A trail runner has begun a lap of the perimeter of Cornwall county to honour her mother and raise awareness and funds for those living with Alzheimer’s disease.
Elsey Davis, a GP from Camelford, is hoping to set the fastest known time (FKT) for the 400-mile loop of the county.
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Davis’s run began on Monday at Land’s End, which will also be the endpoint of the route. Davis will run up the north coast of Cornwall via the South West Coast Path, down the newly created Tamara Coast to Coast Way – opened in 2023 – and then back down the south coast of the South West Coast Path back to Land’s End. She believes she may be the first runner to attempt a fast time using this particular route.
She hopes to cover about 100km a day, completing the challenge in a week. This will involve beginning each day before dawn and running for around 16 hours. The entire lap involves climbing more than 18,288m of elevation.
“In 2023 my wonderful, kind, funny and caring mum was diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer’s disease,” she wrote on Instagram. “Cornwall is where I grew up and moved back to recently to be close to my mum. The route is approximately 400 miles with 60,000ft of elevation gain and loss across rugged and weather-beaten coastlines. No one has done this before.”
Davis was previously a road runner, but entered the trail running game during the pandemic while working on the Covid wards in Manchester. She has set several records, including the women’s winter record on the Bob Graham Round, a fell running route of over 100k in the Lake District, which involves scaling 42 peaks – including the highest in the UK – in just 24 hours. She lowered the winter record to 20 hours and 21 minutes in January 2023.
You can track Elsey’s progress via this Adventure Tracking link and donate to Alzheimer’s Research via this Givestar link.
Top image: Elsey Davis on the way to 1st women overall in the Arc 50 at the Arc of the Attrition by UTMB in 2025 near Porthtowan (credit: Getty Images)
