'Round The Coast Of Great Britain Run (Read 1539 times)

Highly influenced by Eddie Izzard's fantastic feat of 43 marathons in 52 days, and one man’s innate desire to ‘do something a bit different’, an idea was conceived. This idea was to complete something never before attempted, namely to run a relay around the British coastline.

The idea was originally floated amongst like-minded people on the Runners World internet forum (http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/forum/forummessages.asp?dt=4&UTN=151295&V=6&SP=) and immediately gained momentum as interest soared, very quickly the idea became a plan, and the Great UK Coastal Relay was born.

The general idea being to keep the concept as simple and as inclusive as possible, and just do what it says on the tin, namely run a relay around the coastline (or as close to as safety will allow) of the United Kingdom, starting and ultimately finishing at the same point on the map.

In 1986, a lady called Helen Krasner walked a similar coastal route that covered an approximate 5,000 miles, and it was felt that by splitting this in to chunks of approx. 200 - 300 miles the co-ordination of such an event would become manageable to the extent that the idea would indeed become a reality.

Each area would then be responsible for recruiting runners, mapping routes for their locale and ultimately managing changeovers between legs to ensure the relay passes through without incident. A dedicated hit squad of ‘floaters’ is also being put in place to cover any areas where local numbers aren’t sufficient to cover the route.  And so it is, that on Sunday May 9th, at approx. 11 am, ‘Barry the Baton’ will leave from Blackpool tower on the start of his round Britain odyssey.

Runners of all ages, and abilities are encouraged to sign up to take part in this historic and unique event

Our website can be found at http://www.coastersgb.co.uk/index.php  - Come people of the Uk lets do something special.

Thanks MilkTruck, your more than welcome to if you want. Its a none commerical community based event as well, its for a true runner. If you check our site your see we have made a lot progress considering we only started organsing it just before xmas. Luckily the Great Britian isnt that big a country so we are feeling confident of pulling it off.

Update the Blackpool - Gretna section of this run, which is the first section in the run now has a runner on every leg. However, are welcoming more runners, as the more the better. you might make a new friend you will certainly make history.

http://www.coastersgb.co.uk/

Hi guys to give you an update on this. THe Blackpool - Gretna Section of this event has the following intital relay points time schedule

Blackpool - Lune Millennium Bridge - Sunday 9th
Lune Millennium Bridge - Camforth - Monday 10th
 Camforth - Holker - Tuesday 11th
 Holker - Ulverston - Wed 12th
 Ulveston - Askam-in-Furness Thurs 13th
 Askam-in-Furness - Seascale Fri 14th 

If any one, is willing to come a long and put in a mile or two let me know. Our website again is

http://www.coastersgb.co.uk/

This is an event for runners by runners. Come and join us and help make history

it wont be done none stop, as being coastal we thought might be a little dangerous plus it would make it even harder to find willing runners if we did that. Although there were some calls to make it day and night.

we have had some local press coverage and we are hopefull of gettin more near there time.

I will certainly keep you posted. It is just scotland we were have struggled to find runners. Hopefully the running communities up there will soon take heed and join the mission.

running ahead has certainly come in handly and i think it getting some good press as i am using it for all the Blackpool-gretna runs. Hopefully convert those who use mapmyrun.

We still need to up our Scottish runners - esp on the west coast - any takers?

Hi,

I am the founder of this event and I am glad to see the interest on here. Well we are off from Blackpool Tower at 10:30 on Sunday.  If you live anywhere near the coast or fancy some coast it is not too late even for the initial Blackpool-Gretna stretch co-ordinated by someone not a million miles away Barry is looking forward to getting to Scotland already.

please drop in and say hello to him

Stu

www.coastersgb.co.uk