Since he hasn’t been doing as much running as he usually does, Jacek Cieluszecki could have been forgiven if he didn’t quite hit his usual heights when he took on the Endurance Life Dorset 10k.
The Endurance Life Dorset event consists of four different races. There’s a Half Marathon, a Marathon and a 37.2 mile Ultra in the offering, as well as the 10k that Jacek did. Originally he’d planned on doing the Half Marathon but due to his perceived lack of fitness, he decided the 10k would be a better option.
The routes are along the Jurassic Coast Path, meaning there are plenty of tough ascents to negotiate. Even the 10k contained 666ft of climbing, starting at Worth Matravers and finishing in Swanage. It was an area that Jacek knows well, spending much of his training time on the Purbeck. The only difference was that this time he was destined to find it a little tougher than he usually does.
Jacek Cieluszecki was on his favourite hunting ground at the Endurance Life Dorset event
The first mile contained a fair bit of downhill though and that enabled Jacek to get off to a pretty fast start. In fact, he went through the first mile in 6:13 and there was no one else in the field who could live with the pace he was setting.
The second mile was more uphill but there were no overly steep climbs to worry about yet. Jacek got through that mile in 6:10 before hitting a testing little incline in the third mile. That caused his pace to drop a bit but he was soon able to accelerate again when on the way down.
Jacek didn’t have as much training behind him as he usually does
Going through the third mile in 7:37, it was then on to mile four and with over half the race done already. He went through the first checkpoint 1 minute 21 seconds ahead of his nearest rival.
Continuing on to complete the fourth mile in 6:55, it was then onto the biggest climb of the race, which was on quite a tough gradient. Once at the top of the hill, there was then a nice descent back down to follow though.
JC powers along the Jurassic Coast Path
Doing well to complete that mile in 7:05, that left just a mile and a bit remaining. There was still another short steep climb to contend with but after that it was back down the slope and then fairly flat for a last half a mile.
Picking up the pace a bit on this mile, Jacek got through it in 6:42 which culminated in him making it to the finish in 41:03. That was a huge course record, beating Lewis Clarke’s time from the previous year by 4 minutes and 21 seconds.
JC was out in front on his own for the entire race
Jacek came in exactly two minutes ahead of James Neave who was runner up. David Mathieson was 3rd in 45:26, with Benjamin Palmer taking 4th in 45:52.
For some reason they race organisers had added 50 seconds to everyone’s times, including Jacek’s, so it actually got put down as 41:53 in the results. It may have been a miscommunication between the start and finish timers, since they were in different locations. Either that or they pressed the start button 50 seconds early!!
Martha Neal was first female, getting round in 48:53 which put her in 7th place overall. The next woman in after her was Charlotte Sampson who finished in 54:02, putting her in 19th place. Then it was Milly Cole who crossed the line in 56:52 which put her in 25th place overall.
There were 144 runners in total who completed the 10k race.
No one could contend with the upward thrust that Jacek had to offer
In the Half Marathon race it was Thomas Lowe who picked up the win, completing the course in 1:31:58. Alex Van Tuyl claimed 2nd place in 1:34:59, with Dougie Wilkie coming in 3rd in 1:36:50.
Jenny Marshall was the quickest woman in the race, getting round in 1:49:10 which put her in 11th place out of 298 participants.
The Marathon was won by Josselin Polini in a time of 3:43.57, with Paul Grieve coming in 2nd place in 3:50:50. Chrissie Wellington was 1st female, clocking in at 4:19:55 which put her in 11th place overall. There were 141 runners in the race but five of them didn’t managing to complete the course.
The winner of the Ultra was Lewis Ryan who completed the 37.2 mile course in 5:36:54. That put him 25-and-a-half minutes ahead of his nearest rival Dave Phillips who crossed the line in 6:02:34.
Karen Hacker was first female, getting round in 6:36:47 which put her in 7th place overall. 120 out of 131 successfully managed to complete the course.
It was a good sign for Jacek that he was still able to smash the course record without training quite so regularly as he normally would. That can only mean that when he does get back to full training, he well be even more unstoppable.
It was a fifth consecutive win for JC in events that he’s really gone for. His recent victories include The Beast, The Black Hill Run 10k, where he set a new course record, and the Studland Stampede where he came to within 15 seconds of the course record.