The Grizzly 2025
The Grizzly
The Grizzly is like a weather magnet event, which attracts people from all over Europe for its uniquely English appeal. Except, being situated on the wrong side of Spring, it isn't the weather people are coming for.
There aren’t many trail races which can reach as far as Sweden, Norway, France and Spain for their gene pool. It’s a large community within a community, which sends ripples beyond the ochre-red clay of East Devon and the Jurassic Coast beyond.
It neither feels insular, parochial or niche. It feels open minded, generous-spirited, proud and alive and is also the reason I’m so reluctant to hang up my running shoes. And it’s why so many people are willing to climb out of their comfort zones in search of some intrinsic motivation, which will get them to the start line.
Liminal space
For me The Grizzly is like a liminal space, where you can be whatever type of runner you want to be. The mixed terrain ensures you cannot be a mono surface athlete gunning for a time. In the past, the marshals, the prayer flags and the musicians ensured you coudn’t go inward on yourself for long, however deep you need to dig. I hope it can hold on to these elements.
There’s something about this kind of event, which brings out the best of the British character. Forget warm beer and cricket. To me the Grizzly is a celebration of latent optimism, a refusal to give in and a slightly cultivated eccentricity. Then there is the impressive support. This included the residents who sat I their gardens and clapped, the residents who held out tubs of sweet things and the creativity which went into the Buddhist shrine with flags.
The barrel chested, the pipe cleaner, the pidgeon toed, all emerge from a long winter’s hibernation for the main event.
Tilting towards windmills, we run, stumble and walk in wilderbeest-like herds across the mile-long stretch of beach before being forced to readjust to the now alien concept of tarmac. Then up the circuitous climb to the cliffs above. Before descending back down to Branscombe beach.
After halfway, it is a struggle to keep admiring the views as your inner suffering vies for attention with your sense of aesthetics. The kaito drummers, bagpipers and the marshals dressed as Queen Victoria, become more incidental. The notorious bog, just after halfway, becomes a gloopy hell to tail end runners who, bent forward, need to pick their knees up to their ears to make any kind of progress.
Loose the need to choose you shoes!
Runners do fret and faff about their choice of shoes. And never more so than at The Grizz, knowing that they may well loose a canoe or two in the infamous bog. ‘Save my souls’ you can almost hear runners think.
Far be it for me to offer advice on this subjective subject. But let’s try! Your shoes will choose you. This depends entirely on the recent weather forecast, as well as on the day. Last year was the slippiest and muddiest in recent memory, not because the weather was bad on the day but because the ground water level was so high due to recent rain. People who wore aggressive studs or fell type shoes, were rewarded for their choice.
This year, it was the opposite. Trail shoes with minimal grip were good enough, depending on your leg strength and balance. The shoes I wore, Adidas Terrex Agravic Speed Ultra Trail, are the best trail shoes I’ve ever worn for overall grip, cushion and propulsion. So the shoes chose me.
Don’t always train alone
The rapport of the Grizzly is something you can’t easily replicate. Even at the front, where I found myself after the first three miles were done, you aren’t a lone wolf.
I managed to keep going to the end, to win my sixth Grizzly, which I was determined to do, as no one had won it more than five times. But the satisfaction mainly came from knowing what had come before and from seeing friends and strangers cross the line with a mixture of disbelief, relief and joy etched across their face.
Some of the hard yards, I’d done with a new running partner, who had joined me in the wind and rain for night runs through Haldon Forest and on the SW Coast Path. It helps immeasurably, to have someone to run with. It can also remind you to look up at the stars.
Look up at the stars
When you can look up at the stars after a night run, it also expands your horizons to meet other challenges in life. It ends up putting your run into perspective. It’s been good, it’s been worthwhile, but it’s only running.
Mix it up, be playful and try the Lydiard way
For the last two years I felt like I hadn’t quite got it right for The Grizzly, which reflected my results, in times which felt slow but disproportionately difficult. I knew I still had a lot more to give but had been running in the red zone for far too long, possibly the result of not having done enough Zone 3 running for more than 90 minutes. So I went returned to how I used to run as a teenager, the Arthur Lydiard way.
Lydiard, was a Kiwi coach who stressed the need to increase your aerobic capacity or threshold by building from the bottom, like a pyramid. But with the addition of weekly strength and conditioning sessions in the gym. More of the runs were at a comfortable aerobic speed but none of them flat out anaerobic efforts. And the longer runs of 15 to 18 miles were done on hilly coastal paths.
Aye aye skipper
Consistency sometimes seems like a boring cliché but without it, you can’t improve. I decided to say aye aye skipper to the C word.
So I did a lot fewer intervals, stopped comparing myself to previous years and felt the strength improve with sessions in the gym. It’s also probably why I haven’t had a proper running injury for years, apart from a fell race fall last year.
The Grizzly brown bear of North America, or ursus arctos horribilis, to give it its full name, is famed for being a menacing beast. It stands on its hind legs to survey its territory, which can be a mind-altering combination of vertiginous mountains, rivers or streams running through mud, prairie or stony beds. It is adapted for great strength, agility and speed, as well as impressive feats of endurance. If only we were directly descended from Grizzlies.