Saturday jog on Hayle Beach

As it’s been a fairly tough week, with work and personal circumstances, yesterday, I decided to go out for a run on Hayle Beach with my cousin, Anneliese.

We posed for a quick picture outside my mum’s house (“Mexico House”) and then set off towards the beach. It didn’t take long before we had crossed the towans (Cornish word for sand dunes) and were on the cliffs, where we stopped for yet another photo.

Views from Hayle Beach

It was a beautiful day, so I made a slightly crazy decision to run on the beach. This is a rare occurrence as I find running on sand really difficult. Fortunately, the tide was on its way out, so the sand was quite firm.

I love Hayle beach. It is my home town’s main tourist attraction, proudly described as ‘three miles of golden sands’. The beach goes north-east to Gwithian/Godrevy Towans and south-west to Hayle Estuary. (Heyl is the Cornish word for estuary). Across the bay, it is possible to see St. Ives.

I was surprised at how many people were out walking their dogs and there were a couple of horse riders on the beach. There were also two groups from the local surf school – a group of mixed-age adults and a group of children. It looked like they were having a lot of fun.

A seal pup!

There was also a big surprise on the beach – a seal pup! Although I’ve seen seals off the coast at Porthcurno, I’ve never seen one on the beach before. He looked a little disoriented and possibly injured, so we ensured that a local wildlife rescue charity was able to come and pick him up to give him any necessary treatment.

Anneliese used to run regularly whilst she was at university, but she hasn’t run for a few months, so we agreed that we would just do 5k, interspersed with some rest/photo breaks. The surf was quite good, so it was interesting watching the locals strut their stuff.

I also found a few moments to share some love for Team SOAS!

Beautiful sea and sky

After so much horrendous weather recently, the temperature was lovely – quite warm, with no wind – and there were beautiful blue skies.

The lighthouse in the picture below is Godrevy Lighthouse, which dates back to 1858. It is said to have inspired Virginia Woolf’s novel, ‘To The lighthouse’, as her family used to stay at Talland House in St. Ives.

After 5.15km, Anneliese decided that she had had enough, so we called it a day.

Visiting St Ives

After visiting our Grandma, we went for a walk in St. Ives. There was a beautiful sunset, so the sky looked magical.

Training for Weymouth Half

I finally found some time to catch up with my emails, and have seen that the route for Challenge Weymouth has been announced. There’s a full description of the bike course and the run course on the official website. The bike course seems to have a mountain that will require crampons between 5 and 10k and the run course is flat, but there are 2.5 laps to do. The ‘beer mile’ near the finish is being touted as a particular attraction!

This morning, I had intended to do a 10 mile run with my cousin Kirsty and Uncle Roger. They are both in training for the London Marathon. Unfortunately, I realised that I would not be able to fit in a long run with them as well as see my Aunty Anthea and my Grandma, so I decided to run to my Aunty’s house and then go and visit my Grandma.

Anneliese asked whether she could join me for the first 30 minutes of my planned 5-mile run, so I agreed. Her mum agreed to pick her up on the way. After 30 minutes, we were nearly at 5k, so I encouraged Anneliese to continue. When we hit 5k, her mum wasn’t in sight, so she agreed that she might as well keep moving. There were a couple of brief walking breaks, and by the time her mum got to us in her car, we were less than 1km from our destination, so Anneliese agreed that she may as well complete the run. Way to go, girl! In the end, we ran 7.07km 🙂

Lazy ass?

Unfortunately, I’ve now got an achy knee, but I think it’s because my glute muscles have gone all ‘lazy ass’ on me over Christmas. Fortunately, a fellow triathlete shared this on Facebook this week: Glute dysfunction in runners: weakness or inhibition?

Goodbye Grandma

Finally, it was time for me to see my Grandma for the last time. I was happy that she was sitting in her chair today as it makes her look better. We had a lovely conversation and, as ever, her sense of humour shone through. Anneliese and I told her about our run and discussed the physical labour that Grandma used to do. She had a local milk-round and walked over 15 miles a day until she was in her 60s, which kept her very fit and healthy! I don’t own many photos of my Grandma, but will always be able to picture her.

When Stuart and I got married, my Grandpa wrote the following lines of poetry by Omar Khyyam in our wedding book

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

It seems apposite to remember it now. There is nothing that I can do to change the passing of time, just as there is nothing that can change what has happened already, so my happy memories can never be erased.