We had an early start of 6.30am to get the team bus to Northumberland to do the Northumberland Coastal Run. This is a race I have planned to do but have always missed because of holidays. It's 14 miles of beach, cliff paths and a little bit of road taking in some of the best scenery found on a race. It starts at the village of Beadnell and ends up in Alnmouth. Around 800+ runners took part and the starting line is the width of the beach, with everyone trying to head to the shoreline which is the shortest route. The length of the race varies from year to year, depending on the tides, so you see markers saying 'around half way' or 'around 2 miles to go'. There were a couple of sights that impressed me. I had spent the first half mile running at the front of the race which gave me the spectacular view back of all 800+ runners heading up the beach (See photo courtesy of Stuart Hay). The second was more birds! There was a flock of seagulls by the dunes making a lot of noise. It turned out to be a colony of terns, including little terns and Artic terns. These birds are also very rare and their main threat is the sea and disturbance. I hope the runners didn't put them off too much!
Anyway the race was hard work because of the wet sand and a fairly strong head wind, plus my legs are still recovering from the athletics event the other week. I knew I wasn't going to get a really fast time so rather than injure myself again I took it easy and got 1:41.42 and in 104th place. Strangely enough there was another Richard Taylor running too. He only got 2;00 so I was pleased with that, although if he had beaten me i would have taken his credit. It's a race to do again and any runners out there should do it, but be warned the places go very quickly.
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