Pier to Pier Road

Race Description

Officially the Brenda Boyle Pier to Pier, this is Hastings Runners' own club championship classic and the longest race in their annual points series - a point-to-point run of a little over 26km along the East Sussex coast from Eastbourne Pier back to Hastings. Runners are coached out to the start at Eastbourne and then simply run home, tracing the coast road through Pevensey Bay and Bexhill before finishing not at Hastings Pier itself but further on, behind the East Hastings Sea Angling Association building in the Old Town.

The race carries the name of a much-loved former club member, and that sense of club tradition and remembrance runs through the event more than any commercial branding does - this isn't an open mass-participation race so much as a proud in-house institution, usually run in February when the coast road is at its bleakest and most bracing. With around 135 metres of gentle climbing over the distance, it's not a hilly test so much as a long exposed one: sea wind and February weather have as much say in finishing times as the terrain does.

Recent editions have seen a strong pack of club runners break two hours, but the real draw is the shared achievement of covering a genuinely long stretch of Sussex coastline on foot, coastal towns rolling by, with Hastings' clifftop and Old Town as a fitting finish. It suits committed club runners more than casual entrants, built as it is around loyalty to the club and its history.