Day 1 Jurassic Coast Challenge

Day 1: 4:44 and 5th place out of ~130.

A spectacular day along 26.6 miles of the Jurassic Coast from Lyme Regis to Chickerell, UK.

The weather was typical this time of year here - rain, sun, repeat. Winds in the 20mph range. I snaped some pictures from my iPhone when the sun came out. I don't normally run with gadgets, but this race actually requires that you carry a cell phone. Also required: 400ml fluids (duh), compass, flashlight with extra batteries, whistle, gloves, something warm in a waterproof ziplock bag, a "chocolate bar", notepad and pencil, and maps for the day. Sheesh. Fortunately everything fit in my Nathan pack quite comfortably.

I also opted to wear my Garmin Forerunner 205. I'm having some trouble getting the data out to motionbased.com but will add those details when I get that sorted out.

This is a tough course - much harder than I remember from last year. The overall elevation change doesn't tell the story here - these hills are super steep and require engaging some muscles that lesser grade hills don't reach. (Lesson learned.) I hammered the downhills and walked anything I couldn't see over. At one point I checked my pace on an uphill section: my Garmin showed 30+ min miles.

The course is really muddy this year too and my NB 790s were slipping a lot -uphill and downhill. I went down a couple times. Nearly lost a shoe in sucking mud twice. In some places today it was the sticky kind of mud that builds up on your shoes so it feels like you are running in high heels. I kept looking for rocks to knock it off. When we weren't in the mud we were often in cow pastures with hoof prints or along the beach in soft pebbly sand. I conveniently forgot about that from last year too.

I'm tired, but not too sore. Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings...