Tarka Trail Marathon - #27 Moor Running? and Coastal ups and downs

Today was EPIC! The capitals do it justice. The route showed promise, the idea of starting high and ending low was great but felt a bit of a cheat marathon. However what it lacked in total altitude gain it made up for in total metres of ascent.

This weighed in at 1728m! So JC and I got dropped off at the start high on Exmoor just outside and East of the lovely village of Brayford.

From there we headed up on top of the Moor. It turns out however that this trail is not so much of a trail in part of Devon and more of a faint indistinguishable boggy sheep track (in the best bits).

This made slow going and in places quite deep going so we were behind on our timings. As the Moor plateau came to an end at about 13k we started to descend and picked up a decent runnable trail which we followed all the way to the road crossing with the A39 at Hillsford Bridge.

After a lack of signs and few errors we headed up through Myrtleberry Cleave getting great views over Watersmeet before dropping into Lyn Cleave and Lynmouth.

Here we entered into the second part of the journey and picked up the coastal path which we followed all the way to Coombe Martin.

To get to it you start by ascending out of Lynmouth to promptly be sent all the way back down into the coastal car park. Here it was raining and so we were keen to get back on a trail and under the trees.

It was a brief climb but one that brought us out onto dramatic scenery and great varied running with the odd detour due to the changing nature of the Coastline and some intense uphills! First of note about from the path shoved into the side of a steep cliff was the Castle Rock.

We were tempted to go up it and did start but 3/4 of the way up sacked it off and came back down to concentrate on the matter in hand. A wise decision and here we jogged on road for a ball ache section down the toll road past Lee Abbey. In the valley we were met by an inviting lady from the little cafe who asked us in for a break, but even though everything in our bodies was trying to take up this offer at 28k of up and downs I didn't think we would leave! Next up was Crock Point where there had been a massive land slide and so a really slow detour redirected us back up onto the road which we followed for the next mile or so. Next up was joining the steep sided coastal path again before rounding the corner and dropping down into Heddon Valley.

After a brief pit stop I was following JC down about 100 yards behind and was met with moans and groans when he realised that we had 8 miles to go and not the promised 8k that I had told him.

Oops, but to be fair, the detours and altered signage were not on my OS map when I worked out the route! Just after this my GPS cut out and whilst I had started my phone GPS that didn't record either. Blooming technology.

Still round the corner and one last decent until the final climb up to Great Hangman. I defy anyone to run up here!

Well run up faster than you can walk it. I'm not sure whether it was the steep quad breaker descent or the fact that we had completed our hardcore trail marathon distance or a probable combo, but the minute the gradient kicked up on the initially very steep climb my legs went to jelly. About halfway up the gradient eases and we were ready to go again. Once at the summit it seemed mandatory to climb the cairne to point the direction home. The Great Hangman has the acclaim of being the highest sea cliff in England.

Only one way to go now. DOWN! There is something quite special about making that last brow of the hill on a long run and then knowing that gravity will bring you home. This descent gave an opportunity to enjoy the last almost 4k.

The descent goes past the Little Hangman and then the great sounding Wild Pear Beach on the way back into Coombe Martin. One thing that is noticeable about this route is that the paths and signage started as being non-existent and luckily as we got tired and with the patience running short things improved.

 Maybe we should have gone the other way! I wonder if there's time to another one from the other direction before we have to go home?

Shoe Choice: Freet 5.1 Muddy
Stats. Distance: 47.5 km  Elevation: 1.26 km  Total Dist: ?? km  Total Elevation: ?? km