Hi, good afternoon. Welcome. It's 101 Eastern and welcome to Vision, a show about the trends, ideas, and disruptions changing the face of our democracy. The past two weeks have seen a nation rise up in ways that we haven't seen for a long time in this country. And one of the key questions that we've been tackling on this show is, can our democratic systems meet the moment and channel this anger, this energy, these new demands into change? And as we saw this week in the state of Georgia, this is a profoundly practical question in the COVID era. Exactly two weeks after the killing of George Floyd touched off an awakening in cities across the country, those eager to have their say in the state of Georgia had to wait in frustratingly long lines as new voting machines malfunctioned. So with that event as the backdrop, we're going to continue our discussion on how to manage an election in a time of COVID and clearly in a time of immense change in the country, with two incredible guests with Trevor Potter, who's the founder and president of the Campaign Legal Center, and Anne Ravel, who's the director of the project on digital disinformation at Maplight. And both are former members of the Federal Election Commission, which oversees campaign finance laws. We've got a lot to discuss given what's going on in the country right now, and we may go a little long today. So without further ado, please welcome Trevor Potter and Anne Ravel. Hi, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Thanks. Oh, and I think you're muted. Just a quick. All right. Excellent. Well, so we could really only begin with one question, which is what happened this week in Georgia? Anne, can you do you want to start and then we'll go to you, Trevor? Well, you know, obviously, we know that there were really long lines that people were voting after midnight. It took them seven seven hours, some of them, and to be in line, which is outrageous. I think that the issue of whether or not the machine's malfunctioned is interesting. Because from what I understand, it is that the machines actually just were overly complicated and nobody knew how to make them function. And they were the poll workers weren't trained. The people who were there to vote couldn't utilize them. Sometimes the poll workers I read somewhere, they put in the cards upside down and inappropriately. So it was a systemic problem. And of course, there were more voters at the polls because a lot of their mail in ballots didn't arrive or they arrived late and didn't have the right language on them. I mean, all kinds of problems that created longer lines. And it's pretty pretty scandalous for people to have to wait in line that long. But they did it, which is a testament to the interest that people have in wanting to have their voices heard. Right. But we don't want, we don't want voting to be a decathlon.  Trevor, what did you see go wrong in Georgia? Well, there is a basic rule in election administration, which was violated here and everybody knew it was violated. And that is, you don't introduce new machinery and new systems in the middle of an election here because you want poll workers who are by and large older and used to whatever they've been doing to be able to do it without a lot of complexity and thought. And so when Georgia went to these new systems, which were highly controversial, they made the right decision to have a paper trail, which I think was vital so that if the machines broke and people had voted, you'd at least know on paper how they voted. But they introduced these with very little training, partly undoubtedly because of the virus and the fact that it wasn't easy to train people for the last three months. But they put these new machines in and as Anne says, some of them may have malfunctioned. Sometimes the poll workers may not have known what to do with them. But the end result is you had 10 machines in some places with only one working. And that led to the next problem, which is they had not expected this, understandably, so they didn't have backup ballots. There wasn't a way when the machines were down to simply hand people paper ballots. Furthermore, there were a number of people who had requested absentee ballots had not received them and therefore came to the polling place. So they were listed as having had an absentee ballot and they were told they couldn't vote. And they said, yes, but I'm here because I didn't get my ballot. So it was a snowballing of problems. What I think is worth noting is that these problems tended to be in the heavily populated urban areas. And I don't believe that's a conspiracy, but that's the reality of life. You have more voters there and there tend to be therefore more voters per polling place in a city than there are way out in the countryside. So the reports are that maybe people waited 20 minutes in the countryside and eventually they went in and voted. In the city, we have reports of waiting seven hours. And so that has led to charges that this is simply a system designed to make it harder for urban residents and therefore minorities and blacks in particular to vote because they comprise a much larger percentage of the people waiting to vote in these cities. And that undermines faith in our election system at a terrible time when people are focused on systemic racism anyway. So let's go deeper on that issue because I think there, even two weeks ago on their show, we had Spencer Overton from the Joint Center and Arturo Vargas from Nalayo. And they pointed to that that there's a huge inequity layer of the onion with regard to COVID in particular because all of the challenges of having to manage an election by mail, all of the challenges of having to make sure that polling places can be resilient and medically safe are compounded in under-resourced areas. And then of course, we've got this other layer of the unden which is to what extent are these, is this a function of sort of longstanding resource disparities to so many neighborhoods and communities where black Americans live, where brown Americans live. So I mean, and how much of this is, how much of the kind of inequity access question has to do with the unique challenges of COVID and how much of it has to do with what's built into our system? Well, and I think that's a really central question here because one of the other things that we didn't mention yet is that a lot of the mail-in ballots in Georgia were not stamped. And of course, if it's going to be in a minority low-income community, in order to have more access, you would expect, and most of