It's been a while since my last update. The summer holidays hit with a vengeance and trying to fit in work, activities to keep the boys from killing each other and training for a charity hike has been... interesting.

To be honest, on the whole, it's not been too bad but it has meant that I am lagging behind with videos and blogs. I put a draft of this post together just after the walk and then suddenly 3 weeks have passed and I am only just getting around to finishing it. Anyway, about 3 weeks ago we headed up north to visit Julie's parents in Maltby, and given that the weeks prior to this trip had been a period of relative inactivity training-wise due to entertaining visitors and trying to shake a horrible summer cold, I felt like I needed to get out.

Maltby is only an hour or so away from the Peak District so I thought I would take the opportunity to get out into the hills. Cornwall is lovely and I love exploring the coast path, but I do like the hills as well and I was looking forward to getting out and about in them again for the first time in a long time.

I don't recall doing much, if any, walking in the Peak District in the past; we tended to just sail on past the Peak District on the M6 and head to the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District or Scotland when I was a kid so this would be new territory for me.

The route

My chosen route was a loop around Kinder Scout, the highest point in The Peak District at around 636m. I needed to get some decent miles under my belt as well so planned out a 19km route that started and finished in Edale that took in Grindslow Knoll, Kinder Scout and Mam Tor.

The weather wasn't great to be honest, it was grey and overcast and rain was in the air. The last few days had been glorious sunshine so it was a bit of a let down, but as least I wasn't getting cooked.

As I was staying away and didn't want to disturb the whole house (and I wasn't in my own kitchen) I decided that I would take advantage of the camper and have breakfast in the van before hitting the trails. It was a gourmet breakfast: All Day Breakfast in a tin. These things are terrible really but they are very much a guilty pleasure of mine.

I got to the bottom of Grindslow Knoll for around 9:30am and headed up. As this was a circular ridge walk, the majority the ascent was in this initial climb (Grindslow stands at 601m). This is the main difference in the terrain from the coastal walks. The coast path is undulating and there are lots of 50-100m climbs and descents all along the route, and they rack up to a hefty figure by the end of the walk, but with ridge walks like this one, the ascent is front loaded and I did have to stop to take a look back and catch my breath a few times despite being fitter now than I have been in a long time.

I got to the top of the first climb at around 40 mins into the walk at 10:10am and it was blustery up top. I had hoped to take the drone out for a quick flight but I would never have seen it again.

The summit was empty with the exception of a mum and daughter (I think) who didn't look particularly prepare for the conditions. One rucksack between them and they did not appear to have much in the way of spare clothes for changeable conditions, and they also did not have a map; they were reliant on Google Maps and were looking for a route to Kinder Scout whilst looking it up on Wikipedia.

This sort of stuff makes my head hurt. Why would you come up here with barely and kit and no map? Now there is a disclaimer at this point in that I also did not have a paper map of this route, I had intended to bring one but left it back in Cornwall and couldn't find a shop locally in Edale that sold them (I found one on the way back to the van after descending the ridge though...) BUT I did have the OS Maps app with a downloaded, offline map and route planned out and a battery pack. I knew where I was going and had a detailed enough map to properly navigate, even if it was digital.

Google/Apple Maps are just not suited to the outdoors. They are good for finding your nearest cafe in town, or for driving but they are useless on the trail. Being a Good Samaritan I apologised for eavesdropping and asked if they needed any help finding the path, they were appreciative and I set them on their way.

With the initial climb out of the way I made my way down from the cairn and followed the ridge along past some waterfalls towards Crowden Tower and then on to The Woolpacks; a unique formation of weathered rocks and boulders the Kinder Scout plateau.

It was still very misty on top which provided quite an eerie atmosphere amongst the almost statuesque rock formations. The path was quite hard to follow at this point, it disappeared amongst the rocks and the terrain was spongey and peaty so it was just a case of picking the path of least resistance through and picking up the path again on the other side.

The path down from Grindslow was very good over all, it has been well built and maintained by what I assume is a group of dedicated volunteers and it made the walk easy compared to some of the coast path sections I've done recently.

From the Woolpacks I continued around the ridge to the summit of Kinder Low (633m) where I started talking to an old local man who appeared to climb this peak regularly. After a little chat about my route, he tried to convince me to go down Jacobs ladder and through Upper Booth and back into Edale. I told him I was headed around the ridge to finish up on Mam Tor, he told me it was a long way but that I was "young and fit" so would probably be ok. I'll take that.

I continued along the ridge past Swine's Back and the junction for Jacobs Ladder and carried along to Brown Knoll. It was at this point that the weather really closed in and rain set in. I stopped at the cairn to get my jacket on and put the rain cover on my bag. Now... the rain cover caused me an issue. I was using my GoPro Seeker rucksack which is marketed as an outdoor lovers dream and for the most part it is and I love it, but a massive missing feature is the lack of a rain cover. I have a generic one that fits on almost any bag but the wind was howling, it was chucking it down and by the time I had got the cover on, the rain had stopped! GoPro, if you are reading (you won't be) YOU NEED A BUILT IN RAIN COVER.

