Beachy Head Marathon 2023 – the wet one!

21st October 2023. Come with me on one of the UK’s most popular trail marathons: The Beachy Head Marathon. with its amazing scenery, and punishing climbs with 1,100m of ascent.

I did it last year as my first marathon and the weather was lovely – this year, as my third marathon, it was not so kind! Thank goodness for the support from my friends at ‘Royston Runners’, and my Harrier Exmoor jacket!

We go from Eastbourne to Jevington, Lullington and Alfriston, then follow the South Downs Way round to Litlington and Exceat before experiencing the Seven Sisters to Birling Gap, and returning along the dramatic coast!

I’m a middle-aged, leisure runner who enjoys the countryside – why not come along with me as I explore new places and find out about them?

Feel free to follow me on Strava? https://www.strava.com/athletes/julian_berry
Original music by https://www.gamimusic.com
Exmoor Jacket and Kinder 10 litre running pack from Harrier Trail Running https://harrierrunfree.co.uk/

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Hello thank you so much for joining me today you find me on the beautiful South Coast Resort of East born well it was sunny yesterday for part of it but it certainly isn’t today so the weather forecast I’ve just had a look at the BBC weather app and it’s not very

Encouraging I’m really looking forward to it there’s a whole crowd of Royston Runners here I’ve been uming and aring and being completely indecisive whether to just run in a vest or a long sleeve Bas layer or whether to start with a hat on but you know my experience with hat in the

Wind so today I’ve made a final decision as I’ve dropped my bag off that I’m going to wear my Royston Runners vest my Harrier jacket and we’re going to see what we can do so why not come with me on the Journey chucked to bits isn’t it amazing Buns of Steel liver transplant sand One of the most popular Trail marathons in the country and we’ll see why as we go around I’ve split it into about six different sections so this first bit is 3 miles of uphill and uh as you can see it looks magnificent as they stream away across the countryside mostly behind

Us hopefully you can hear a word I’m saying the next excuse me in top of this hill and then we’ve got four miles of down up down up nice down a mile mile down mile up let’s see how we get on I know I’m going to have to walk lots

Of the UPS so this is the first down and we’re running at about 9 minute mile pace which considering the first mile was 17 minutes kind of putting in perspective that I want to get a few of these in under my peace of mind get my head going

In a good space also just to keep the average time up as long as I don’t face plant on difficult Terrain Time put on the back of the medle the teeth embedded in it what did you lose my teeth personal best two in sizes and Aola 6 and 1 half miles lullington Heath don’t speak now there may be Sunshine through a cloud over there thanks Marshall I think you’ve got the hard job today standing out in this I don’t know if you can see it but over there at the top of that Hill you

Can see all the runners going to way across the top there and we’ll be there in about half an hour’s time I should think the these are the times when you find out what you’re made of the water’s running down my legs into my shoes now but nobody’s looking very

Happy there you got amazing view again can’t what it’s called I’ll write I’ll write it up on the on the screen I can’t remember but there’s a lot of Bronze Age and Stone Age activity in these parts and plenty down there as well I don’t think we’re I don’t think

We’re going to get to see it I think it’s just over the back here there’s a a CH carving called the long man of Wilmington long man of Wilmington actually looks just like Runner with P holes so kind of quite a really we’re now getting the full force of the wind beautiful

View across East Sussex and a wonderful wield and downland of this part of the world the next section is a log down log down and enough across that across that top that we saw people running not long ago that there’s there’s one of those tumuli so a burial mound of between

Three and seven ,000 years ago at least this wind’s drying out me Po check but number two 8.8 miles and uh half a banana we should just come down now a little bit of Road section then into Al Preston Village where there’s a PB I want to tell you

About the river looks quite full didn’t it so this is the village of alfriston and we’re going to hopefully see the star Pub I’ll tell you all about that when we get there thanks everybody C this Pub up here on the right is called the star and it’s owned by the

Lovely Alex pitzi restaurant and TV’s hotel inspector and somewhere on it there a red lion which is an old ship’s Figure Head which HKS back to a time when that Pub was frequented by smugglers in the early very early 1800 s but I should say that the captain of