the election experts say that it's important for them to be stamped, and they were not. And even Stacy Abrams, who wanted to vote by mail, couldn't because it was closed and you couldn't open it. And so, I mean, there were a lot of things that were wrong. But with regard to your question, I think it's very interesting to think about what voter suppression really is. While we have a long history of voter suppression in this country that is clearly purposeful, the other part of it is that election officials can make decisions about who can vote easily and who can't. That's their role. And typically, you would think that they would do it equally across both, especially those communities that are more populous, such as the cities, where there are more Latinos and more African-Americans. But that isn't what happened here. And so, really, the issue of voter suppression is how they affect voters' desire and ability to be able to vote. And so, I think in some ways this is purposeful because, yes, there were unexpected things that happened regarding COVID, but also, you always know where the majority or can try to predict where the majority of ballots are going to come in. And in particular, in a situation like this, where they were also not clear about how to vote through vote by mail. And we know statistically, and people have generally said that African-American and Latino voters often don't feel comfortable voting by mail and would much prefer to be in a voting location. So, preparing for that is the job of the election officials. And admittedly, there are things that happened that, perhaps, they weren't prepared for and wasn't purposeful. But I think there's certainly an element of that here. So, Trevor, if you do advise election officials, if you're advising election officials who at least want to be purposeful in enabling as many people to vote as possible, what are some of the administrative issues that you would really be focused on right now, either upstream in terms of how we help people to vote by mail or downstream, like on polling, on election day, what do we need to be doing really intentionally if the goal is to enable as many people as possible who want to vote to vote? And to vote safely, which has been an issue in these primaries this spring. And if it's right, there's going to be a second wave, may well be, an issue for a lot of people in November. The first thing is to have available to voters a range of ways to vote. Now, there are four states, as you probably know, in the U.S., that basically vote by mail. Every voter, registered voter, gets a ballot. They fill it out. They can either put it back in the mail or they can put it in a lock box at specific locations. Those states have been doing that now for a while. They had a transition of four or five years to get to the place where people understood it and it worked smoothly. And that seems to have gone well. But it is difficult to take that system and suddenly impose it on a state where people aren't used to using it. The post office isn't used to it. The election officials aren't used to it. They haven't got the printer contracts. They don't have the machines that are new and speedy to count those ballots. And yet that is what is going to happen in a lot of states because people are concerned about voting in a crowd. And we saw that in these primary states like Wisconsin, which traditionally it had 10%, people vote by mail suddenly had 50% and 60% voting by mail. So states need to be prepared for two different things at once. One is a wave of requests for absentee ballots and getting them out in time and educating the voting public now that they need to ask for them in advance and allow enough time to get them. If you ask for them and get it on the Saturday before the election, it may not get back in time. There are many states that require that the ballot must be received by election day or on election day. So voter education needs to be done now. Some states are doing this really well. They're sending postcards out to people saying it's easy to vote absentee. Here is how you do it. Other states are proposing to send every registered voter an application for an absentee ballot, but that's only one piece of it because as Ann I think absolutely correctly said, there are a number of communities that for one reason or another are not going to find absentee voting by mail. They're preferred choice. People may not have a good mailbox. They may have a history of getting their mail stolen. They may live in a place where there's a common mailbox and they're worried about that. They may have site issues and need help voting. So for all of those, you're going to have to have enough in-person voting places. And so states need now to be focusing on who is it who's going to staff those places. One of the things that happened in Georgia and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is that a large number of their traditional poll workers who are tend to be elderly because that's a great responsible job for retired people who have the time and can spend the whole day, those people did not turn up in significant numbers for help reasons out of concern. So they closed polling places or were under staff because they didn't have the poll workers. So starting now if it's likely that college students are going to be at home, train college students, look for people who can take the day off and work the poll so that you have a backup group for November. And then the final piece coming out of Georgia is be prepared for problems and have enough backup paper ballots. Not every state is going to have a brand new voter system on their biggest primary day, but states have problems. There are electrical issues and so forth. And you need to have enough paper backup ballots handy. And what would you add to or quibble with anything on that list? I would. I mean, I think not only backup ballots, which obviously they have to have, but all kinds of equipment. I mean, for example, they should have the voter registration rules in paper so that there's clearly going to be access to all of those things. As well as, I mean, in my view, part of what happened in Georgia was the failure to train. And yes, of course, COVID may have had some influence on that, but it's very important to train the poll workers. And obviously they could do a zoom just like this. So with young people because they're not going to have the older poll workers. So I mean, those are things that I think are really important. But the other factor that we didn't talk about that I