Sweatshop Blog

Not too long ago we posted about Jack Guthrie and his South West Coast Path Challenge. As a quick recap, Jack set himself the seemingly impossible goal of running the entirety of the South West Coast Path (630 miles of rugged, coastal terrain) in the 30 days before his 70th birthday.

Jack set off on September 2nd of this year and completed his run on October 1st. As of the completion date he raised over £3,500 for Great Ormond Street Hospital and the donations are still pouring in. Most of the money was donated by individuals, many of whom he met and stopped to talk to while on his run.

Jack ran upwards of 20 miles most days and kept a detailed account of his progress every day, he notes that sitting down to write after a long, hard day on the trail was sometimes difficult, but he knew that sharing his reports online was important for people who had donated and wanted to follow his progress.

We asked Jack for a run down on the big things you’d need to think about taking on a challenge like this, namely:

• Training
• Weather
• Supplies (kit, nutrition, sleeping)
• Injuries

Training:

Jack tells us that his training prepared him well in general (see our previous post for a summary of what that was), but that you never know how something like this will play out until you do it. This is especially true since his training couldn’t very closely replicate the steep hills and crumbly, rocky terrain along the path, and running each day will a rucksuck containing over 10lbs of spare kit and nutrition wasn’t easy either.

Weather:

Jack notes that, perhaps unsurprisingly for coastal England in the autumn, the weather was very changeable. When he started his challenge he ran right into the remnants of Hurricane Irene, which meant gale force 8 winds that totally knocked him over on day 2; while he was on the top of a cliff next to the sea at that! It rained nearly every day of the run, but the overall weather gradually improved as he went along.

Supplies:

Jack carried basic supplies with him on each day of the run: things like small spare kit, nutrition, first aid supplies, a compass–which he notes was very important due to the fog–and his mobile phone. He had the support of his wife Pat along the route, which meant that he didn’t need to carry everything he’d need with him (changes of clothes, larger food items, tents, etc). Pat would drop him off on the path each day and pick him up at a pre-determined point. They slept in a caravan most nights, with a few stays with friends along the way.

Injuries:

Knowing that injury was a very real possibility, Jack did what he could to minimise the risk. Part of this ivolved training and part of it involved contacting various sports health professionals along the route prior to setting off to make sure he had access to help if he needed it. Jack had two major injuries along the path, a strained left achilles and a torn right quad muscle, both almost stopped him. Now, we’re certainly not advocating continuing a run with injuries like these: both are serious and both have the potential for long term consequences, but we asked Jack for his account of how he dealt with these injuries once he made the decision to keep running.

As we said, Jack had already made contact with several physiotherapists along the route and he saw four different physios over the course of the run. One came out at 8am on a Sunday in Penzance, Cornwall to treat his achilles problem, and another he saw in Plymouth taught Pat how to treat the injury on the road so that Jack could continue his run.

He notes the support of his wife Pat, who he says he could not have completed the run without. Along with treating his injured achilles and picking him up and dropping him off each day, Pat took care of all of the logistics of the run so that Jack wouldn’t have to worry about them. Comparing his run to a “life journey”, Jack says he spent a lot of time thinking about the kids of Great Ormond Street Hospital whose memory kept him going throughout the run.

Jack is still collecting donations for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, if you’re interested in helping him out you can find him on his Just Giving page. To read about Jack’s challenge in his own words, his final report on the race can be found below.

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“REFLECTIONS ON A COASTAL PATH JOURNEY

“There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,
The earth and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and freshness of a dream”.

Like a good Coast Path runner, I tripped over this quotation a few days before travelling down from Camberley to Minehead. It’s from Wordsworth’s “Ode on Intimations of Immortality” and in many ways it seems to capture the essence, the heart and soul of the forbidding Coast Path, particularly during periods of benign weather! It touches upon the wonder of the place and could probably serve as an anthem for St Ives with its “artists’ light”.Hence the attraction for me combined with the more prosaic challenge of the soaring, undulating cliffs, the fields, the beaches, the fishing villages and the skies, whatever their mood.

But although I was going to be prancing around the cliff tops like some demented idiot, all the while, uppermost in my mind, was the funding we might raise to help alleviate the stricken conditions of  Great Ormond Street’s Sick Children. And linked to this was the vital umbilical communication cord (courtesy of  Nokia and Orange) twixt Pat and me to keep us on the not-always-straight-and-sometimes-very-narrow.

