Last year I walked 58 kilometres of the Jurassic Coast in blazing sunshine with my friend, sweating through sun cream and finishing just after midnight in a state of absolute exhaustion and elation. I came back this year because I made a joke at the finish line about same time next year, and then it turned out the joke was not a joke.
My sister and I decided to walk this year's ultra to raise money in memory of our dad, who sadly passed last year. Having something to focus on and getting outside just helps you process whatever might be going on in life.
The weather forecast changed four times in the week before. I checked it constantly, adjusting the kit list and clothing plan each time based on the best information available. None of it quite prepared us for what Saturday had in mind.
- Distance
- 59.54km
- Elevation gain
- 1,632m
- Time
- 15 hours 5 minutes
- Difficulty
- Challenging
If you're planning to do this event and want the full how-to, the participant guide to the Jurassic Coast Ultra Challenge covers everything from what to pack to what nobody warns you about. This is just the race report from a specific, spectacularly wet Saturday in May.
Why this year
My dad died last year. Before I quite had the words for it, I'd committed to a year of challenges in his memory. Pen y Fan in January, cold and icy and brutal in its own way. This in May. Fort William Four in the summer. Snowdon to close the year. All for Dementia UK, which supports the people quietly holding everything together while someone they love disappears piece by piece.
My sister signed up to do this one with me. She had already come up Pen y Fan in January so she knew exactly what kind of day we were dealing with. She trained properly, got the right kit, did the long walks.
Our team name was "To The Moon and Back." It was something our dad would say to us and we would say to him.
I told her it would take around 16 hours based on my previous time. I told her the views were extraordinary and the checkpoints were generous and somewhere around 40km her body would ask a question she wasn't expecting. I told her to eat the pot noodle at the 42km stop without hesitation.
What I did not tell her, because I genuinely didn't know, was what the weather had in store.
The morning and mum at the start line
We arrived at Nordern and, to our surprise, my mum was there at the start line.
She would have left home stupidly early to be there for 8am. She was smiling and a little apprehensive in the way that only a mother watching her children about to attempt something unreasonable can be. She had something to say about the weight of my sister's bag. She was right, as it turned out, but my sister carried it without complaint for fifteen hours so the last word remains hers.
Standing there at the start village with the inflatable T-Rex behind us and our mum in front of us and the Purbeck hills visible in the early morning light, it felt right. A proper send-off. The kind of moment that sits in your memory alongside the harder ones later in the day and reminds you what it is all for.
We were in the 8am wave. The briefing, the warm-up, the collective agreement to do something unreasonable. Then off.
The first hour was glorious. Genuinely. Blue sky, early morning sun on the Purbeck hills, the kind of light that makes every view look deliberately placed. We crossed the fields below Corfe Castle and it sat on its hill above us looking exactly as it always looks, which is to say extraordinary.
We were questioning why we had packed so many layers.
The opening miles
The route runs east from Corfe along the Purbeck ridge before dropping into Swanage. It is the section I know best from training and from last year, and it is the same ground as my Corfe, Swanage and Worth Matravers circular. Chalk and flint underfoot, views north over Poole Harbour, the sea to the south opening up as you gain height.
From the high ground above Corfe, Poole Harbour spread out to the north in the morning light with Brownsea Island sitting in the middle of it and the whole of the Isle of Purbeck laid out below. My sister stopped to look. This is the right response.
The pace settled naturally and we matched each other's stride comfortably for most of the day.
The descent toward Swanage is a long chalk track with the town visible below and the sea beyond. Other participants stretched out ahead and behind. There's something specific about looking down a track and seeing people moving in the same direction as far as you can see. We are all doing the same thing. That is enough.
RS1 Swanage
Swanage at around 11km. Some pastries and a coffee were welcome, just what we needed to prepare for the lengthier stretch ahead. The beach stretched out toward the Victorian pier in the grey light, empty and completely beautiful in its own way.
We were surprised again by mum on the seafront. After a brief chat we were on our way again, heading out along Priests Way and out of Swanage. There was some light rain along the seafront but nothing serious. We moved through and kept the momentum going.
RS2 and the weather arriving
RS2 came in at around 25km, back near Corfe after the coast path loops west and then inland. My mum had driven over to meet us there too.
She couldn't come into the participant area, so we collected our food, loaded our plates, and went and sat near the fence to have a chat with her through it. My sister and I eating wraps and crisps with my mum standing outside in the rain, which by this point had properly arrived. It was raining harder by the minute and we were getting cold sitting still. We had to leave her at that point. The second half needed us to be moving and warm, not stationary and damp.
The moment of leaving her standing there in the rain while we went back in to sort our kit for the second leg is one I keep coming back to. She had been there from early morning and all we had was a chat through a fence in the rain. She didn't complain.
We were beginning to understand why we had packed so many layers.