The walk from Brown Knoll to Mam Tor was pretty bleak if I'm honest. The landscape was a wide plateau rather than a narrow ridge and there was not much to look at in amongst the low cloud, gloom and rain. It was beginning to feel like a bit of a trudge.

After a little while, the cloud lifted and the views opened up as I headed towards Lords Seat on Rushup Edge. It was still overcast but the mist had lifted and I could now see all of the ridge I'd walked, Upper Booth and back down into Edale.

The walk up over Rushup Edge was pretty straightforward and I had a clear view of Mam Tor ahead of me and I could see it was busier than the rest of the walk. I realised as I got clover that Mam Tor is a National Trust site with a car park at the bottom, so it was full of people heading up and back to grab a photo of the view.

I ended up taking a few family photos for a German family and then dropping back down into Edale. On the way down I past an honesty box situated on a farm gate that was actually pretty fairly priced, there was also a space for some farm-fresh eggs but sadly they were all gone by the time I got there. I didn't need any of the rest of the goodies there, so left it alone and headed back towards the van.

By the end of the walk I'd covered about 18kmin just under 5hrs so I headed back to a pub I walked past at the start of the walk, The Rambler Inn for a quick drink before heading back to Maltby.

Only a few more weeks to go until the Mighty Hike, a few more kilometres under my belt and a few more Strava points. Over the next few weeks I'll do a few more coast walks and cover some more of the coast path in prep. I am nowhere near the training program requirement for this walk, and honestly I can't see how anyone with a job and a family can do it.

I'll do what I can and battle through the walk on the day.

We borrowed a paddle board and hit the beach on day one of the summer holidays. TL;DR - yes I did fall off, no I didn't manage to stand up but Zac loved it and enjoyed it so it looks like I am buying a board of our own now.

Our original plan was to take the board out on the Saturday before as some friends visiting from Bristol with theirs, but the weather was so hit and miss that we just couldn't organise ourselves properly (trying to get two young kids sorted, picnic packed and all the kit we could possibly need for the beach ready at the last minute while the weather goes from scorching to thunderstorms...) so we just sat and had a picnic and watched our friends try theirs out instead.

The weather looked good for a few days so I decided to take it out on the Monday. While the weather was way better, the sea was quite a bit more choppy than the Saturday although that could well have been down to the location. We went to Porthpean on the Saturday and it was dead calm. Pentewan is a bit more exposed than Porthpean and while the waves were not exactly enormous breakers, they were enough to tip me over while trying to get on the board for the first time.

After an initial venture out on my own, Zac wanted a go so we sat him on the board and let him sit on it in the shallows while we held each end, and he loved it! I'd picked up a life jacket (more of a buoyancy aid than a full jacket) from the water sports shop in Pentewan just to be on the safe side as although he is confident in the water, he is not a strong swimmer and some of that confidence is misplaced!

After a few outings on the board we packed up and went to the pub and I am now sat scouring Amazon for our own board as I think Zac will request this every time we suggest the beach now.

This weekend I completed my longest hike to date, not just in prep for the Mighty Hike but from what I can recall… ever. 

In order to train for the Mighty Hike I need to up my distance with each walk I do in the build up to the day. The first route was around the 24km mark from St Austell to Mevagissey and back, the next one was a little further at 30km which took in Luxulyan Valley and Par to Charlestown on the coast path so I mapped myself a 40km route from Looe to St Austell this weekend. 

This is pretty much the same distance as the actual event, and its pretty close to the same total elevation as well at around 1500m. For reference the UK’s highest peak, Ben Nevis, is 1345m so this route was not to be underestimated. 

This is the route I had planned out:

I use a combination of Strava and OS Maps when I am planning a route. They both have great tools for drawing routes out and I think I'll be doing more of this with OS Maps going forward, its a dedicated mapping tool rather than a fitness tracker first, map tool second. Thankfully they both adhere to the GPX standard for creating and recording routes, so you can export from one and import to the other fairly easily.

Looe

My day stated with a 5am alarm and it was absolutely chucking it down outside. Nevertheless, having gotten my bag ready the night before (and an undistrubed night due to the kids actually staying in their own bed for a change!) I was undeterred by the weather and we were on the road at 5:30am en route to the start point at Looe. My dad kindly got up and gave me a lift to the start so I could do a linear walk and not have to loop back to pick the van up. 

As we were driving the rain kept coming and I was starting to question my life choices, but I only have a handful of free weekends before the event so I neededto get this done. Plus what is the point in having all the gear to cope with whatever the weather can throw at you if you don’t use it, right?

