From Heidi Hoad, Lucy Lowe & Mel Cashmore…

The Charm Bracelet marathon is a trail race which follows the coastal path from Redcar to Whitby.

With 994m of elevation I think this surpasses ‘undulating’ into ‘hilly’.

We were shivering on the start line with a very strong head wind pushing us in entirely the wrong direction, however once we got going found the wind to be not nearly as bad as we feared and the sun came out.

We were lucky with the weather the whole way round. Apart from the occasional gust it couldn’t have been better. And the views were spectacular – the British coast at its very finest.

As notoriously bad navigators it was a small miracle we didn’t get lost. We passed through a multitude of seaside towns Marske, Saltburn, Skinningrove, Staithes, Runswick Bay and Sandsend, and there were several checkpoints with great food choices (pickle anyone?).

We had a low point at mile 17 when we realised we probably needed to hydrate and fuel better but apart from that we were remarkably cheerful.

We were delighted when the end was in sight but very confused when instead of turning right to the finish line we were directed down for a short tour of Whitby town centre. As we were already at 26 miles this frankly seemed cruel. Furthermore it was quite humbling when a 70 year old man skipped past us on the final (steep) hill casually mentioning he’d done a 50 miler the day before.

Eventually we did make it to the end and limped back to the town for salty fish and chips.

What a wonderful day. A super event and certainly one of the prettiest routes. Highly recommend!

One small point – it claims to be 26.5 mile route however this is a blatant lie – we clocked up 28 miles – and so feel justified in claiming that we have now completed an ultra!