I had warned my sister there was a grim ascent out of RS2. I was not wrong. The path climbs steeply directly after the checkpoint, the kind of climb that arrives immediately after you've been sitting eating for half an hour, and it is not subtle about it. The rain was backing up by the time we reached the top, pushed sideways by a moderate wind coming in off the coast. Not savage. But committed.
After about thirty minutes it eased off. We pulled off the waterproofs and rain covers, not wanting to overheat on the climbs ahead.
The middle miles
This section, St Aldhelm's Head through Kimmeridge and on toward Lulworth, is where the event earns its name. The Jurassic part is the geology. The Ultra part is these headlands.
The yellow markers gave way as the day went on to pink reflective arrows and then later to glow sticks at the key turns. A small thing that becomes significant in the dark. We were not in the dark yet.
The 21km marker appeared tied to a hedge near a road junction.
We had done enough training to get well past this mark without too much trouble, including Pen y Fan in January, long New Forest loops around Brockenhurst and the Tall Trees Trail, and a rather awkward 40km training walk in Savernake Forest that turned into nearly 50km after sections were closed. The legs knew what they were doing.
Somewhere on the coast path between St Aldhelm's Head and Kimmeridge we got talking to a lovely group who told us all about travelling to Kilimanjaro, or Killi as they called it. They told us that even that wasn't as hard as the JCC because of the sheer endurance required. She had been to some extraordinary places and we listened to all of it, and our mid-January trip up a wet Welsh mountain felt quietly modest by comparison.
The views kept coming regardless of the sky. A green coastal valley somewhere above Kimmeridge where the path curves down toward a hidden bay and the whole scale of the coast opens up ahead of you, headlands receding into the distance and the sea below them and the path winding through as if someone drew it with their eyes closed and it still came out right. Even in the rain. Even at 35km. It stops you in your tracks.
Lulworth Cove appeared below on the descent. The near-perfect circle of it, the chalk and limestone enclosing the water, the open sea beyond. We both stopped for a moment without discussing it. Some things earn a stop regardless of what your legs think.
The clifftop path in the grey light had its own particular quality. Last year this section was golden. This year it was all grey and dark water and the kind of drama that only comes when the sky closes in on the Jurassic Coast.
RS3 at Daggers Gate
After Lulworth the route climbs away from the coast through fields on a long mild ascent to Daggers Gate. It is the kind of ascent that is not steep enough to force you to slow down but long enough to make you wish it was over. You follow it upward and keep expecting the gate and it keeps not being there. The 0.5km past the 42km marker felt like it went on forever. We were keen to stop and get ourselves sorted as the evening was closing in and the temperature dropping. It was almost 8pm.
RS3 at Daggers Gate. The 42.5km stop.
The pot noodle arrived. All the good flavours were gone and we were left with Beef and Tomato, arguably the worst of pot noodles. Even still it was warm and the salt hit exactly where it needed to. My sister agreed without reservation. We filled paper bags with as much pic n mix as they could hold. We changed socks. The Rab Cirrus went on under the Torrentshell. Head torches moved from the bottom of the pack to somewhere immediately accessible because we both knew there was not much daylight left. Mine is the Petzl NAO RL, one of my picks in the best hiking gadgets roundup, and the next few hours were exactly what I bought it for.
It was cold at this point. Properly cold, with a wind that had teeth to it. The decision to layer up here was not optional. The wind was blowing our kit around as we scrambled to make sense of what we needed for the next segment and what we could do without.
A friend met us at RS3 and brought a hot water bottle to soothe a few aches, as well as a few extra snacks. Small things that mean a lot at that point in a long day.
We were there for nearly an hour. Probably too long in all honesty but we needed the time and nothing was going quite as planned. Getting back up and walking out of that checkpoint was the hardest moment of the day. An hour stationary is enough for the muscles to begin having a very firm conversation about their intentions. We stood up. We started walking. Within a kilometre the medication had kicked in and the body had reluctantly agreed to continue.
Sixteen kilometres to go.
Durdle Door in the dark
Initially after RS3 the path is mostly downhill with some forest walking, relatively straightforward. The dark came in fast while we were in the trees and by the time we emerged the head torches were on properly and staying on.
Durdle Door appeared below us. The arch against the dark sky, the sound of the sea through it before the shape of it was visible in the beam of the torch, and then there it was: the limestone arch, the black water below, nobody else anywhere nearby.
Last year I saw it at dusk in warm light. This year I saw it in the dark in the rain. Both versions of it are worth having. In daylight, the arch and the headlands beyond it are the highlight of my Durdle Door circular walk; at 44km in the dark and rain, they were something else entirely.
Swyre Head, Bat's Head and White Nothe
I had forgotten what this section was like in the dark.
Last year we did it in the evening light with warm air and the sea catching the last of the sun and Weymouth visible ahead like a promise. This year the dark was complete and the rain had come back, driving sideways off the coast. Waterproofs back on.