I set of from the bridge in Looe and headed down the coast path on the western side of the estuary and headed around the headland towards Polperro. The sun made an appearance and for about 40 mins it was glorious and then the heavens opened again. A quick stop to don the waterproofs and I carried on. There was plenty of blue sky around and the rain didn’t last long and it was way too worm to be walking in a waterproof jacket so I ditched the jacket as soon as I could. To be honest, I gave up trying to stay dry by the end of the walk; all my gear is quick-drying so I just decided to get wet to save faffing around. 

Tech fail… again.

It was about here that I discovered Siri doesn’t get sarcasm. In the middle of a very steep descent, with the follow ascent in full view another heavy shower started and the wind was nearly blowing me off the path. I must have paused for a little too long to adjust my walking poles because Siri helpfully chimed in with:

“Are you done with your workout?”

I responded with something along the lines of “Why yes, Siri, I am. Thanks for asking!” (there may or may not have been more swearing involved). She then proceeded to end my workout. Didn't think that one though. I started a new one immediately but I was annoyed that I would now have two workouts in Strava and would blow a few stats… walking never used to be this complicated. Anyway... I soon go over that, realising how ridiculous I was being and continued on to Polperro.

Polperro

I arrived at around 8:40am so it was pretty dead with the exception of a few dog walkers. Nothing was open yet and I didn't really need to stop yet so I ploughed straight through the village and picked up the coast path on the other side and headed up and out and continued on towards Polruan (about 10km away), where I would need to catch the small ferry across to Fowey.

The scenery continued to be amazing, but I caught myself looking behind more than ahead as the scenery opened up more in that direction and I think in hindsight, walking from St Austell towards Looe might have been the better option. All that aside this stretch included some amazing beaches and coves like Lansallos beach in Lantivet Bay and the glorious Lantic Bay. On another day (and shorter route!) I would have climbed down to Lantic Bay and enjoyed it a bit more, but I still had many, many KMs to do so decided I didn’t need to add to the already ridiculous ascent and skirted around the top instead. 

Fowey and Polruan

I got to Polruan for about midday and got the ferry over to Fowey at 12:15. Hopped off the Ferryin Fowey and picked up the path again and headed to Readymoney Cove where I picked up a pasty and drink in the little beach shop. I had been existing on energy gels and Nakd bars until this point an d thought a pasty would be a good idea. It wasn’t. Too heavy for me at this stage, not something I would do again… I’ll stick to the gels. 

From Fowey next up was Menabilly and Gribben Head. At this point I was still feeling ok and I was about 21km in. I headed up through the woods from Readymoney and to be honest it felt like I was in the rainforest. The temperasure had risen to about 20c and after the rain earlier in the day, it was humid and I wished I had worn shorts or had zip off trousers (I had convinced myself I didn’t need them but I am adding those to the shopping list right now).

Menabilly

I dropped down from the woods above Readymoney and on to the beach at Menabilly, where I was confronted with probably the longest climb of the day back to up the monument at Gribben Head.

It was a slog in the heat but as I reached the top the wind was very strong, so I decided not to hang around too long and carried on towards Polkerris. At this point my watch told me that I had 10% battery left. I had tried to top it up while waiting for the ferry at Polruan but I really only managed 10 mins on the charger (not a fast charger either) so decided to get a stomp on to Polkerris where I could sit down for a bit and charge it enough to track me home.

As an aside, I've found that the Apple Watch S8 is not built for all day hikes. I’ve since read up on a few settings that can be changed to prolong the battery life on such hikes, but they all involve less accurate tracking. I briefly considered whether I needed to upgrade to an Ultra at some point, but to be honest that thought didn’t last long as it won’t be every weekend I’ll be doing 40km/10 hour hikes so the S8 will do me fine... for now. Honest.

Polkerris

I made my way along the path to Polkerris and this was the first point on the walk where I could see St Austell and Charlestown in the distance. I could pretty much see the rest of my route laid out in front of me and I’m not sure if that was encouraging or not.

I dropped down through the woods into Polkerris where I stopped for a cold Fanta (I avoided the pub… l would have had no chance of finishing if I’d stopped for a pint at this point), sat down and charged my watch for a bit. The wind was getting up again and the skies were grey so I only hung around for about 20 mins before setting off again towards Par and Carlyon Bay.

It was a blustery stop at Polkerris, I could see the weather starting to close in and I knew the next hour or so o the walk would be a slog. I’ll be honest. The stretch of coast path around Par towards Carlyon is not the most inspiring due to the massive Imerys China Clay docks/plant/thing. It dominates the coastline and its pretty bleak. You just have to get through this bit to be honest, until you can pick up the footpath down the narrow lane and onto Spit Beach where you can pick up the proper coast path again and follow the golf course along the top of the cliff past Carylon Bay and on to one last climb up to the Coastguard Station near the Porth Avalen hotel. My original plan was to then drop down into Charlestown and take the road back out towards home. However, I decided I couldn’t be bothered with the extra descent/ascent so I took the route down Sea Road (past all the mansions!) and entered Charlestown at the top of the hill where I picked up Charlestown road and headed home.

