Jurassic Coast Challenge
19/04/2010
Jurassic Coast Challenge
Ultra running seems to be a popular past time amongst some of Newport and District Running Club as four of them recently took on the major challenge of running three marathons in three days for the Jurassic Coast Challenge.
Over 170 people took part in this mammoth event which took runners from Lyme Regis, eventually finishing three days later at Studlands, having stopped off at Chesil Beach at the end of day one, and Lulworth Cove at the end of day two.
The terrain was very mixed along the route, with many hills and some mud along the way, with sections of narrow footpaths near the cliff edge, beaches and some roads and pavements.
John Lewis and Nick Cooper ran together each day and the company seemed to keep up their enthusiasm as they finished well up the field, finishing 20th and 31st respectively in the same total time for the three days of 15hr 32min. A tremendous effort to keep up the pace consistently for that amount of time.
Rachel Bright should also have had a partner to run with, but they pulled out only two days before the event so she had to run solo, but this did not seem to deter her and her mental strength and fitness kept her going all the way to the finish line to be 54th overall, 5th lady and a time of 17hr 18min.
Andrew Kay’s preparation had not been ideal due to some illness, but he still did very well to keep going and would not give up, and he finished in 96th position in 19hrs 27min.
After all that effort, the runners might be forgiven for just wanting to have a rest, but it is rumoured that they are already planning to take on the similar challenge of the Atlantic Coast race later in the year.
