Pete's first marathon

Pete tries Round 4 of the Endurancelife Coastal Marathon Trail Running Series

Okay, so it is true that I have run several races longer than 26 miles, including the Mugu 50:50 (albeit without the second 50 – I’ll blame that on carrying too much weight), the OMM/KIMM Elite probably counts as longer, and then there was the Bob Graham round. But I have never raced over anything particularly close to the classic marathon, and it’s always nice to try something new.

As you can read elsewhere on these pages, my better half Jue is trying to knock off all seven of the Endurancelife Coastal Marathon series. Usually this involves me spending a nice quiet weekend at home with the little people, but this time thanks to my Mum, I could play too.

Inspired by reading “Born to Run” recently, I figured that I’d ignore the lack of suitably long runs and races in my training schedule, and just go for it. With the right mental attitude (and a history of blagging it in long races) I was sure I could push through. It was only 27.6 miles after all. Having learnt a long time ago (don’t ask how long) that starting slow-ish and eating and drinking well tends to pay off AND avoid unnecessary suffering, I could have made life easier for myself. But sometimes it’s good to take it to the limit, and then take things a bit further, and remind oneself just what it’s like.

I started the race behind three other runners. It was good to be out on a beautiful day with no cares in the world and lots of nice coastal path ahead. Enthusiastic, and only a little too fast at this stage, I moved into the lead. Only to find I had got a bit too carefree and missed a very obvious marker. Thanks for giving me a shout lads – I could have ended up anywhere!

As we got further down the coast and the trail got a bit more technical again I moved back into the lead, and with a bit of space behind me eased back to a more prudent pace. I had opted to travel light, with just an empty 250ml bottle in with the rest of the mandatory kit in my Race Elite 2 bum bag (I did try fitting everything into the back pocket on my Gore tights). By the time I got to mile 7.5 and the first drinks control, I was a teeny bit thirsty. Should at least have made that a full 250ml bottle Pete!

It was at this point that Rob Houghton appeared from nowhere, having no doubt started at a more even pace, and asked if I minded him joining me for a bit. It was good to be out for a nice run with some company, and amongst other things we soon discovered that we had both been born in Kingston hospital AND spent formative years (about two in my case) in the nearby London suburb of New Malden.

All was well until I somehow managed to get a gorse spine clean through both (generally bullet proof) layers of my Roclite 315s. I’m sure I couldn’t do it again if I tried. So having stopped briefly to pull the offending article out of my toe I worked harder to catch Rob again. This was probably a mistake, since (we admitted later) we were both already going for it, a little bit.

The second drink station was next to the Kingsbridge estuary - a beautiful spot just after a run through mature trees. And the sun was shining – what a day!

All was well until somewhere around mile 16 my wheels came off, and Rob’s didn’t. I was starting to pay for eating less than one Clif bar and making a late start on my hydration. Oh, and starting too fast, and then going too fast again from time to time. At this point I had two choices: ease off to a pace that wasn’t too uncomfortable and get caught by the other runners behind, or hang in desperately, try to run everything (albeit a bit slower) and hope to come good again…or reached the finish. Only 11 miles to go…

Lots of mental effort later, with my calves cramping up from time to time, I had made it to the last drinks point. It hadn’t been easy, but the amazing scenery and the sunshine helped a lot, along with a nice run along the board walk and along by the marshes near Slapton. I downed plenty more fluids, and grabbed a handful of jelly babies. Running along the flat trail by the road I carefully chewed one jelly baby after another, convinced that the finish was just ahead. But I had forgotten the sting in the tail: one last climb over the headland by Torcross.

As I pushed up the climb one step at a time I looked down and saw a vaguely familiar figure in black below me. A minute or so later having walked “a few steps” I turned around to find the same runner closing fast. Time to get going. I ran the rest of the climb and was happy to find my legs still knew how to descend the muddy steps back down to sea level. Not far to go now, and I put everything into the flat run to the finish, finishing a couple of minutes ahead of Vaughan Lindsay (the man in black) to take second, some sixteen minutes behind Rob who greeted me enthusiastically at the finish.

Thanks very much to the Endurancelife team for another great event, and to the other runners for helping to make it such a great day out.