11th May: Porthtowan

After the foot blistering exploits of last Sunday’s madathon, its been a week of gingerly walking around sans socks when in the house to try and let the skin dry out and heal properly.

On Thursday LSS’s car was needing some repairs, which I had no alternative but to do that evening with me heading off to Cornwall for a stag-do the next day… Unfortunately due to the part in question turning out to be just one of a sequence of problems that compounded each other, for which I only had the replacement bits for the first, as darkness fell I was forced to give-up and admit defeat - something not normally found in my stubborn character.

The only solution now was to drop the car off the following morning over at our mechanics' and let them sort out the mess! Now driving there was fun, especially as the brakes were pretty much non existent through the problems, but deliver the car I did.

The garage’s location is a good 5 miles from our gaff, and with 2 hours until I was due to be driving the van full of stag attendee’s golf bats, plus the stag and Pini I needed to get a wiggle on.

I had hoped to get the chance to do some running on the stag, so this enforced run would at least suss-out if my feet were up to it for the next day, and thankfully I survived, completing the road-run back at a decent tempo with no ill effects.

Safe in the knowledge that I could run again I packed my running gear with Pini already having thrown his in the back of the van.

On the Saturday, after a Friday of alcoholic stupor and some morning quad bike racing, there was a spare window of 4 hours to kill before heading off for a brewery tour and both Pini and myself decided to hit the coastal path outside Porthtowan for an hour or so’s run.

Looking north from Porthtowan.

The weather conditions were a little blowy to say the least, but it just added to the fun. The surf was breaking over the reef below and the occasional shower was scudding over head, the wind too strong for any of them to linger.

We headed north out of the village, up the hill at the start and wound our way northwards up and down the cliff tops, where we experienced how strong the wind really was although it was slightly to our backs as it blew off the sea.

Up on the top we could see the headlands jutting out in front of us, each one becoming another target, with the distant picturesque abandoned tin mine workings of Wheal Coates slowly inching closer to us. On arriving at the solid stone shells of the buildings we saw a family huddled behind one of the walls of the roofless engine house to shelter from the wind and the rain.

From here we ran through the abandoned heaps of spoil piled high from the centuries of mining before the site was abandoned. With one more long lung-bursting climb we twisted our way on to a plateau as we reached St. Agnes Head and the lookout station and the 3 miles ticked-over, so upon touching the next gate we turned and headed for home.

On the return, the wind was now blowing against us just to make life even harder. It was so strong that as you strode along the path, when your right leg went forward it was being blown in to your planted left leg, tripping you and making you stumble! This compounded the technical nature of the single-track path strewn with jutting rocks that made the return as much a mental exercise as a physical one, you had to pick each footstep carefully as you struggled to remain upright through nature’s attempts to make you tumble with the path’s surface and the wind regardless of travelling up or downhill.

Wind whipped surf.

Pini was truly in his element on this track and continually sped ahead of me, slowing down on the hill tops to let me catch-up as my pace certainly held him back from doing a decent tempo run. I keep telling him to enter one of the CTS races to try more of this sort of terrain, so hopefully he’ll put himself down for one in the next series after running this.

Down the hill back in to Porthtowan.

I found the return easier and very enjoyable, and in no time we were back at the top of the cliffs at Porthtowan and the descent in to the village. For a 10k run, it was certainly a slow one with all the hills - ticking over at 1:09 when I can do a flat road one 20-25 mins quicker, but then again I was certainly not pushing it and still suffering from drinking my weight in Tribute Ale over the course of 12 hours the previous day.

And back at the hostel it was time for a steak and chips, another Tribute before heading in to Truro for the Skinners brewery tour - which if you like your ale I would thoroughly recommend.

After driving back on the Sunday, Pini decided to go for a half marathon run and join me on a bike ride in the early evening, as he's doing a sportive in a month or so's time and needs to get in the saddle and more confidence on a road bike. We duly went out for a 15 mile pedal to round off the week and its stag weekend... Not bad for going off on a bender: running 5 miles on the Friday before leaving, 6 miles on the coastal path on the Saturday whilst on the stag, and cycling 15 miles on returning on Sunday :)