Run Britain Day 7: From Burnham-on-Crouch to near Southend-on-Sea

The map of today’s run is a crazy one. I think I must have run up and down at least 20 different tributaries and waterways of various estuaries. Up one and back down the other side. Into a headwind, round the bank, back with a tailwind. Repeat.

The wind farms I could see yesterday were still there taunting me. It felt like very little progress for a whole 26.2 miles.

I have found various problems with this terrain. The first is that it is actually very hard to run on - a sort of balancing act with the bank sloping away from me and uneven underfoot. The second is that there are no towns or villages along the marshes between Burnham-on-Crouch and Southend-on-Sea. That meant my poor provisions of food and water were not topped up all day. I finished my 26.2 miles absolutely sapped of energy.

But an evening spent in Southend-on-Sea’s best Toby Carvery restored some of that energy. I’m very relieved that tomorrow will be the end of the Essex estuaries.