That smuggling game was captured and sent to Australia in 1830 uphill from here about 10 and 1/2 miles nearly 15 to go we’ve rejoined the South Downs Way and this is kind of the next half we’ve got a steep uphill as you can see and then we’re going to get back up

Onto the tops and enjoy the wind again and hopefully the views You can see these tul ey tumul ey all around us magnes and Views over East Sussex and way sorry I think we just coming down to the next checkpoint which is about 12 miles o perfect so this next section 12 to 15 miles is primarily plack trails and it’s flat or slightly

Downhill is certainly compared to what we’ve done already and that then it’ll take us down to I think the next checkpoint is about 17 miles and that’s when it gets exciting because from 16 17 miles is when the terrain gets tricky as far as I’m concerned I’m going to get feet we’re going to just drying out a bit dry yes oh my God yeah this is a scratchy bit lots of wet Feet Again 15 mil 3 and 1/ half hours Snickers no more to say and in 10 minutes later the sun’s

Out so nearly 16 miles that’s the cook river that we crossed to alron I think with a swamp on it but now at the to the bottom of this is when it starts to get interesting 16.6 checkpoint get some water here we go these are the easy Steps and now the hard steps where they tell me there’s a view to die for when we get to the top there we go lots of bad and that’s that’s why we do it there is that view cook me a river going out to the English

Channel and the only way you can see that view is to walk it or run it or hike it and we did it and we are 18 .2 mil in let’s have a little run down the hill shall we I remember walking all this bit last time but let’s see how we go

And now back down again and when we get to the bottom we’re going to go all the way up all the way up to the top of the Cliffs yeah clear had quite a lot of rain down here see the cook me river behind me looks like we got more rain coming in there it’s just drizzling a bit at the moment and basically basically we’ve got ups and then downs and the comps is called brows and these troughs are called

Bottoms which as a pural teenager at heart it just makes me laugh every time I run through something that’s called flat bottom for example so plenty of chances to titter later on and still it goes up views this channel looks like the sun’s over there but only the rain there

And this is the start of the Seven Sisters this was Haven Brown I think this is lime kill in botom heading up to Lime Kil brow and then we’ve got r the wind is swirling around quite a lot so I’m expecting that rain shower over there to lashes quite shortly so I’ll

Tell you before it arriv that we’re about to do G Gap bottom flag star bottom and then flat bottom and that should be all about all the bottoms I can handle that looks a steep one still go that 5 and 1/ half hours about 4 miles to go maybe 4 and a

Half I’m into the jelly babies rich I keep for this time cuz they’re full of instant energy and they’ve got a lot of feel-good factor about them so I’m rewarding myself with jelly babies every time we go up and up this is the bit they call Berling Gap bit of

Flooding lot of water on the road welcome thank you doing amazing so we the 7 is done we got this last stretch which I think I’ve got a graphic which is uh B flat and then we’ve got fairly long grind up which takes us right back up to the top of

Where the bag Piper was and then the Finish is that final run down the hill that we all walked up right at the beginning but we’re at 23 mil 5 and 3/4 hours so it’s going to be a 6 and a half hour session which is kind of what I thought

But it’ll be fine there you go right I’m going to run on see you later bye thank you there we go lovely support from Royston Runners smashing Lighthouse behind me thank you great job well done and now we’ve got the last up down to go

Which is that one and then we then we begin the final run thanks Marshall thank you so yeah here we go There 23.8 mil you fac with that does make your heart sink a little bit wonder if I’ve got a magic jelly baby that we could try so see at the Top is he spawn over there downhill Now it’s pretty slippery I’ll tell you that thank you mate yeah thank You here we go we Go number 1085 thank you conratulations standing out in the r for us it for the world oh there we go that’s what it was all for 63526 so slower than last year conditions were harder than last year so say it’s about 10 minutes 9 minutes slower than last year well do you know

What I think that’s fair cuz it was harder personally I felt better mentally down physically and I felt that I ran more than I did last year so that’s quite interesting but uh right now let’s get some dry clothes bit of hot food see if we can cheer anybody else Home