The highs and lows of the enterprise were many and varied but although we thought we had planned meticulously for every contingency there were two which knocked us for six, i.e., weather and  injuries. And I mean the kind of injury which could easily have jeopardised the whole project.Our early days were severely hit by the tail-end of hurricane Irene; we had thunderstorms to contend with over Port Isaac (where someone must have upset Doc Martin again) and then there was the sea mist and fog over Peak Hill at Sidmouth. I couldn’t see the path, I couldn’t see the cliff edge. How scary was that? When I got my compass out even the sheep were asking for a bearing! As for running down the stepped paths, I had to forget it. They were as deadly as gin-traps. Every stride had to be carefully calibrated and every blast of wind anticipated. Yes, wind AND fog at the same time. Work that one out!

As for the injuries, you are probably as much acquainted with them as me, if you’ve been following the blog, and you can see how they gobbled up so much time (a) by their impact and (b) by the need to transport them across Cornwall and Devon to the physios who had no trouble in diagnosing the dreaded medical condition known technically as Achilles Knackeritis. How about the degree of difficulty for running the Coast Path? In crude terms, compared with a standard city marathon and being assisted by a back-up team of only one person, you could probably increase the difficulty and time by a factor of at least 50% to 75%.

On the positive side, when the sun had his hat on it was as if we were on a different planet, running to a new zippy rhythm (try spelling that at 11pm without a dictionary!) which put a spring in my step. The contrast between the gun metal grey, doom-laden skies and the dazzling, electrifying turquoise of the sunshine waves was astonishing.   Out came the local dog-walkers and after a few minutes discourse, out came the wallets too, for spontaneous giving. There were as many notes as there were autumn leaves. The the small, isolated  fishing villages of rugged Cornwall were so picturesque as to seem unreal but then some of the ports like megabusy Mevagissey and Portdoc Martin looked as though they had been hijacked by the militant wing of the local Tourist Board! Then there were the jolly ferrymen who took me across the high seas free, gratis and for nothing and the even jollier inn-keepers who took sufficient pity on a weary traveller as to provide me with their finest Coast Path ales, at no cost. So you see, it’s worthwhile training for a year and running 630 miles for a charity!

Then there were the many colourful characters I met all along the length of the Path who drew  long-lasting inspiration from their surroundings or simply enjoyed the relaxation of a leisurely stroll. They were from all walks of life (pun intended) and only too happy to immerse themselves  in a landscape of ever-changing shades and hues and to empathise with the prime purpose of my run and support the cause for Great Ormond Street Hospital with the most generous of donations.

But let’s bear in mind the fact that this path, the longest national trail in the UK, does not look after itself. We are extremely grateful to the South West Coast Path Association for all the work that their volunteers do to ensure that fortunate people like us, who are in good health, can enjoy the experience of walking/running this outstanding Path. To pursue your interest in the Path please log on to: http://www.southwestcoastpath.org.uk/ who can provide you with more information than you could throw a stick at. There’s geography, geology,history,ornthology, omnibusology, B&B-ology, souvenirology…..and more! The annnual guide is an absolute jewel packed with relevant and entertaining advice and is a must for serious walkers/runners. Join up today!

But the greatest joy for me was the final “sprint” along sunlit Studland Beach to be met by the running skallywag granddaughters, Maddie, 9 and Lucy, 8 (who immediately tried to coerce me into building sand- castles) and the kernel of close friends and relatives who, like all the bloggers and supporters who shared the North Downs and the Coastal Path with us, contributed so much in both material ways and in affection. I am also heavily indebted to those who supplied us with regular comments. When you’re trying to run through a force 8 gale, and the wind is clawing at your clothing on the cliff tops, horizontal rain almost blinding and you’ve lost your way in the fog and mist, it’s so comforting and reassuring when you know that someone actually cares! It seemed to be a journey shared and appreciated by all of us and for that we will always be so grateful to everyone, especially my fellow members of the Arena Leisure Centre, Camberley and all those who so selflessly provided us with accommodation for the duration. “We’re all in this together”, springs to mind!

But if you will excuse us, the front page photographer for the “Camberley News” now beckons together with the 5th local radio interview. Vanity? Well, yes. But anything to swell the coffers of G.O.S.H.  And, for the last time………… so to bed!

PS (from Pat)

We’ve now raised over £4000 for GOSH. This far exceeds our expectations and is just fantastic. Our enormous thanks to everyone who has helped in any way.  We’ll post final amounts on the just giving website after a few more weeks.

Some photos, just click here!”

Tags: Great Ormond Street Hospital, Jack Guthrie, Running News, South West Coast Path