soulchaser

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The Portland Marathon was the 2nd in the 6/6 Challenge, and my first experience of off-road trail running. This is my account of a hellish double loop up down and around it's coastal paths.

 

The Portland Marathon was an intimate affair, with only 92 participants registered, and something like 65 finishing – no chance of getting lost in the crowd here. This small group gathered behind the start/finish banner next to Portland Bill Lighthouse, with the January sun breaking through the morning clouds and a brisk wind whipping spray onto the contestants, and set off to cheers from the few family and friends dedicated enough to show up.

 

No wave of euphoria here as hundreds of people lift you up with their support; just the cold realisation that for the next 26 miles you are alone, with the mental battle of keeping your legs moving up and down Dorset’s coastal cliffs, through the icy winter wind and, eventually, the searing, burning pain of the wall.

 

Having done no distance running since the Snowdon Marathon I was clueless as to how I would hold up. In the 3 months since irritating an injury in my left knee while running that first marathon, I had been for one run: 6 miles on a treadmill in my local gym, running at a cautious 6mph on a daringly hilly setting, just 4 days before my second marathon.

 

And yet I felt fitter than before, lighter and better prepared. I wasn’t carrying an ill-fitting and overloaded bum bag, and I had avoided the excessive carbo-loading I had indulged in leading up to Snowdon. I knew I had to curb my optimism, because I didn’t really know how tough this was going to be. Nevertheless, I found myself settling into a nice pace, energised by the sun, the scenery, and the wind on my back, and began fantasising about running a sub-4 hour race. I’d run the first half of Snowdon in 1 ½ hours, and the second half took me 4 hrs, so I clearly wasn’t learning my lessons, as I completed the first 6 miles in exactly an hour: a foolishly unsustainable pace for someone with no training behind them.

 

The course was a double loop of Portland Island, and to make matters worse the course was a sort of Jekyll and Hyde, with a gentle, kind and forgiving first half, followed by an evil twin run into the wind, up never-ending hills, and up and down rollercoaster cliff tracks that a mountain goat would have walked along. This half was a killer, physically and psychologically. By the end of it I was spent, just half way through and utterly exhausted, with the cruel knowledge of exactly what was to come for the next 12 miles.

 

My watch had stopped working by this point, but it turns out I had finished the first lap in 2hrs 16mins, a time that would have lifted my spirits enormously. As it was I assumed I was lagging way behind. I was struggling along the flats, finding it impossible to get into a breathing rhythm, and I began chugging down sports drinks that were being offered at the sparse refuelling stations, desperate to energise myself.

 

The rest of the race was an ugly battle of will. I felt as though I was pushing myself through the last mile of the race for the entire second half. It’s incredibly difficult to keep going when you know you have such a long way left to go. I was 20 minutes slower on the 6 / 19 mile marker, but my knee was holding up well, and that was the most important thing for me: to get round without injury.

 

For the whole second lap I didn’t pass a single person. I was broken by the course, and was simply moving forward as best I could. There was no fight left in me, only a sort of limp-limbed momentum. It was as if I was falling over for the last 6 miles, but each time I managed to get a leg underneath me to delay the fall for another step.

 

In this fashion I navigated the goat tracks of the second half, head down, missing the wonderful coastal panoramas. I set a goal to beat my Snowdon time (5hrs 38mins), which quickly changed to beating 6 hours, which later changed to beating my friend’s marathon time of 6 ½ hours.

 

With no watch the fact that I assumed I was taking so long betrays my gloom, but when I caught sight of the finish line, and crossed it in a wobbly sprint, I was told I had taken an hour less than I had guessed: 5hrs 28mins 44secs - 10 whole minutes faster than my time round Snowdon.

 

Now I know I can run 26 miles without training, the challenge that remains is to run 4 more by April, and faster.

 

 

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