think is really important to do, given the situation now with more mail and balloting and COVID would be to have the polls and in all locations, all kinds of locations, both the drop offs as well as the polling spots as well, you know, as well as earlier voting, it should all be done earlier. They should be open more than just one day. They should be open for a week in order to not only have them more accessible to people, but to allow people later to actually count that vote in a way that is more expeditious than what's going to happen in this election. So I want to ask a few questions about some of the perceptual issues that come along with elections. I mean, one of the reasons we were really excited, you both were able a couple reasons we're really excited to join the show. I think one is you guys have you've helped to oversee election policy in different administrations and times. And I think it's easy to think about where we are in a vac. It's natural to think about where we are in a vacuum versus as part of a continuum of debate about the right way to hold elections. But also because you know, you as particularly at the Federal Election Commission, you both have had to be at that bridge point where arcane matters of policy come together with really fundamental value questions about who has a voice and how that voice gets expressed. And so one of the questions I wanted to ask about everything you all just described is, you know, what are the partisan dimensions of this debate? And how are they helping or hurting? It seems to me the reality is we don't seem to have, we may have bipartisan consensus that everyone ought to have the right to vote. I think there's some debate about that. Some people don't think we have bipartisan consensus about that, but we clearly don't seem to have bipartisan consensus about the validity of mail-in voting. It doesn't seem we have bipartisan consensus about the level of investment that will be required, at least at the national level. On the other hand, you know, we hear over and over, and it comes up on this show, when you're, for so many local election officials, they're just thinking about, hey, I'm a public servant, no matter what party I'm from, I'm a public servant trying to help people vote, and I'm doing everything I can to make that happen. There just seems to be this really deep juxtaposition between our national politics and the way so many folks in the front lines are thinking about this. So how do you come at this? Like, we now have a political and policy question that we're facing. Are we going to be able to get ready for this election? Are we going to be able to make it as equitable as possible? Where do you see the partisan shoals in the debate? Maybe Trevor will start with you and then Anne. Sure. This should not be a partisan issue, and yet I have not seen election issues this polarized in my lifetime. Part of it is President Trump's loud and unrelenting attack on voting by mail, even though he votes by mail and his Vice President does and his press secretary does. And he's really into the postal service, as we all know from the Amazon debate. Well, and that's another corollary issue here, because the postal service is essential to voting by mail, and he is threatening to shut it down and saying he will block the loan Congress has passed to it. And they've said they they may have to shut down before the election, which is crazy in an election where it's it may not be safe to vote in person. I think you have to unpack this a little. The Republican Party historically has had a very strong vote by mail program in the number of states. California's one, Arizona's one, Florida's one, where they identified Republican leaning, registered Republican voters and focused on older voters and went to them and said you don't have to vote on election day. You can fill out an absentee ballot and you can vote at home and we'll get the ballot to you. We'll get the application to you and you can do it and they would follow up make sure people did vote it's public record when ballots are returned. And as a result, they didn't have to worry about voter turnout for that group and they would what they would call bank those votes in advance. What's happened is the Democrats have figured out how to do that to and in the last election, particularly in California, they had a huge absentee voter program and Republicans were unpleasantly surprised by that. I think President Trump has made a calculation here that his voters are first of all more rural and less urban. And therefore they're going to have an easier time voting anyway they're going to be at the moment less worried about the pandemic. And they're probably in his view, going to vote no matter what. So he sees the threat that everyone else is going to be encouraged to vote and that they're going to have votes in his scenario delivered to their door stops, ballots delivered to their door stops, as the possibility of really increasing voter turnout beyond his base to democratic base and independence. And that's what he's objecting to. On the other hand, you have Secretaries of State of both parties saying, look, as you've said, I'm a public servant, my job is to make sure that people can vote and vote safely. And so I want to provide a range of ways for them to do it. They don't see it as stimulating the turnout of one party or another. I would add that every survey I've seen says that there is no partisan advantage to absentee voting, that it does not change the election numbers when people shift from in person to absentee. The reason is that pretty much the same people still vote. It doesn't radically change the voting pool and bring in lots of people who hadn't voted before. It might be good for democracy if we had higher levels of participation, but merely shifting from voting in person to voting at home doesn't change that. Anne, your thoughts on the partisan. Well, first off, I agree with Trevor for sure that it does not actually have an impact on the vote, whether you are when you're voting by mail. And Stanford recently did a study on that issue and said that there was no evidence whatsoever of that. But I do think that over the years, and I don't think this is the only year with Trump, that voting and access to voting has been a partisan issue to some degree, because I know, for example, in vote by mail in those states that do have the absentee ballots and votes, I mean, in some states, there are great impediments for people to be able to show that they can vote by absentee. And also in many