Portheras Cove

My last day on holiday in Cornwall with E's family. Having already enjoyed a couple of coast path runs, covering the section from Praa Sands to Land's End, and with the legs feeling surprisingly good, I decided to get the bus back to Land's End so I could continue around towards St.Ives. I wasn't sure how much ground I was going to be able to cover but the bus route provided lots of options to exit the path. As it turned out, I managed to run 18.5 miles before time ran out and I needed to head inland to pick up the bus back to Penzance from Zennor.

It's certainly not the easiest running, taking in beaches as well as some very rough and rocky stretches, as well as lots of steep climbs and descents, but it's totally exhilarating. It brought back very strong memories, not so much of places but of the feeling of making a journey, seeing a headland in the distance, like Gurnard's Head here, and then arriving there in what seems like no time at all, eyeing up the next headland. I was once able to keep this up all day. Today's four hour run was plenty but no less satisfying. 

Note to self. A week or so ago my knees were in a bad way and I feared that I'd passed some horrible threshold of wear and tear. It's clearly not as simple as that. The fact that I've been able to run 50 miles this week gives me some confidence for the future. I now put that pain down to stress. It might explain why my knees are actually better now than they were 10 years ago, when I was working all hours of the day and constantly stressed out - as recorded in my journal back then! It's fascinating. I wonder if anyone else has knees that function as a barometer for stress?