From Nigel Illingworth…
I can’t remember exactly where I was when friends Pete and Maxine (experienced ultra runners) said, “Nigel, you should run an ultra, and we recommend Run to the Sea Bournemouth – it’s flat, on good surfaces, has generous cutoffs and it’s only 50km.” Before I knew it, I was entered, and the t-shirt was ordered.
Alarm bells started ringing when Maxine said she was busy running a whole 5km – twice – in Germany on some Parkrun tourism thing, but Pete was there in Bournemouth on Saturday to guide me, support me, and get me to the finish.
The initial worry was which of storms Humberto or Amy would hit first. In the end, the weather was OK apart from a blustery wind on the Bournemouth promenade and some horizontal rain showers coming off Poole Harbour. The south coast escaped the much worse weather in West Yorkshire that weekend. As Pete said, the high winds also blew all the tourists off the promenade, so there were fewer people to run around than in previous years.
It was a really enjoyable day. The first 25km featured a mixture of terrains: woods, trails, and towns, all very clearly signposted, with excellent guidance from marshals. Then about 15km ran alongside Poole Harbour, offering great views across to the posh houses of Sandbanks. We then turned left – with the tailwind – for the last 10km along the promenade to the finish near Christchurch. Aid stations every 10km or so broke things up nicely with some tasty snacks.
I ticked off my first ultra and learnt a lot about fuelling, various race tactics and what I could do over that longer distance. It’s a different mindset for this type of race. I was well within the cutoffs, though still a bit disappointed there was only one person behind me in the results. But then I realised there were only 556 finishers from an entry list of around 700, so I’m claiming the achievement: I did better than all those that couldn’t finish, couldn’t start, or couldn’t enter!