Endurance Life Giant’s Causeway
13 April 2024
Trail shoes are designed with numerous tricky surfaces in mind, but it’s doubtful any shoe manufacturers take their latest models for a test drive on underwater green slime. The Endurance Life series of trail races mostly take place along some of the UK’s finest stretches of coastline. This one, a 20 miler between Larrybane quarry and the beach resort of Portrush on the Antrim coast of Northern Ireland, sticks so closely to the line where land meets sea that several sections involve wading over slippy rocks, up to your knees in icy seawater.
Time and tide wait for no man, as they say. Apparently in the race’s inaugural year, in 2023, nobody got this wet. I feel a bit of a drip complaining about it, though, considering some of the legendary names that have tested their physical prowess around these parts in the past.
Brienne of Tarth, for example, the towering female warrior who knocked seven bells out of Ser Loras Tyrell in the quarry where our race begins, in the second series of Game of Thrones. Northern Ireland has attracted much of its recent tourism on the back of providing numerous prime locations for the HBO fantasy show. Other Instagrammable spots around the country include the Dark Hedges – the avenue of 18th Century beech trees that doubled as Westeros’s Kingsroad – and another stop on our running journey, Dunluce Castle, a crumbling clifftop edifice that was CGI-ed to look even more precarious when it played the seat of House Greyjoy on the Iron Islands.
But well before then, someone even taller than Brienne was in residence. Fionn mac Cumhaill (pronounced Finn MacCool), the Irish giant who the story says built the hexagonal basalt columns of the Causeway to connect to Scotland. When the Scottish giant Benandonner strode across to fight him, Finn did what any self-respecting tough nut would do and dressed up as a baby, so that Benandonner would be too intimidated by the bairn’s size to wait until Daddy got home. Baby Finn bit his finger and the Scot ran home, smashing up the Causeway on his way, which is why the tourists can only climb on a small patch of this extraordinary ancient Jenga today.
Today’s 250 runners thankfully miss the first test of bravery round here, as we don’t have to cross the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, swinging flimsily between a small island and the mainland 100ft above the sea, and just visible behind us. Instead we turn upwards through the attraction’s car park and begin a long series of climbs and drops westwards. A stiff wind is against us, and as soon as we start picking our way across large wet rocks near Ballintoy Harbour, any hopes for a fast time are forgotten.
The last time I got soggy feet in this area was a bit more embarrassing. I was born in Northern Ireland but grew up in England, coming back to have my posh accent mocked by my extended family in Tyrone once or twice a year ever since. As a young teen with modest hope of becoming cool, I was enjoying a family holiday near Portrush until, rock-hopping on a beach, I jumped onto a white one that turned out to be foam on top of two feet of water. I had packed just one pair of trainers, and the only person who had the same size feet as me at that time was my Auntie Barbara. I had to wear her spare trainers for the rest of the trip. The brand was called Pony. They were pink.
The place is looking smarter than I remember nowadays, with a neat modern promenade running along the West Strand beach. Royal Portrush Golf Club will host the British Open in 2025, for the second time in six years. My childhood as an annual visitor to the scene of the Troubles, when the kerbstones were painted red, white and blue, and armed soldiers checked our car on the way to the airport, feels far distant, though with Sinn Féin winning the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time in 2022, it’s still advisable not to bring up politics when I’m back.
What hasn’t changed is this awe-inspiring scenery, vivid yellow gorse sprouting around single-track trails that look out on a rock-strewn, blustery sea. As we approach the Causeway itself, halfway through, the path hits its highest points and the view opens tremendously. I stop thinking about my position in the race and take some photos.
Later, slogging along the sandy, three-mile-long White Rocks beach, I see surfers enjoying the wind much more than us runners. Not for the first time, it feels like trying to get across this place as quickly as possible, head bowed to the elements, is a bit of a wasted opportunity. Here be dragons, and giants, and a heck of a lot of sheep. It makes sense to slow down and get a proper look at this wild place where legends have stepped.
endurancelife.com/giants-causeway
BOX – THREE MORE N.I TRAIL RACES
13 July 2024
It’s all about time on this 5.5km forest trail loop on the Ards Peninsula in County Down. How many laps can you manage in three, six or 12 hours?
12 Oct 2024
Part of the inaugural Irish Skyrunning Championships, this is serious mountain running. It covers the Mourne Wall, 15 of Northern Ireland’s highest mountains, in 35km or 50km iterations.
9 Nov 2024
Tollymore’s state forest park, just north of the Mourne Mountains, is the venue for a running event with something for everyone. There’s a separate 10k route, plus a half, a marathon and an ultra that comprise one, two or three laps of a 21km course.
