Beachy Head Marathon

Beachy Head Marathon

My first attempt at 26.2 miles 

Beachy Head Marathon takes place the last weekend in October every year and starts and finishes in Eastbourne. The route is 26.2 miles long and features 300 steps, 14 gates and over 1300m of elevation gain (that’s more than the height of Snowdon!) it is predominately off road, can get very muddy and starts as it means to go on with a very steep hill.

Now to a seasoned trail or mountain runner those figures may not seem like much but to a road runner living and training on the flat streets of Cardiff they seemed impossibly large. Yet I decided I wanted to complete Beachy Head as my first Marathon, so I signed up and paid my money. To a student the entry fee for a marathon is certainely a lot of money so it was a good incentive to train and train I did. I was up at 5am before uni and then running again in the evenings, I did fartlek, hill sprint, long runs, short runs but above all I concentrated on running fast and I loved it. Running fast along the dark streets of Cardiff and seeing the sun rise over Roath Lake is a great way to get rid of a hangover and wake yourself up however like a lot of inexperienced enthusiastic runners I overdid it and got injured, cue 6 months off from running. I was however very lucky because the injury happened after I raced Beachy Head and was most probably due to not resting quite as I should have!

Beachy Head Marathon is a great race with a brilliant course and great atmosphere, to this day it is my all-time favourite running race that I’ve competed in. It’s a tough course but the friendly volunteers and spectators really help you get through it as do the other runners and of course the stunning views, especially over the Seven Sisters.

I completed the 2016 edition of the Beachy Head Marathon in 4hrs and 16 seconds (don’t worry I broke the 4hr barrier in my second marathon) and it was my first attempt at a marathon distance race. But far more importantly than showing myself I could run a marathon Beachy Head showed me that running can be about more than pounding pavements with your head down and sprinting up the only hills around as fast as you can. Beachy Head taught me to enjoy running slower and take in the views. Now I live in the Brecon Beacons this is something I try and put into practice most days. Sometimes my best runs are when I leave the gps at home, don’t care about my times and just run to be outside, enjoy myself in the mountains and have time to think about everything and nothing.