...and home.

I made it back home at about 16:30 which gave me 30 mins before the England v Switzerland game to shower and pour a beer. Having been on the path since 06:30 I think I deserved one!

In total I clocked up:

• 39.24km
• 1319m elevation gain (Ben Nevis is 1345 so I didn't quite beat it...)
• 9h 8m moving time

I don't think I will do another hike this long until I do the actual Macmillan event. This was more of a "can I do this without my knees giving up?" and a bit of a kit test. Both things passed so I'm looking forward to the Mighty Hike now... sort of!

I'll have a weekend off after this as we have guests next weekend, but I'll be planning another (slightly shorter) route for a couple of weeks time.

Another weekend, another early start and another training hike for the Mighty Hike in August. This time with added pubs and a record fair on a tall ship...

The weather wasn't as good this weekend as my last walk, but it was due to be dry which is enough for me. Again, I opted to walk from home and not wanting to do the same loop as last time I had to look inland and head north and then east, rather than south this time. Luckily there are some stunning woodland trails around here, along with the Clay Trails. This meant that I could still take in some coastal walking, but also explore some other bits of the local area that I have not had a chance to yet.

The route would take me up through the town centre and out towards Menacuddle well and onto the Clay Trails. Then it was up through the trails to Luxlyan where I would pick up some of the Saints Trail and head down into St. Blazey then on to Spit Beach, along Carlyon Bay and into Charlestown. Around 27km in total, pushed up to 30km when you include the walk back home from Charlestown.

Despite being a bit longer than the last walk (intentionally building distance), the elevation was nowhere near as tough. A mere 588m of ascent, compared to about 1300m on the last walk. It would still give me a decent work out though.

St Austell - Menacuddle Well and the Clay Trails

Any thoughts of some early morning sunrise views over St Austell Bay were quickly shattered upon waking up to a scene from The Fog. Honestly, up on the trails I could see about 20m in any direction at the top.

Although it's not on the path I had mapped out, I had to swing by Menacuddle Well. We found this place last spring after we moved down and it is stunning. If you visit in spring when all of the Tree Rhododendron are in bloom it's even better, but this weekend it felt more like a rainforest: very humid, lots of low cloud and mist.

I backtracked about 0.5km and picked up the Clay Trails path up to Carclaze Downs and then picked a path through Trethurgy, past the Eden Project and on to Luxulyan. Some of this section was on country roads so I had to be mindful of the traffic and to be honest I couldn't wait to get off them and onto a path again...

I should have been careful what I wished for. The road connected to a footpath again so I jumped over the stile and straight into a dew-soaked field of long grass... so that was my feet absolutely soaked for the rest of the walk. And yes, I had forgotten to re-apply waterproofing treatment to my boots (after a long time in storage...) and had forgotten to pack spare socks.

Luxulyan Valley

Next stop was Luxulyan and after another short road section I was back on the footpath and heading for the Treffy Viaduct. The footpath I picked up from Luxulyan was the Saints Way, a long-distance footpath from Padstow to Fowey that passes through the valley. It's about 30 miles from start to finish so I have added it to my future hikes list.

After crossing a few fields (and more wet grass!) some more woodland paths, the woods opened up onto the Treffy Viaduct and out came the drone. This location is stunning, but to be honest you only really get the full effect if you can see it from above. It's a nice path over the viaduct but the walls are high on each side and restrict the view.

From the Viaduct the path headed towards St. Blazey and Par where I could pick up the South West Coast Path for the rest of the walk. A nice walk down through through what I assume is some pretty ancient woodland with lots of gnarled, moss-covered trees down to the Par Canal, which I would follow through St. Blazey, though Par and onto the coast... right? Well, not quite...

I was about 17km into the route at this point when I picked up the path along the canal at Ponts Mill, just put my map away and put my AirPods in and was suddenly greeted with a "Path closed" sign. Apparently a footbridge up ahead had failed and was scheduled to be fixed "some time within this financial year". That wasn't much help to me right now so I had to back track and take a detour which took me back onto a stretch of narrow country lanes with some blinds bends and then onto the pavement along the A390, which was distinctly less scenic than the route I had been on up to this point!

When I finally picked up the Par canal path again, I got to a level crossing which was down. Checked to OS map and saw that the path went down both sides of the canal, so I didn't need to cross and carried on... this turned out to be not quite true either.