states, we know where there are in particular conservative or Republican secretaries of state, some of the decisions that are made about looking at the signatures on absentee ballots has been politically motivated and they have, by large percentages, disqualified ballots from more low income African American and minority, other minority communities. So I disagree with Trevor a little bit in that there have been circumstances, and this is not all across the country, but there have been circumstances where those ballots have been disqualified in really large numbers that essentially give people no ability to vote whatsoever. And so I'm kind of concerned about that problem because we know that some states, for example, Oregon has both Democrats and Republicans on a committee that will make decisions about whether those ballots are valid, that are right in the mail ballots, but other states are particularly partisan. Yeah, Trevor, it looks like you're not getting that. Because Ann's absolutely right. I mean, a big part of CLC's work is fighting partisan efforts across the country to privilege the party in power in the legislature or holding the Secretary of State's office and make it harder for the other party to vote. We have seen that across the country. We've been fighting voter ID issues where the Texas legislature wrote laws that made it easy for Republican gun owners to vote and made it impossible for students in state universities to use their ID to vote or Georgia last time where there was purging of the voter rolls or North Dakota where they required a residence address of tribal members on reservation properties which don't have residential address. They knew that. So this is an ongoing battle around the country and it is offensive, I think, that the party in power, whichever party it is, would try to rig the rules to make it more difficult for the other side to vote and particularly difficult here where in a number of these southern states when Republicans try to make it hard for Democrats to vote, which is what they will admit in the redistricting context, where we are stacking the deck to elect more Republicans, what they say is we don't want to elect Democrats, but this is in a state where Democrats have a racial identity and most blacks are Democrats. So there is a double whammy. They are not only going against the other party but they are making it hard for minority communities to vote and we see that time and again, they rig the rules to say we're no longer going to have voting on the Sunday before the election because that was a day that traditionally black churches would go to church and then souls would go to polls. So this is an ongoing problem and is absolutely right about that. The distinction I was drawing is that we've never before had a president who tried to threaten the validity of the election and a key way to vote. So let's talk about that because one of the things that we've seen this in polling, some research that we've done around people who don't vote, we did a big study of the 100 million Americans who chronically don't vote for president, is there's like these compounding losses. So the person who loses the opportunity to vote on election day, you never get that right back for that iteration of that election as we know. There's a party that may be a candidate who ought to have won but even if it doesn't swing the system then there's this net effect which is that people are smart and they know and so they internalize this as into some sort of referendum on the reliability of our elections. We saw a huge portion of people who don't vote are worried their vote doesn't count but more than that, even if that's not the reason they don't vote, they just don't believe in the system. They don't actually think that the election is providing an accurate result and then they take that a step further and raise real questions of the efficacy of their own voice in the democracy. And so we're getting questions already from our audience about should we expect the result on election day and I'm just can you help us think about that task, the legitimacy task which is we're going to do a huge mode shift. It's probably going to mean that we don't get the result the day of the election. We've got a media establishment that will be reporting on the election that psychologically can't handle like the inability to call an election and will go crazy. You've got a president who's already raising questions, incumbent president is already raising questions about the validity of the mode shift. What do we need to do to continue the real genius of this system which is that we accept the results of these elections? That's the real genius of this system. Maybe Ann will start with you and then go to Trevor. How do we shore up the legitimacy? Can I deviate a slight bit from that question because there's a real connection here with the rhetoric that is coming from the president about voting and about COVID and its relationship to the deep state or to various other things like COVID was really done by the Democrats to respond so that they could undo the election and those are things that get transmitted on the internet, on platforms and many of them a lot of the disinformation about COVID as well as the connection to voting is palpable. It's clear that it's done for the purpose of political propaganda. In fact, there's recently been some absolute false information about COVID and various other things on a African American Facebook site that is devoted to voting issues. This is a concerted effort done by mostly right wingers probably who are picking up on the language that's coming from the president and is using it to manipulate the vote. And also foreign actors, by the way, right? They don't care which candidate it's this exact issue. They want you to doubt the validity of the election. Absolutely. And the whole purpose of all of this is to doubt the validity of the vote to have lack of trust in our democratic institutions and governmental institutions and also to assure that in some cases people don't vote. I mean it's almost it's in 2016 that was quite clear. They actually told people not to vote mostly in black communities. So these are all things that I think are a broader problem and the press, the mainstream press obviously has a really important role here to debunk this information that's coming so that people feel more confidence because I think you're right. I mean there's no question that historically if people feel that they do not have trust in government, period, if they don't