My "friend" (her status is currently vulnerable) sent me a link to the Atlantic Coast Challenge a good few months ago as a joke. At the time I goggled incredulously at the screen and binned the email before it could contaminate my lovely unhealthy inbox, but I wasn't able to stop thinking about it. In fact, I bored people rigid for a good couple of months dithering about whether I might be interested in doing it. It was like I was possessed by this race that I wasn't even interested in doing.
After going to Geneva for the weekend to watch friends racing the European Triathlon Union championships, however, I was entirely inspired. The age groupers racing the champs are amazing and they manage to fit in all the challenges of training around work and socialising, and I realised that if they could do it, there was a fighting - albeit probably losing - chance that I could also fit in training and actually do this thing. The final test, however, was to do a cliff-top run and see how I coped. After a fair amount of googling from the comfort of my sofa, I decided that Seaford to Eastbourne was just the ticket - about 21km along the coast over the Cuckold Mere, the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head. No matter that the furthest I've run this year was two 10 kilometre races over two of the flattest courses known to mankind (and they almost finished me off), I decided that this was the perfect distance and terrain for a test training run.
Getting to Seaford from London was at least super-easy - fast train to Brighton and then a slower train over to Seaford. I scarfed a Pret porridge on the train down to fuel up, and arrived in Seaford about 09:00. I was ready to run at 09:30, having popped to Morrisons for a nutritious Bounty Bar to take with me and - more crucially - found a loo. Seaford is super-cute, like a totally cliche'd British seaside town, complete with brightly colored huts and a broad promenade. However, it's a very very short way along the promenade before Cuckold Mere pops up, so by the time I'd stopped for a quick pic it was time to go straight up my first hill. I'd already decided that my strategy was to jog as far up the hills as far as I could, then walk the rest, and run the flats and downhills. That way I could try and conserve some energy, since I really didn't know how fast or far I could go.
The strategy worked well - helped out by fairly constant stops for photos, since the scenery was absolutely stunning. It's the most gorgeous piece of coast, and I was so lucky to have an absolutely stunning summer's day to do it on as well. I trotted over Cuckold Mere in fairly good time, and hit the pebbliest of pebble beaches at the bottom - I love pebble beaches but this was definitely an anklebreaker to run on!
There was also a stretch of water leading down to the sea with no massively obvious bridge over it, so with a bit of good old Kiwi ingenuity my shoes came off and I waded over the stream. It was not what you would call warm, this being Britain and all - but it was definitely refreshing!!
Once I'd navigated that, it was back to the
The Seven Sisters were AMAZING. They're so steep but they're rolling up and down so just as I felt that I couldn't go up any more, I'd hit the top and then have a lovely run down. I could use the momentum from the downhill to trot up the first bit of the next hill, then slowed to a walk to repeat the same pattern again. It seemed like hardly any time before I got to Birling Gap, a teeny tiny little village nestled at the foot of Beachy Head, the highest cliff I had to climb at all. This has a lovely cafe, which was the perfect pitstop for some new water and another loo break. After that, it was up Beachy Head!
Beachy Head is even lovelier than the rest of the Seven Sisters, partly because it's higher (I did not necessarily appreciate that at the time) and partly because you have the view back across the Seven Sisters to appreciate as you go. I was going a little more slowly by now, but I loved it up there and my Bounty Bar soon revived me.
After even more photos, I ran down the other side and found myself in Eastbourne, which felt unexpectedly quick. Eastbourne is like something out of a Miss Marple - so genteel. I am not sure I fitted in, what with my sweatsoaked hair and porn star breathing (Eastbourne is flat, so I ran rather than walked the last part), but I styled it out and headed to the station in time to get my train back to Seaford for lunch.
Seaford has some cute cafes and what I felt as though I really needed in my life was a celebratory burger and fries. Luckily I found a lovely hippie cafe which had the very thing which I ate while congratulating myself wildly ... not only on finishing the run, but also on managing to enjoy it! The consequence of all this was that I decided to sign up for sure, so the enjoyment might have been a bit of a pyrrhic victory!
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