Somewhere between the summit of Everest and a delivery round in Saltash, Ed Buckingham decided a hundred miles round the Cornish coast sounded like a reasonable way to spend a weekend.
An ordinary Cornishman with an extraordinary CV
Ed Buckingham is a postman from Saltash who describes himself, modestly, as an ordinary Cornishman. The claim doesn’t really hold up. Ed is the only person from Cornwall to have climbed Mount Everest and completed the Seven Summits Challenge, reaching the highest peak on every continent. He has since written a book about the climbs. Having taken on the world’s tallest mountains, Ed has now turned his attention to something closer to home, and arguably just as gruelling.
Looe to Looe, the long way round
Starting on 26 September 2026, Ed is attempting to run more than 100 miles in a single loop around the East Cornwall coastline, beginning and ending in Looe. The route heads north to Boscastle, picks up the coast path down to Padstow, turns south to Fowey, then follows the coast path back to Looe to close the circuit, taking in both the north and south coasts along the way. He’s set himself a strict window of 39 hours to finish, with two river crossings to navigate and thirteen support stops along the route, staffed by family and friends. “Over the 26-27th of September 2026 I shall be attempting to run 100 miles over a period of 39 hours,” Ed said. “Starting from Looe, heading north to Boscastle, coast path to Padstow, south to Fowey before the final stretch of coast path to Looe. Along with the time set I have two river crossings.”
Further than he’s ever run before
For all his mountaineering experience, this is genuinely new territory. Ed knows the East Cornwall coast well, but by his own admission has never run further than 32 miles in one go, a distance he’ll need to more than triple, back to back, through a full night. “This will be a big challenge,” he said.
Running for the team that might one day come looking for him
The charity Ed has chosen is close to home in more ways than one. East Cornwall Search and Rescue Team is a group of volunteers who respond to people in distress across East Cornwall and beyond, working alongside the police, ambulance service and coastguard. Like most search and rescue teams, they are entirely self-funded, meaning every pound raised goes directly toward keeping the team operational and its volunteers equipped. Ed has explained that he’s previously paid for helicopter repatriation cover without ever needing to use it, and wanted to put his fundraising effort behind the people who do the work locally when things go wrong on the county’s cliffs and moorland. You can follow Ed’s build-up and the run itself on his Facebook page, and support him through his JustGiving page. At the time of writing he’s already had donations rolling in from well-wishers telling him he’s mad, wishing him luck, and asking if there’s a bit of climbing to come too. There isn’t, this time. Just a hundred miles of Cornish coast path, two rivers, and thirty-nine hours to get it done.