If there are two things the island has no shortage of, it’s runners and coastline!
If you are a fan of either of those things, you won’t want to miss coming to see Elise Downing on the Sunday of Litfest, discussing her book ‘Coasting’ and how she combines running, writing, and a love of the coast.
In her own words:
‘In 2015, I announced that I was going to attempt to run 5000 miles around the coast of Great Britain, carrying my kit on my back. This came as quite a surprise to
everybody, including myself. Prior to this the highlight of my sporting career had been running a marathon dressed as a Crayola crayon, during which I cried for a solid eight miles of and got heckled by a small child who called me ‘The Crying Crayon’.
I wasn’t an ultrarunner and I’d never done any solo-adventuring before. I’m really not exaggerating when I say that I had absolutely no bloody clue what I was doing. I just had this strong feeling that I wanted to do something.
By some miracle it all worked out okay (well, mostly, there was quite a lot of crying on grass verges along the way) and in August 2016, ten months after setting out, I became the first woman and youngest person to run a lap of Great Britain self-supported. You can read more about the whole ridiculous adventure in my book, Coasting.’
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