feel their voice counts, but also if they don't have trust in the way that the voting mechanisms are going to work, they're not going to vote. And that's truthfully back to voter suppression. That's purposeful. So Trevor, what can we do to build confidence? You know, we're in June. It's not that long. But what do we do to build expectations and confidence before election day? Well, two things that I think are really important. The first is that the states need funding for what needs to be done. And Congress gave them $400 million, which is about 10% of the estimate of what they need. The House has proposed several billion. That's sitting in the Senate as far as I can see not moving at the moment. The quicker they get it, the better. They need it to print ballots. They need it to go out in states that haven't had a lot of absentee ballots. They need to go pay printers and they need to put stamps on those envelopes to get them back. They need new machines to count those. They need money to train more workers. All the things we've been talking about at a time when they're in a budget crisis and unlike the federal government, they can't just print money in lower interest rates. They actually have to have tax dollars, which they're using to fight the pandemic and which they're not getting because of the pandemic. They need that money to go do all these things. So one is federal funding. The second is we all, the press, individuals, voting officials, need to have a clear understanding that this is an election process. It is not turning a switch. We are in an ironically sort of back to where we started as a country where it took several days for people to vote because they had to ride in and do it in town centers. And then it took days to know who had won. And it took a while for that election result to reach the Capitol. And that's back where we are because we are stringing out the voting period and people are going to vote by mail. Then the ballots are going to arrive and they're going to be literally tens of millions of ballots that have to be opened and counted. In many cases by law, that process can't even start until the polls are closed. In some states, they're saying you can start counting the morning of the election. But they don't want people to know in advance who's ahead. So they're saying you can't normally count until the polls are closed. The result of that is going to be, it is going to be a couple of days before the ballots are counted. And then of course, you have the question of are there close races and are there recounts and so forth. So last time in 2000, as you recall, it took to the middle of December to get to the point where we knew who was going to be declared the winner in Florida. I hope it isn't that long this time, but it's going to be a couple days. And so the idea that we're going to go to bed on election night, having seen total nationwide returns is just a fiction. It is not going to happen that way. It hasn't happened that way for the last two times, but the press has focused on where the count was and the assumption has been there were not enough absentee ballots to change it. This year, I think there's definitely going to be enough absentee ballots and a number of key states that we're going to have to wait and hear what the count on those ballots is. So that brings me really to the last question I want to leave on, which is the future. And I think the way you said it, the way you sort of described what it used to be like, I think particularly for a lot of young Americans, you know, is sort of what they object to. Like while we were having this conversation for all you know, I ordered five meals on Grubhub, you know, like it's just it's just that easy to do a to transact online for a lot of of what we do, including a lot of high stakes things we do, by the way, banking, etc. really high stakes, high security tasks. And I and I fear, you know, a lot of young people, you know, when don't want to be don't want to they're not reassured to know that there was a time that we, you know, someone on a horseback had to show up. They sort of think that's that's the problem. And I thinking that as we talk about using these really analog processes to be able to safely pull off an election. So let's just last question is really one about the future, like how far away are we and we're getting this from the audience to like how far away are we from, you know, voting online or voting in ways that feel contemporary with some of the other transactions we have, we'll start with you Trevor, then we'll give you the last word. I have one word answer to that, which is anonymity. That's the difference. Of course, I can go bank online and I can order five things from Grubhub precisely because everybody knows I'm me, I've used my credit card data, I've given them the identification, I go to the bank, I've given them my mother's birth date. They know it's Trevor Potter doing this with voting. The whole point is it's a secret ballot. They're not supposed to know it's me. And so it is very difficult to figure out how to design a system where I can vote digitally, electronically online and somehow separate that from my identity while guaranteeing that it's really a registered voter. And so that's the difficulty. The threat, of course, is hacking.  Someone uses your credit card, you say that's not my charge. If your vote gets hacked, it's gone. It's done. And with the foreign fears we have of foreign interference or domestic, turning over the voting system to somebody who can hire a good hacker and go in and change results or prevent me from voting or give somebody else extra votes is really a worry, which is why the old fashioned pen and paper is still the safest way offensive is that is the people who are used to operating totally digitally. And last word to you. Well, I agree with Trevor on this one. I'm of course here in Silicon Valley and people here say that there is still a lot of concern about voting online for that same reason because of hacking. And in fact, I mean, even the voting machines that were used in Georgia, people were concerned about hacking in the for those machines. And so and we know, I mean, aside from what happened previously in 2016 with regard to some of the hacking, not not that we know about the voting machines because there wasn't any auditing. So we have no way of knowing. But we know there's already been hacking of the Biden campaigns and the Trump campaigns in this election by China and Iran, I think. And so hacking is a real concern that they would be able to either change the votes or change the voter registration in a way that would be problematic. So I think we're not there yet, but we should be. I think it's something that that is really important to do. Of course, then everybody needs broadband access all over the country as well. Yeah, at least in a mobile fashion. Well, for those of you who are really closely following these issues is the stakes get higher and higher. And Trevor are both really good guides to what's going on and what's important. You can follow Trevor on Twitter at the Trevor Potter and you can follow and on Twitter at Ann M. Ravel. And as always, we'll send that information out to you after the show. And Trevor, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much, Sam. This has been a great conversation. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thanks, Trevor. Next week, we will be will be joined by Steven Heinz, the president of the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and Antonio Hernandez, who's the president of the California Community Foundation and the former CEO of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, Maldef. They are serving on a major commission on the future of citizenship. And they'll be on the show to talk to us about the new demands and new opportunities for citizens in an era of intense change. Their commission is releasing findings today. And so we'll have an exclusive opportunity to hear from them. At a time, there were this question of what are our responsibilities as residents of citizens couldn't be more important. As a reminder, this website, this episode will be on the website tomorrow. And you can see this episode and any episode on demand at kf.org slash vision. I'd especially encourage you to check out a special non-live episode we did earlier this week with Benita Gupta, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, talking about the protests that are happening across the country and what we can do to advance the cause of civil rights in this country. You can email us at vision at kf.org and visit us on instagram at vision.kf. Please take the survey that's up on your screen now. As always, we'll end the show with music from Nick County, Miami based singer-songwriter. It's available on Spotify. Until next week, thanks for joining us.


Greetings, everyone. It is Friday, early evening, August the 1st, 2014, and it's my birthday, and I want to appreciate, I want to thank all of my networking friends and close friends, and family for all of your birthday wishes. I really appreciate it. It cheered me up quite a bit. And something happened today. I didn't have any special plans at all. It was a very quiet day. I met with my old friend William H. Morrill III, our voiceover artist for Megalife 21, and we had a very nice, enjoyable meeting together. We joked around a lot over lunch, and it rained today. But when I came home, I was very surprised in what I found outside the door. I saw a large rectangular box standing up and UPS ground shipment. I opened up the box, and lo and behold, this is what I found. Not one pair, but two pairs of my new Victorian teardrop Indian Clubs from revolutionclubs.net, made by Master Wood Turner, Mr. Christian D'Arce, who the headquarters of Revolution Clubs is outside of Houston, Texas, and made of high quality white oak, I believe, unless it's hickory. I got to find out from him, but he only uses very dense, durable wood. So I have a feeling these are white oak. And as you could see, I have this is the pair of one pound Victorian teardrop Indian Clubs. And here are the two pounders, okay, two pound teardrop Indian Clubs. Just came out with them. Okay, these are his newest products in his revolutionclubs.net product line, and I hope to get much great endurance exercise training out of them. How about that? He didn't know it was my birthday today. It just happened coincidentally. It just happened to be delivered. It arrived on my birthday. So that's something. That was a great surprise that made my day, made my week, actually. So there you have it. High quality wood, okay, from revolutionclubs.net, the authentic Victorian teardrop style Indian Clubs. I don't know if you could see it. There we are with the revolutionclubs insignia engraved right in there. All right. Very happy. I hope to get much great use out of them. This video was especially made for my Facebook fitness group, the International Brotherhood of Polyvans, and my members. I'm very happy that the group is growing very rapidly. And we have some pretty heavy hitters there on the group. And I just want to send a summer greeting for the beginning of August to everyone on the group appreciating their support and their input in regards to old school, hardcore, rotary training, ancient warrior style training, as far as Indian Clubs Persian meals, kettlebells, and the mace. And of course, I want to send a greeting to Paul Wolkowinski, who happens to be right now in Varanasi, India for the Indian Club World Tour 2014. And right now there is a special reptile or serpent ancient festival going on there involving cobra snakes. And I look forward to seeing many videos and photos posted concerning that festival. And a friend, a good friend aside from Paul Wolkowinski, a one of our finest members, Mr. Guyon Shankle, or Guyon Shankle Singh will be posting, uploading many fine videos and photos, which he has already done so. Thank you.


Welcome to Filmeroun and welcome to Kovrak on the south coast of Cornwall. We are at the start line of the Ark of Attrition 100 mile race, which goes from here all the way around the Ark of Cornwall and finishes in Port Talon on the north coast. In this video we are going to be going to all the major places around the race, all the major stops, all the major checkpoints on the Ark of Attrition 100 and the Ark of Attrition 50 mile race. So the race starts here at the entrance to this car park. You will leave Port Talon on a bus and arrive here well in time for the start of the race, which is usually at midday. You will get here about 11, half 11 and you will line up at this point here right at the entrance to this car park. When the race starts you'll make your way down this hill here and then turn to the right and go along through Kovrak and then out onto the coast path. So let's go and have a look. Kovrak is a small village with not an awful lot of space, which is why you get dropped off by a bus and why ideally crew and other cars should not come to Kovrak for the start of the race. If you are crew make your way to Lizard Point