Although marked on the map as a path, it seems that only one side has been maintained... the opposite side to the one I was one. After a brief exchange with a friendly chap on the other side of the canal who told me "There's no path there, mate!" (yep, got that...) I backtracked and picked it up on the other side and eventually made it to the coast path at Spit Beach.

Par, Carlyon Bay and Charlestown (and the pub)

Once I was on the coast path it was plain sailing back into Charlestown. The path took me along Spit Beach, alongside the golf course and along the top of Carlyon Bay and then down into Charlestown.

I got some pretty impressive footage from the drone again here, the clouds were still low and from the top of golf course at Carlyon the view of Charlestown being engulfed in cloud was definitely worth capturing. It really did look like John Carpenter's The Fog!

Once down into Charlestown I met up with Julie and the boys and our friends and hit a record fair on one of the Tall Ships in the harbour, the The Lady Daphne, where I spent too much money on some classic McCartney, Kate Bush and Michael Jackson before we all hit the newly-reopened Harbourside beer and pizza venue. No pizza this time but beer went down well after 27km!

That said, I felt pretty fresh after 27km. My legs felt good, feet were not aching (but were still soaked!) and I actually felt like I could do more, which is a good thing as the hike in August is about 14km on top of this. This route didn't have quite the elevation profile of the last one (of the Mighty Hike) so I can't get too complacent.

Will probably take a weekend off next week to plan the next route. As with last time, the whole thing was captured on my GoPro, iPhone and drone....

Last weekend I set out to see how fit I was and, more importantly, how much fitter I would need to be to complete the Cornwall Mighty Hike in August.

The weather was set to be good on Sunday and I didn't want to miss a good day, but I also didn't want to leave Julie with the kids for too long on her own. I wanted to make it a decent hike, it needed to test where I'm at fitness-wise and needed to test how my knee would hold up on an undulating stretch of coast path.

I decided to get up early so I could be back at a sensible time and not leave Julie with the boys on her own all day and although I'd set my alarm for 5:30am, I was actually out of the door and on my way by 5:50am as the car alarm went off at 4:30am and I couldn't get back to sleep!

The route

I didn't want to rely on anyone else to drop me off or pick me up from anywhere so it had to be a loop, and I didn't want to have to drive anywhere given the proximity of the coast path to our house. The route I planned was a loop from St. Austell, down the Pentewan Valley Trail to Heligan, down into Mevagissey and then back home along the coast path via Pentewan Beach, Porthpean and Charlestown.

A loop totalling about 25km and Strava estimated that it would take around about 5h 45m to complete, which is just the moving time; it would obviously take longer when you take into account stopping for food, photos etc.

I got out at a decent time so I figured I could try and be back for lunch time. I aimed to be home by about 1pm which would give me about 7hrs to complete it in total, and I actually got home sooner than anticipate.

I walked the trail in 6hrs 26min which that included stopping for lunch, faffing with cameras, drones and just generally taking in the scenery. Actual moving time 5hrs 31min, which is under the Strava prediction so I was happy with that.

But unlike running, it wasn't all about the time, pacing and getting to the end, it was about enjoying being out and about and enjoying the county that we are now living in.The weather did not let me down (I could not have picked a better morning to do this walk!) and the scenery certainly did not let me down.

Pentewan Valley

Once I had got off the roads, I picked up the Pentewan Valley Trail just outside St Austell and followed it for about 5km until I hit a footbridge, crossed the road and headed up through Tremayne estate and upward towards Heligan. Once at the top of the climb there was a nice, steady decent into

Annoyingly I had packed a few bits for breakfast as I assumed that a) it was early b) it was a Sunday and c) this is Cornwall that nothin would be open in Mevagissey until way after I had passed through, but to my surprise a cafe and one of the bakeries there was open when I got there at about 8:20! I guess it is kind of holiday season but still… I’ll remember for next time!

Polstreath and Pentewan

I headed up and out of Mevagissey on the coast path heading back north towards St Austell. I’ve never been up to this part of Mevagissey before and the short but steep climb up through the tiny (and I mean tiny) streets brings you out to the first stretch of proper coast path on this walk, and the views were spectacular.

This stretch of the path takes you over the top of Polstreath Beach, a little bay that you can only reach via the coastpath, with some stunning views out over Mevagissey Bay.

After another couple of kilometers (and much undulating) I reached Pentewan Beach so stopped for a bit of breakfast with a view out into St Austell Bay. At this point I think I was about 12km in and was still feeling pretty good. I was about half way and could see the route home laid out in front of me… and no joint pain whatsoever. I think the May Day Mile paid off.

A quick descent through some thankfully uninterested cows, past another stunning little cove and I was in Pentewan Village. We spend a fair bit of time here as its one of the closest beaches to home, so I quickly found the coast path and carried on my way… also it was too early for the pub, so that was another reason not to hang around!

