The endurance run that's like climbing Everest four times

Excitement. Nervousness. Uncertainty. Fear. I have felt the effect of this heady cocktail of emotions before – two years ago, after some friends persuaded me to enter the Dragon’s Back along the brutally mountainous spine of Wales.
That race took five days – much further than anything I had run before. A complete leap into the unknown. But I did it. And more than that, I surprised everyone (including myself) by finishing third in a race where two-thirds of the entrants failed to make it past day one.
Fast-forward two years and I am back at square one. This time I am facing a challenge that makes even the Dragon look tame: an attempt to set a new running record around the unremitting, undulating South West Coast Path. All 630 miles of it.
The South West Coast Path doesn’t ascend any mountain peaks, but it boasts 115,000 feet (35,052 metres) of total climbing – or, to put it another way, in terms of elevation gain, it’s like going from sea level to the summit of Everest four times.

Patrick Devine Wright finishing third in last year’s Grizzly race Photograph: www.photo-fit.net

It winds its way from Minehead in Somerset to Poole in Dorset, and most people bite the path off in stages and can take a lifetime to complete the entire route. I hope to run it in one go. The current record, set by Mark Townsend and Julie Gardener, stands at 14 days and 14 hours. To beat it, I will have to run more than two marathons a day, every day for two weeks.
I started thinking about it last summer and started training for it over Christmas. Since then, I have slowly but surely plucked up the courage to tell people what I am up to – if only to explain to them why I am so tired (from the training) or sore (from the niggles) or hungry (four meals a day now being routine).
This run is much more public than my Dragon’s Back effort. I am raising funds for three excellent charities – the Devon Air Ambulance, the South West Coast Path Association and the Wave project – and I am looking for people to help me out, putting me up for the night as I wind my way around the coast, and meeting me at checkpoints to help me fuel up and recuperate.
So far my plan has been met with lots of encouragement, and more than a few scratched heads. Why am I doing it? All I can say is what I learnt from the Dragon’s Back: unless you put yourself in a situation that is new to you and filled with uncertainty – whatever that is – you never really know what you are capable of.
So once again I am sticking my feet (and neck) out to try something that most would consider utter madness. And come the end of April, I will be something the wiser for it.
Click here to sponsor Patrick and to find out more about the causes he is raising money for. If you want to assist Patrick during his epic run (with logistics and accommodation), please contact him on patrick@devinewright.com