Today was the first day of the Jurassic coast challenge.
The morning started with registration and kit check. It was good to see the kit check was actually being carried out as it often doesn’t happen, but then again I’d have liked to skip a few items to lighten the load. After that there was nearly a 2hour wait before the briefing and transport to the beginning, again I would have preferred to skip that too.
Starting from Charmouth we hit the first hill almost immediately and the hills carried on until we hit the Golden Cap where it was steeper. Downhill through Seatown and then back to rolling steep hills along the coast.
The first checkpoint was before West Bay after which there was another steep hill before hitting a pleasant flat section for maybe 3/4 of a mile. After a little longer it dropped down to run alongside the beginnings of Chesil Beach for a long flat section and checkpoint 2.
After checkpoint 2 we continued along a flat section of coast until Abbotsbury where we turned inland. The course now turned to fairly gentle rolling hills and continued like this through checkpoint 3 at Langton Herring right until the end at Ferry Bridge.
The weather throughout the run was hot, especially so for March in England, which isn’t, in my opinion good for running long distances. Unfortunately we can’t control the weather though.
For me the whole day was a hard slog and I only started to feel mor comfortable after 13 miles. Unfortunately towards the end my right hamstring started to hurt, nothing too bad but a worrying annoyance.
Tomorrow should be flatter, but we shall see.