Pentewan to Black Head

The next stretch was the most scenic on the walk. Absolutely stunning and probably accounts for the extra hour I took ontop of my moving time to complete this loop. Around every corner, at the top of every climb there was another photo opportunity, another reason to get the drone out…

I walked out to the end of Black Head which gave some amazing views over both St Austell Bay and Mevagissey Bay and after a quick stop I headed back to the path an on towards Porthpean, Charlestown and then home. Still feeling pretty good at this point and I think I was about 20km was starting to feel it a bit in my legs, but only really on the ascents and descents… so most of the terrain at this point!

Trenarren and Ropehaven Cliffs

From Black Head I followed the path back past the A L Rowse Monument and to Ropehaven Cliffs nature reserve and came out at the steepest ascent/descent of the walk so far… I’ll admit I might have sworn a little bit when I saw it! I was 22km in at this point and seeing the steps rise out of the valley like that in front of me... yeh.

But at the bottom of that descent was a beach that would rival any beach, anywhere in the world. I really should have stopped and ventured down to it, but wanted to crack on instead. Next time.

Porthpean, Charlestown and Home

After much swearing on the way up from the cove, stopped at the top to catch my breath and then followed the path around to Porthpean beach. Headed along the sea wall at Porthpean to a set of steep stairs (more stairs) and I was on the homeward stretch back to Charlestown.

I was tempted to stop in The Rashleigh once I hit Charlestown but at that point I think if I had stopped, I wouldn’t have gotten going again so decided I had cold beer in the fridge at home and to just plough on. We are only 20 mins walk from Charlestown so it wasn’t far.

Made it back, cracked a can of St. Austell Ales Proper Job and sat in the sun for a bit. 26km in total, so about 15km short of the target in August but I came out of this hike feeling that it was well within reach. I just need to do a few more hilly walks to get my shins and calves used to the terrain as they were the only parts of me aching the next day.

I captured the whole thing on my GoPro and iPhone too. Take a look.

I had one thought going through my head all the way around this walk: “This is home. I can WALK here”. It’s amazing that this is all so close to home now. Its safe to say there are zero regrets moving down here from Bristol.

It will be a few weeks before I can get out do to another long one like this due to life getting in the way, but I’m already eyeing up the next section of the coast path to attack.

More to come.

After my month of running 5km every day in May, I knew that a couple of things would happen:

1. I would enjoy not feeling like I have to run everyday and...
2. That if I didn't feel like I had to run every day, I would slip back to being unfit again

I didn't want to lose all the gains I had made in May, so I looked for another challenge and as usual, the algorithm was full of suggestions like "Cycle 300km in June", "Run 62 miles in June", "Do an Ultra Marathon..." but one caught my eye and for once the algorithm came up trumps: The Macmillan Cornwall Mighty Hike.

This is a marathon-distance hike along the South West Coast path from Padstow to Newquay that will take in some locations I have not been to before like Trevose Head, Treyarnon Bay before dropping into some more familiar territory such as the very picturesque Mawgan Porth before climbing back up and along Watergate Bay and Porth Beach and finishing up a bit more inland at Chapel Farm.

If the weather is with us it should be a spectacular days walking. And it will be all day... I'm in the first wave of people starting the hike at 06:50 and I am aiming for around 10hrs for my finish time.

The challenge

As I said, this is a hike not a run but it is a marathon distance and anyone familiar with the coast path (or Cornish... or any coastline really) will be aware of the kind of terrain I will encounter. If you are not aware, this is the elevation chart for the route...

I recently received my digital welcome pack and according to their very simple flow chart, I am a "Mighty Savvy Strider". I have done some hiking in my time but I think I am in a good place to start training for this off the back of the Mayday Mile challenge I did in may. My base fitness should be at a decent level and I'll just need to work on my endurance... and hills. Lots of incline training ahead.

Training logistics

As a "Mighty Savvy Strider" I need to start my training doing 14 mile (22.5km) routes, which to be honest feels about right. I am more than happy to take on 10 mile walks so pushing that bit further makes sense.

The 2 month training period seems about right too and given I signed up a little while ago it actually gives me 3 months to prepare for it. This challenge will be very different in terms of logistics from the May Day Mile Challenge. For that challenge I had to find 30-45mins every day to run, shower and get back to work / parenting and once I was in a routine, it was relatively straight forward. I did a lot of it on the treadmill so I was usually at home if I was needed for anything, the kids knew where I was and on weekdays I could either dedicate my lunch break to running to fit it in around work, or go out in the morning before work and the school run.

This one is different. I need to find time daily (or every other day at least) to do some training, and week days I can still run, do some kettlebells, incline train on the treadmill etc. but I also need to dedicate some weekend days to some long walks as these will take hours. The weekend is obviously family time so these will be the harder sessions to organise. The good bit is that the South West Coast Path is accessible from my front door, so I'm well placed to replicate the terrain I will be traversing on the day.

