South West Coast Path 2009

I wanted to do this walk as light as possible and one of my strategies was heavy reliance on purchasing cooked food on the way and frequent resupply of snacks. The Path goes through at least a couple of villages every day, so such strategy is totally feasible. There were three core foods the combination of which I eventually found to work perfect for me:

• Cornish Pastie (around 2.20 GBP, tasty and filling, generally contains meat and potato)
• Cornish Icecream (around 1.50, delicious and rich, many flavors)
• Blackberries (free, unlimited, readily avaliable, good hydration source in the absence of water)

The pastie can be found in any village in shops, cafes and tea rooms. Icecream is sold in shops and dedicated kiosks which tend to be located near beaches. Beaches, which are very frequent, tend to have a cafe which sell fast food such as pizzas and burgers. A word of caution: everything opens really late on the Coast, so don’t expect to walk into a beach cafe at 9 am. Blackberries grow literally everywhere. I could not believe my eyes when I saw, it is awesome.

I supplimented cooked food with snacks which I carried in the amount of around 500 grams (18 ounces). These consisted of:

• Pringles crisps (chips)
• Shortbread
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Malteesers
• Hot chocolate
• Tea bags
• Muesli

All snacks were repacked into ziplock bags. I also carried 2 one liter bottles of water most of the time.

In order to do consistent 40 km (25 mile) days you have to EAT. I realised that after I started getting really exhausted by the 5th day. Body fat does help, but only in the long run. I have put on about three or four kilos before the walk to eat less, but that didn’t really work. After I realised that I started eating a lot more and did ok. By the end of the walk I lost 10 kilos, meaning that there was still caloric deficit. But I did feel good and healthy after I started eating more, so the balance of food intake and body fat consumption was was about right I guess.