After Durdle Door the route climbs immediately onto the three headlands. Swyre Head. Bat's Head. White Nothe. The names suggest three discrete features. The reality is a rollercoaster that does not acknowledge the concept of recovery between ascents. Up and then immediately down and then immediately up, on chalk paths in the dark and rain with the cliff edge somewhere to your left in the blackness. You cannot see the edge. You just know it is there, which turns out to be enough to make you walk with considerable care.
What you can see are the glow sticks.
The event team marks the route with pink reflective arrows throughout the day and in the dark these are reinforced by glow sticks at the key turns and pinch points. On the three headlands, in the dark, the glow sticks become your entire navigational world. You find one and walk to it and find the next one and walk to that.
When a glow stick is at eye level you are on the flat. When it is above you, you are climbing. When the next glow stick appears to be roughly level with an aeroplane, you are about to go up something significant.
There was a moment on the second headland, looking ahead at the trail of glow sticks going up and up and further up into what appeared to be a wall of darkness, when I turned to my sister and said: when I named us "To The Moon and Back" I didn't realise we'd actually be walking to the f***ing moon and back.
She laughed. It was that or cry. We chose to laugh and kept moving.
Swyre Head reaches around 150 metres. Bat's Head is chalk and fully exposed, the path running close to a cliff edge that falls sheer to the sea. White Nothe, at around 170 metres, is the longest of the three and it does not hurry. You climb steadily into the dark with each step, the glow sticks ahead, the rain on your waterproof, the sound of the waves below in the blackness.
We bunched up with other participants on these hills. Nobody spoke much. The mood had shifted from the good-natured banter of the early miles to something quieter and more focused. Heads down, one step at a time, eyes on the glow sticks. You overtake when you can. You get overtaken when someone has more in the tank than you. No one says anything about it. Everyone is in the same place.
There was no sunset this year. No golden light on the chalk. Just darkness and rain and the next glow stick and the one after that.
The last 10km
The last ten kilometres were rough.
The path runs partly inland after White Nothe and the terrain is gentler than the headland section. Your legs at 50km do not agree with the word gentler. We walked. We talked more than we had in the previous few hours. The glow sticks guided us through junctions in the dark.
The lights of Weymouth were visible in the far distance. Never shortening. The kind of view that is simultaneously encouraging and maddening because you can see where you are going and it does not appear to be getting any closer.
Steps appeared periodically. Up and down. After fifteen hours your legs are quite opinionated about unexpected steps and we gave them the appropriate response. We moaned at them. The steps were unmoved.
We came into Weymouth along the promenade. The 58km marker appeared on the seafront. The actual finish line is closer to 60km. I looked at it and thought: I have done what I said I would do. And then we kept walking because of course we did.
The finish
Weymouth. Just after 2am.
My mum had come to the finish line. She had been expecting us around 11pm based on my previous time. We were three hours late. She waited. She was there when we came through the finish arch, standing in the dark in Weymouth at gone 2 in the morning, having waited since before midnight, because that is what she does.
I didn't really have words at that point. Tiredness had overtaken everything. But to see her there was lovely and fitting. We stopped for a photo. We collected the medals and the t-shirts. Neither of us wanted the fizz. We wanted the coach and our drop bags and our beds.
The coach was leaving in five minutes. We got on it. We changed into dry socks and trainers on the way back to the car. We made it home at 4am.
Time was never the goal. Completion was the only objective and that is what we did.
My sister now knows, in a way that cannot be conveyed in words, what 58km of the Jurassic Coast feels like. She is the only person in my family who does. I am glad she was there.
What the Strava summary doesn't tell you
The card says 59.54km, 1,632 metres of elevation gain, 15 hours and 5 minutes.
It doesn't capture my mum standing outside a fence in the rain at RS2 so she could have a chat with her children through it. Or waiting for 3 hours in the middle of the night just to see us safely cross the line and finish.
It doesn't capture my sister, on her first ultra, looking at a wall of glow sticks going up into the darkness above Bat's Head and saying absolutely nothing and simply going.
It doesn't capture the little note my daughter left me on my lunchboxes on my training walks or the messages of support from my wife and family throughout the day.
It doesn't capture what it means to be out there doing this for someone who isn't here to see it.
We were hurting and tired. But we did it for him.
It's amazing how the human mind works and as soon as you are done, you ask that stupid question... So will I be back after all that? Will i put myself through all that again? You can bet your sore, bloody, black toe nails that I will. And next time i'm doing the 100km.
No more admiring the '100km Conti' bibs, it's time to get me one of them.
If you are thinking about entering the 58km, the participant guide is where to start. Drop me an email when you have finished and tell me how it went.
If you would like to support my fundraiser for Dementia UK it is at justgiving.com/page/jcc-2026. Anything helps.
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