Sponsorship

Yep. I'm asking for money again and I know times are hard, but I need to hit a minimum target of £250 to take part in this event, so if you can spare some change to help achieve this goal then it would be very much appreciated. I raised £340 for the RNLI in May, if I can do the same again this time then thats a decent chunk of money raised for some good causes. I will be (attempting to) blog about any training hikes here as well; there is some stunning coastline to go and explore and I'm looking forward to getting out into it so look out for updates.

Sponsor me here if you can 🙂

I do a fair amount of running these days. More inside than out (there are hills and rain outside) and I have a few whinges about the tech I'm using on these runs.

Apple Watch Niggles

I'm deeply embedded in the Apple ecosystem, and in general I like it. Sadly the old Apple "it just works" philosophy is waning. Most of it works, but some key things are not as good as they could be.

Music is a mess.

I have a Series 8 cellular watch. It should be able to operate completely independently from a phone. I also do not subscribe to Apple Music, Spotify... any of the cloud providers (thats a whole other rant... I do however use iTunes Match to share my own library amongst my devices) so I like the fact that my watch has capacity to store music for listening to offline.

However, even though the watch can be used independently from a phone and offline, it's so heavily geared towards being connected to a phone or a network that the offline functionality often feels clunky and hidden or just simply assumes you are connected to some kind of network.

A couple of times I have started a run from my house and kicked off the workout and music, set off, got to the end of the drive only to find the music breaks up and then stops. A quick check and what I thought was my music playing from my Running playlist on using files on my watch, was actually my AirPods being connected to my phone in the house and my watch acting as a remote.

I've also had occasions where I have had to explicitly disconnect my watch from WiFi before setting out after again setting out and everything suddenly stopping. This time, I had made sure my AirPods were connected to my watch and not my phone, set off on the run only to realise the watch was not using the offline files, but using the WiFi to stream from iTunes Match. I had selected the Downloaded option in the Music app but it seemed to still favour streaming.

So I have learned that in order to go for a run and use my watch as a standalone, offline player I need to:

• Disconnect the WiFi
• Ensure my phone is nowhere near my watch or AirPods
• Go to Downloaded in the Music app on the watch and select the playlist from there.

Treadmill + Apple Watch = fail

I did a lot of running on my Treadmill and lost a few kilometres and minutes in times recorded due to the inaccuracy of the tech.

There is a lot of room for improvement here. Apple tend to like to hide a lot of settings, configuration etc. away and sell the "it just works" philosophy to you, which is great, until it doesn't.

If I run at about 9.6kph on my treadmill, then the Apple Watch is pretty accurate and will record my distance and time to within a few meters / seconds. I don't need super accurate results, so this for me is fine. The problem is I am now running at 11-13kph on a regular basis, or doing interval training on the treadmill and constantly speeding up and slowing down. As soon as I do either of those things, the Apple Watch is off by at least 250m and usually more like 750m-km. There is no way to adjust your figures in the fitness app, and there is no obvious way to calibrate or recalibrate your watch for indoor running. When you very first select Indoor Run on a new watch, it will tell you to go and run outside for 20 mins so it can calibrate itself, but then it never mentions it again.

It's annoying as I ran some very good times on my treadmill over the course of the month (24:01 was my best effort) and all of that data is lost when its uploaded to Strava. Strava is aware of the time but thinks I only ran 3.7km.

The other thing you cannot track so well (or at all) on a treadmill is the incline. My treadmill has 12 settings for incline and it can make a real difference to the effort you put in on the run, but there is no way to track it. The best you will get an increased heart rate so the watch will know you are working a bit harder.

I thought there must be some kit out there that I can augment my treadmill / watch with to enable me to track things more accurately indoors... enter the Runn Treadmill sensor from North Pole Engineering to solve all my problems. Oh...

The idea is that you mount this thing to your treadmill to make it smart. You configured by sticking some stickers to the belt so that its light sensor can pick up the belt speed, while its accelerometer can pick up on the incline. It takes all of this and feeds it to your watch / phone / device to augment your workout data. All for £77. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well... yeh.

This thing was awful. A cheap and nasty product all round. The build quality of the unit itself was flimsy, it still used a mini-USB jack and not USB-C, had no battery indicator... and then we get to the apps: a very poorly built configuration app called Configurez (the z on the end should have been the first red flag) to configure your Runn and an even worse app called Heartbeatz (there's that z again...) that is supposed to replace the Apple Fitness app while you run.

I set mine up and gave it a test when it arrived and initially all seemed well and despite the rough configuration app, I got it up and running in a few minutes and connected it to Zwift. I was looking forward to putting it to the test the next day on my next 5k.

