Cornish Coastal Challenge: Day 12

12.4 miles - Widemouth Bay to Marsland Mouth

A really lovely morning. My training partner Jo joined me and we set off from Widemouth at 8am. The first part was pretty easy going and we managed 4.5 miles in the first hour. Before attempting to walk/run the coast I would have thought this was a terrible speed, but after 11 days on the coast, this was impressive.

North of Bude the coast and cliffs became more wild and bleak and the hills started. Near the radio station at Harscott we realised that we had gone the wrong way when the sea was on our right instead of left! The headlands have some interesting names and we passed Lower Sharpnose Point and then Higher Sharpnose Point. There were several steep ascents and descents but also some good running through fields in between. We stoppped to take photos at Hawkers Hut near Morwenstow and shortly afterwards saw a sign for Marsland Mouth - 1.75miles. We realised that we were ahead of schedule so I called Alan to let him know that we should get there an hour earlier than expected.

Finally we reached Marsland Cliff and I was almost sad that I had climbed my last hill. The hill down to Marsland Mouth was a runnable hill so we were able to run to the end. We were met by a welcoming party of 2 men and 2 dogs (Alan and Alfie and a photographer and his dog Finley). I had actually been quite worried about whether Alan would find Marsland Mouth as it is a 20 minute trek down a footpath from a very tiny remote road.

It was a funny feeling to get to the end, but it was special that Jo had joined me for the last leg as we had done so many of our training runs together - thank you, Jo.

After a few photos we walked back up the hill to the car. I will do another 'mop up' post if you want to look out for it!