and meet your runner there. When the race starts you'll come down this hill and you head along the coast road here and you will go onto the coast path at the other end of Kovrak village. So you'll climb up a bit of a steep climb up out of the village and then on to what is a fairly gnarly first 10 miles of the course. This beautiful location is Kenak Sands and provided there are no coastal path diversions then you'll come through here at five miles into the run. So you'll come down off the hill here and just skirt that beach there and then come across just below the hill here and then you'll cross this bridge just here and then head into Kenak Sands and once you get to the road there you have about 200 meters to climb up to get back onto the coast path and you'll carry on your way that way to the Lizard Point. So I just thought I'd pop up here onto the road to show you where you turn off when you've come up from Kenak Sands on the road to turn off back onto the coast path. There will be plenty of people around still the field won't have spread out that much so there'll be plenty of people who do know where they're going although just a warning that that is not the way to run your race do not just follow the person in front. You will of course have the map on your GPS watch won't you the GPX file on your watch make sure you're following that but this path here is where you come off the road it's a good 200 meters it's not you know it's not just around the corner you do have to climb on the road quite a little way out of Kenak Sands but then you will come to this path here which is the direction that you take to go off the road and back onto the coast path and to Lizard Point which is where we are headed now. Down below me in the Cove there is the picture perfect village of Cajewith we're two miles further on from Kenak Sands and another two miles to go to get to Lizard Point and if you look behind me we can see the lifeboat station and some of the other buildings at Lizard Point over in the distance. So do continually be on the lookout for those coast path signs they come in all shapes and sizes and here's another one here just directing you out of Cajewith and up back onto the coast path. So at 10 miles in to the archiportition 100 mile you come to Lizard Point you'll pass the Waila station you'll pass the lighthouse just down there ahead of us you can see the cafe and car park of Lizard Point. This is the first kind of major place where your crew can meet you and most people will be getting here at around about two and a half to three and a half hours into the race. Absolutely beautiful scenery here the cliffs are stunning and you can see the terrain underfoot on this section is very pleasant indeed nice soft compact mud dirt but if it's raining this will be much much more treacherous and earlier on in the run during the first 10 miles actually some of the most difficult sections of the whole run it's just that because you are fresh-legged then it doesn't feel so bad but actually it's really quite technical in that first 10 miles. So as mentioned if you do have crew then this is one of the earliest points that they can meet you on the course that car park there is quite small there is a larger car park just a bit further up the hill where your crew can park please do remember that a lot of the car parks are national trust or pay car parks so be aware make sure that you do pay I've been caught out before and got a fine in the post so make sure you pay for your car parks if you are self-supported you basically just run straight through this section Runners will come through the car park here past the cafe whoever lives there has a beautiful view every morning that's back up towards the lighthouse this is a really good marker point to get to in the race you've you've got an idea of what the course is like now you've got an idea of how long it's going to take you to cover the terrain so you can use that as a marker for the next 90 miles when you reach Lizard Point you breathe a sigh of relief the first bit is over and the running does get a little bit easier after this point for the next 15 miles or so before you get to Port Levin. Up past another cafe up these steps and then you can see there it is two and a half miles to Kynance Cove and it's 40 miles to the halfway point which is pretty much the land's end. So stick around next video in the series is Kynance Cove so welcome to a beautifully sunny but very windy Kynance we're about a mile away from Kynance Cove itself this is the old coast path here that I'm pointing out you can see where the fence is there that's where the old coast path used to go but it's now fenced off and the reason for that is because of coastal erosion you can see in the distance there where some of the cliff has fallen into the sea the old coast path used to go along there it's simply too dangerous now either the coast path doesn't exist anymore because it has fallen into the sea or it's very close to the edge so the council have built a new or constructed a new coast path there you can see some brand new steps and this really is very very new indeed I had never seen this before until I got here to to have a look so this has all been newly constructed there's a Kynance Cove one mile acorn you can see how new that wooden strut is there and you get to this section here so there again I think that's possibly part of the old coast path there joining on and this well this is beautiful isn't it nicely almost paved road to run on here you didn't get this a few years ago and still a little bit of a little bit of mud and if it's raining it might be a bit slippy but generally this section now is very nice and generally the running here all the way to port 11 is not too bad at all just a few places where you know you might wonder where the coast path is but when you're at sections like this it's absolutely fine and you'll enjoy running on this bit I think I was pointing out where I thought maybe some of the old coast path was there but look here you're basically on grass not entirely sure where the coast path might be don't wander too far to the edge there but again just have to kind of wander a bit over and you'll you'll find the path again there are various different little routes that you can take over this area but here we are back on this new path heading towards Kynance Cove itself and down there a few years ago used to go down onto the Shingle beach and have to avoid the waves as they crashed in to the little Cove I'm not sure I'm sure somebody will say in the