Dorset – Girl Running Crazy

It probably won’t surprise you that the thought of a DNS next to my name horrifies me. It doesn’t really matter what the reason is, or how sensible it might be, I don’t cope well with the mental anguish of feeling like I failed before I’ve even started. When I woke up on Saturday I felt dizzy, sick and completely drained, but, worse than the thought of dragging my arse out of bed and into the gale force winds, was the thought of a DNS, I couldn’t be a DNS in the motherland.

Saturday was the Dorset CTS, one of the races in the Endurance Life Coastal Trail Series. There are 10 in total around the country, but Dorset is only one of 2 labelled ‘extreme’, meaning it’s utterly brutal on the heart, lungs, legs and, potentially, the soul. Dorset also happens to be my home county, and World Heritage site Lulworth, on the Jurassic Coast, is one of the most stunning locations in the UK.

Durdle Door on a sunny day!

Home to both Lulworth Cove, a remarkable landform that attracts swarms of tourists, and Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch that juts out in the sea, as well as rolling hills, coastal walks and cosy pubs, it’s a trail lovers dream. As you know, I’m undecided on my love of the trails, but I do love Lulworth, Chaser weekends away and cosy pubs!

There are 4 choices of distance, a 10k, 16 miles (they call this a half), full marathon, 33 miles and a whopping 45 miles for the clinically insane (Russ did this one last year…) I had entered the half but, having not run for 3 weeks due to a calf injury, I wasn’t sure how that would go…

I headed down with the usual suspects, Frankie, Albro, Russell and Lorraine, and the train journey was full of the usual banter, G&Ts and crisps. Russ thoughtfully broke out the Scorpion Chilli Death Chocolate because, well, what else would you eat before an extreme trail race?

On arrival in Wool, we dutifully headed to the pub to disturb the locals on a quiet Friday afternoon. Frankie was running the marathon the next day but was still successfully sinking an impressive amount of beer! However, after a pub dinner with the rest of the Chaser crew I started to feel really sick…

I’ll hold my hands up and say the alcohol probably didn’t help, but it usually takes a lot more than that to make me sick, and it certainly doesn’t make me shiver. I sadly took myself home to bed whilst the others stayed in the pub of many ciders.

The next morning I truly felt dreadful and had zero energy, I had barely slept all night and could only manage a cup of tea and half a slice of toast. I made a sensible decision to downgrade from the 16 miles to the 10k. It’s one thing to push yourself through a few miles but 16 is actually quite a long way, the winds were crazy and the course was tough, as much as it hurt, 10k was more than enough today.

Heading down to the start I realised just how windy it was, apparently the winds were up to 50+ mph when you got up to the exposed areas along the front. I had made the right choice. It was easy to downgrade at registration and, unsurprisingly, I wasn’t the only one and bumped into a fair few other Chasers doing the same!

I met Mum and Dad who had come along for spectating duties and we watched the start of the half, the Ultra and Marathon had already started so Cat and Frankie were long gone. I spotted Chris at about 12 miles in his 33 mile race looking, err, windswept, but strong!

The 10k got started after a race briefing at at 11.30 and the course took us straight up a stoney hill of steps, I started off jogging but quickly dropped to a walk, as did everyone else. It got windier and windier as we reached the top and I spotted Albro, Russell and Claire taking photos, not sure how they didn’t get blown away…

At the top the view opened up over the sea and Durdle Door and you could see the hills that were to come! The first 3 miles is made up of 4 hills but, although the descents are more than runable (even for me!) it was a real struggle against the winds and you had to throw a lot of force into carrying yourself forwards.

On one descent down towards the sea, the wind was so strong it was blowing all the gravel straight into my face, I couldn’t see but, hey, free facial?! The battle against the wind became comically funny as it literally blew you across the course, I was too scared to take any photos in case my phone blew away!

At the 3 mile point, the course turned around and headed back on a pretty much continual slow descent. Slightly more inland than the completely exposed front, and with the wind behind us, it became much easier to actually run, in fact, it became pretty much impossible to walk as the wind threw you forward. We ran through a caravan park and onto the final descent down to the finish line, it was quite steep in places which was a hairy experience in the wind!

I got a big cheer as I rounded to the finish line and was really pleased to have finished my first run in 3 weeks, albeit with a slightly sore calf and out of control hair!

The folks were glad I dragged them out on a blustery day!

I was a little sad I hadn’t been able to do the 16 miler, but I really don’t think I would have got through it and there’s always next year right?! We had the usual Chaser success with a win in the half and numerous top 10 finishes as well as Chris facing his previous Dorset CTS demons with an impressive 11th paces in the 33 mile ultra!

In the evening nearly 40 of us descended on a wonderful little pub in Wool for celebrations, unfortunately I was still feeling a little under the weather so I missed the after party but I heard it was a success!

