least the 119km Sur les Traces des Ducs de  Savoie (that's TDS to you and me).