Next day came and nothing worked. The connection dropped constantly, Zwift kept losing the connection, the Configurez app couldn't keep a connection alive either, restarting the device, apps, phone... nothing worked. I wasted 30 mins faffing with it before giving up.

I persevered and tried again the next day and decided to give the Heartbeatz app a go instead of Zwift and that cemented my decision to send this thing back. A terrible clone of the Fitness watch app that can't even count properly. First run I started launched a Run and started the timer at 3:45:00 and started counting down, then up... in short: do not buy one, more hassle than they are worth and don't provide a huge benefit.

Ultimately I think the answer is GymKit and a smart treadmill but that either means joining a Gym (no) or buying a smart treadmill (also no). For the amount that both of these things would set me back, I'll stick with innacurate readings. It's a bit annoying but honestly I'm just trying to stay fit, not break any records.

I would love to see indoor training given some love in future watchOS updates. I'm sure we can just throw AI at it and it will be fine... right?

This May I took part in the RNLI Mayday Mile challenge to help raise funds for the RNLI crews dotted all around the Cornish (and beyond!) coastline. I needed something to focus on to get fit again and I have done things similar to this in the past, where I attempt to exercise at a much more intense pace to get my fitness back up... before letting it slide slowly back down again.

The official challenge was to run 1 mile a day in May. Now I'm reasonably fit and can manage regular 5k runs and the odd 10k, so I thought 1 mile a day was a bit easy. The main challenges for me would be a) finding the time each day with two young kids and a full time job to actually run and b) managing wear and tear on my knees (the left one specifically, in case you were interested).

I decided that if I was going to find the time each day to get changed, run, shower etc. that I might as well make it worthwhile and attempt to run a bit further, so I settled on attempting a 5km run every day in may. It also made for a good hashtag, so there's that too, I guess #5kADayInMay.

There were a couple of reasons for choosing this challenge, the first one was the charity itself. Living down here and taking day trips to various little harbours, beaches, coastal villages you always see stands for the RNLI. We signed up a little while ago for monthly donations, but a little more never hurts. Plus as I get a bit more adventurous and venture out into the sea to snorkel, paddle board... I want to make sure there is someone there to help when I inevitably get stuck!

The other reason is that I find challenges like this a good way to jumpstart my fitness. My fitness tends to peak and troughs quite regularly, it does not take much to break the routine; life just gets in the way with kids, work, DIY on the house... not to mention knee injuries, colds and various other diseases coming back from the kids school / nursery.

Results

Well, I'm posting this on June 4th and I'm pleased to say that I completed the challenge! Some key stats for the month:

• £338 raised for the RNLI. Huge thanks to those of you who donated your hard earned cash so generously.
• 155km covered
• 2.5kg lost
• 2500% fitter than I was 2 years ago (according to Strava)

Most surprisingly of all, I managed to do it all without any knee pain whatsoever. In the past if I had run for any more than 2 or 3 days in a row, I would have felt something but not this time; it held up very well.

Over the course of the month I did a mix of treadmill running, treadmill intervals and outdoor running through some of the amazing scenery I am so lucky to have on my doorstep. To be honest, logistically it was easier to run on the treadmill most of the time as I work from home and its just the easy option, I didn't have to think or plan a route, I just sat my iPad on the treadmill and got on with it.

I tried to get out into the real world on weekends. I had a couple of trails that I have done before that have become staples: a loop from home to Charlestown Harbour and back and the beautiful Pentewan Valley trail.

The Charlestown loop is good for hill work. There is a gentle-ish upward slope from home to Porthpean Road, and then you plummet down through the wooded lanes until you get to the sea and then you have a slow climb back out of Charlestown to head home. That climb can be a killer but by the end of the month I was coping with it... just about.

Results

My plan worked! Based on Strava's relative fitness score, I started the month on 9 and ended the month on 27, which is about where I was in November 2023 before I injured my knee attempting a 15k run to the sea.

I completed 31 5K runs in total and managed 1 a day, which with two young kids and full time job was the hardest part. I thought I may have to throw a couple of 10Ks into the mix to make up for days where I hadn't managed to run, but I managed to find a routine that worked and stuck with it.

The RNLI fundraising page is not great for recording runs, and it didn't connect to Strava, so I had to manually enter all the activities but I made sure to post a Story on Instagram every day with a picture of the treadmill as some kind of proof for my sponsors.

I managed to drop 2.5kgs, took a good 5+ mins off my average 5K time, my averages for all of my Apple Health stats have improved no end AND I raised money for a good cause.

The last run of the challenge was the Charlestown loop I do regularly. It felt fitting to the do the last run outdoors and by the sea. I recorded my fastest time doing that loop, and probably my fastest recorded outdoor 5k so I finished the whole thing on a high note.

I'd call that a result!

Now I just need to find another challenge to keep my motivation up.... more news on that soon.