Dorset CTS is a fantastic event, it really is worth it for the views alone, it’s a beautiful place. If you get the chance to go I would definitely recommend it, just don’t underestimate the challenge, it’s a tough course so choose your distance wisely!

The next day a few of us attempted a cultural day out with a trip to Lulworth Castle, which we did, but Frankie, Albro, Russ and I accidentally ended up spending the next 12 hours in the pub. In our defense, it was a really, really great pub…

A summary of important run-related learnings

It’s probably best to avoid alcohol the day before a 16 mile extreme trail race
It’s probably best to avoid Albro, Russ & Frankie the day before a 16 mile extreme trail race
It’s wise to eat 3 proper meals before an event
It is not wise to sub one of those meals for G&T and Scorpion Death Chilli Chocolate
Beautiful locations make even the toughest runs worth it
You should laugh hysterically in the face of 50 mph winds as you scramble up and down hills
It doesn’t count as falling over if the wind knocks you off your feet
You cannot walk with stormy winds in your back, you can only fly
Chaser support is rivaled by nothing

A summary of non run-related learnings (bonus life lessons if you will)

If you spend 12 hours in the same pub, you will name the barman Bubble Butt and he will let you choose the music
When Albro is choosing the music everything gets a little bit punk and a little bit weird
When the bar closes at 10.30 but you’re still there at 12.30 Bubble Butt will drive you home
In fact, he will insist on it…
And let you take another drink for the journey
And give you half a pint of milk for your morning cuppa because there are no shops open in Lulworth, ever
And let you keep the best pint glass in the world with a dinosaur etched on it
Bubble Butt is the best barman in Dorset

It was Saturday night. As I was stuffing my face with more than my fair share of Heroes & Celebrations my brother turned to me and said “that won’t do you much good if you’re running a 10k tomorrow will it?!”

My brother has never talked much sense so I ignored him and carried on (I would like to point out he was also stuffing his face with them despite planning an early bike ride…)

I was down in Dorset for the weekend and had been looking for a local 10k. I usually run the Poole 10k in June but after they dropped the chip timing last year I dropped them from my race calendar. It’s laughable when they say ‘over recent years the Poole Festival of Running has grown in size and importance and now ranks as one of the most significant road running events in the South of England’ Pah!!! This is a 10k that starts at 2pm in the Summer (where it is often too hot to run well), the finishers t-shirt made of cotton so you can’t even run in it, the small is far to big anyway, and now it isn’t even chipped!

It makes me sad as the Poole 10k was my first ever 10k and I’ve run it every year since 2003 (bar 2004) but I think it’s days are over.

Anyway, the Kingston Lacy 10k caught my attention when I was scouring the Runners World website. Kingston Lacy is an old country mansion set in pretty gardens so I knew there would be a stunning backdrop, and it was chipped, perfect! I have another 10k in the diary 2 weeks later which is a flat & fast route so I didn’t want to push myself, just enjoy it. I didn’t realise at the time but the 10k was part of a ‘running festival’ including a half marathon, 5k and kids fun run. I was only looking for a 10k but this didn’t stop me feeling a bit guilty for not running the half…

The route was lovely, I wasn’t pushing myself, as promised, and I was really enjoying running somewhere different with some country air. It was quite twisty so I couldn’t really see everyone who was ahead of me but the runners I could see were all men. I started to wonder how many women were ahead of me, surely I’ll be in the top 10, maybe even top 5?!

At about 5.5k a women in an orange top overtook me. I thought about keeping up with her as she wasn’t running that fast, but I had promised myself I would take it easy and so I relaxed and carried on enjoying the run. There were hills, there were trails and, in the last 2k there was grass that went up to my calf (clearly National Trust membership fees don’t go towards gardening…) I was a bit concerned about twisting my ankle as the grass was really long and I couldn’t see anything so I slowed down and started to resemble a bunny rather than a runner what with all the hopping around. I could still see orange-top-woman just ahead of me but a quick glance behind showed there was no one on my tail so I carried on taking it easy, I wasn’t on for a PB so, as long as I retained whatever position I was in, I wasn’t bothered.

Rounding towards the finish people were clapping and I saw Mum & Dad in the crowd, then I was over the finish line. They had a chip system I haven’t seen before which involved plugging the chip into a machine at the finish, I was a bit thrown by this so my official finish time of 48.24 was 6 seconds slower than my Garmin of 48.18 but as it was no where near my PB it didn’t really matter.

I got my medal and went to look at the results, I could only see one other woman on the list before me. Had I come 2nd?! Surely not, not with that time? Turns out orange-top-woman had won, just 28 seconds ahead of me, and I was the second female!!

We then had to wait around so I could receive my trophy, this was new and exciting, lucky the sun was shining! There was a little presentation and they gave out all the trophies, I had a trophy!!!

If I had just pushed ahead I would have also won a pair of trainers….damn it!