[This was my first Grizzly and little did I know that three years later I would become an outpatient of the asylum myself!]
Multi-terrain, edge-of-sanity running experience over the rugged Devon coastline. That's what the entry form said, and that's what it was. 18 miles, mostly up or down, largely off-road.
Off-road - and how! Three stretches particularly come to mind now. One, a mile along a cobbly beach into the wind - energy sapping, or what? I remember thinking that it could have been the most sadistic finish stretch ever. Then there was the path, which came down to a bridge over a stream - only the bridge wasn't the route - the stream was! And boy, was it muddy getting out ten yards down. The third memorable bit was another mile along a cobbly beach - that last mile before the finish stretch! It was seriously gratuitous sadism! It was firmer down by the sea, but the waves were so strong in the wind that it wasn't a lot easier. I remembered then the entry form saying "Free T-shirts for survivors only" - perhaps they were running low and needed to whittle down the field a bit. I also discovered some small print afterwards - "Then there's the beach" - always read the small print! (You couldn't even slow down to make it easier - it's just as tough to walk along such beaches!)
This was a serious event - the climbs were either very steep (straight up out of valleys) or very long (diagonally out of the same valleys); a few were both, most notably the "Stairway to Heaven"! Well-named, actually, since there followed a blissful mile-and-a-half of good turf on the clifftops and even within sight of the finish - mind you, sight can travel a lot faster than knackered runners!
This has got to be one of the toughest events I've ever done; certainly the toughest "run" (as opposed to multi-day run/walk mountain marathon). I don't know what the climb was but reckon somewhere in the region of 1500-2000'. Up and down like the proverbial!
I started off treating it as a slow race but ended up just aiming to finish alive! It wasn't biological functions that got me over that last beach - more a raging desire not to let it beat me! And do I ever feel I've earned the right to wear that T-shirt!
The Grizzly was one helluva running experience - you have to run it to believe it. By the way, I was aiming for 9-minute miles, ended up on 7.6es so was a very happy chappy - but knackered - my calves are still sore, four days on! Running is believing.