Forrest's Run: Marathon # 1 - Jurassic Coast Challenge (part 1)!

What has happened with the weather....it's warm and sunny...this isn't right!! Drove from Bournemouth to the event headquarters at Wyke Regis near Portland. Everyone has to carry 13 items of mandatory kit covering warm and wet weather gear, compass, maps, torch, food plus enough liquid to get you between each of the 4 checkpoints each day and 3 times I changed my mind as to which backpack I was going to take...in the end the good old favorite Salomon one that had accompanied me on my Lands End / John O'Groats voyage won the battle. After having the kit checked and the necessary 'briefing', we piled into minibuses taking us to the start of the challenge...Charmouth. When we arrived, everyone dashed off for the last loo stop and when I came out, loads had already started running and were to be seen streamed out up the first mammoth hill not 20m from the start! This event is not so much a race but a challenge to get to the finish..in one piece, so walking is totally allowed (I didn't realise that Everest and the Himalayas had been moved to Dorset but I can definitely vouch that they have!!). After this shock introduction was the ascent of Golden Cap, the highest point on the Dorset south coast. Check point 1 was at Eypes Mouth where I was greeted with lots of sugary offerings. The event is chip timed and you needed to 'dib' the electronic device attached round your wrist at each checkpoint, the start and the finish in order to get an official time. After check point 1 it (sort of) leveled out a bit as we dropped down onto the shingle beaches.
Check point 2 was at West Bexington and here there was 'lunch' of cheese and pickle or tuna sandwiches...I chose the latter but couldn't stomach anything and ended up running with a very limp sandwich in my hands for the next 2 miles! At Abbotsbury we headed inland again, climbing around Chapel Hill before running through loads of fields and clambering over stone stiles to then skirt West and East Fleet . Check point 3 was at Langton Herring before continuing around the edge of the water before touring the MOD rifle ranges and arriving at the day's finish at Ferry Bridge.
Results were available really quickly and somehow (don't know how!) I came 19th overall, 6th female, in a time of 4.58...very pleased!
Total climbing for today was 3,987 feet and further than a marathon at 26.76 miles. As my quads and calves were complaining very loudly, I joined several others in the sea for 10 minutes ice-bath!
Although I knew I needed to eat, I couldn't face anything and only managed about 4 mouthfuls of noodles and a couple of spoonfuls of rice pudding....that wouldn't keep a mouse spinning on a wheel for 10 minutes let alone me going for another 26+ miles tomorrow....yikes!