comments if we do that now but but Kynance Cove is a very pretty little Cove and next up we have Mullian Cove this is Mullian Cove so this is about 16-17 miles into the run that runners will come down off the top of that hill into the Cove here down those steps across the little harbour here and then they will cross and go up those steps and back up onto the coast path up on the hill up there so whilst Mullian Cove is a very small little Cove it is possible and it is used by crew to meet runners as they come down off the hill and into the harbour here and just quick refuel quick drink quick bite to eat and then off again obviously if you're self-supported straight through and out again this is Gunwallow we're about 21 miles into the Archimetrician 100 at this point and this is another point at which the coast path has been diverted this was done probably a few years ago now about four years ago perhaps but you can see where the old path went along here and it's now blocked off by a fence because this section of the path is really too close to the edge for comfort just there you can see it gets very very close to the edge and there's about a 50-foot drop on the other side of that cliff so they've diverted the coast path just up to here and over in the distance there you can see Port Levin which is at 25-ish miles and that is the first official checkpoint and aid station so this is Gunwallow or Gunwallow I'm never quite sure how to pronounce it so if we just carry on along this path here we'll show you where the diversion goes because there is a little tiny bit of climbing in this you do have to go up some steps to a higher path when we were on the lower path it was straight and flat all the way along to the beach at Lou Bar but now you do have to go up a bit and you can see the sign here that says a coast path diversion so it should be fairly straightforward to know where you're going and then when we get up to the top of this climb here there is another acorn and another arrow pointing you in the right direction so you turn left at the top here and carry on this much wider road down to towards the beach at Lou Bar so having traveled from Covrack through Lizard Point and on past Kinance Cove and Mullian Cove and along the top of the cliffs at Gunwallow you now come to Lou Bar this is the beach at Lou Bar so runners will drop down off the cliff on a nice wide path nice easy path it's easy running the beach can be a little heavy it can feel a little bit heavy and a bit of a drag to get across the beach and you might find yourself walking it's a bit shingly as well it's not it's not just sand it's shingly beach so you get across the beach you head for that white building over there and then it's road all the way pretty much Tarmac Road all the way into Port Leaven so having crossed over Lou Bar you'll come into Port Leaven via this church here this lovely church drop down and make your way around the Harbour Wall all the way around the harbour until you get to this point here now when you get to this road you will head off out out of Port Leaven and that's the road that you go on to get to the football club the Port Leaven football club where you will find the first checkpoint so here we are at Gala Park which is the home of Port Leaven AFC this is the football club in Port Leaven and this is the 25 mile first checkpoint the first official checkpoint on the Ark of Attrition 100 and you come in and you go into this building here you don't you don't have to go in as long as you pass through you can run down the outside there of the pitch and round and back out again but most people will go inside into the clubhouse here where there will be all the usual fare that you'd expect from a mud crew checkpoint and it's a good half a kilometer I'd say out of Port Leaven you may well be met by an archangel at the harbour who will run you in many of you will arrive here when it's just about time to put head torches on so five or six o'clock in the evening so when you get here it'll be light when you leave it will be dark. Sometimes I think it's a real shame that the Ark of Attrition is in wintertime when there's so much darkness because when you come here to Cornwall you're here for the views and the scenery and here we are at Prar Sands and it's absolutely gorgeous on this lovely sunny day but you will come through here in the dark unfortunately pretty much everywhere everyone will come through here in the dark and we are about two or three miles west never each shredded wheat yeah two or three miles west of Port Leaven and still to get to Peroneuthno and then Marisayan and on to Penzane so you're kind of halfway between the two it is a beautiful long Golden Sands beach you'll come through on the coast path just above the beach a carry on through the car parks and then out the other side your crew can meet you here if you want to or they can meet you at Peroneuthno a little bit further along the coast so as you come into Prar Sands or Prey Sands I've also heard it pronounced you'll come along the the path at the top of the beach along the grass but then you will come down through the car park and down these steps then you head along in front of this building here across there and back up onto the coast path that direction unfortunately this lovely cafe on Prar Sands will be closed when you get here so you just have to run in front of it and look a bit sad and then follow your way up back onto the road this direction now as far as I could see there are not many acorn signs directing you through Prar Sands so you just need to keep your wits about you I mean it's pretty easy you just come along the beach front really and then you'll eventually get to some signs so you've got this coast path sign here so that says coastal footpath and then just opposite that sign over here you have another old post with the acorn on it so once you get up here the other side of Prar Sands it's fairly straightforward to get back up onto the hills and then all you have to do is climb back out again that is basically the Ark of Attrition is just come down into a valley or a cove or a beach and then head on back up again as it's such a lovely day I think I am gonna go and have some coffee at the cafe just a little further on from the crew point at Paranuthno you come to a point that almost everybody will go wrong on on their first Ark of Attrition and it's this point at Trenno Cove where the path appears to go down onto the beach and especially in the dark it's so easy to do that now it's not a disaster if you do go down onto the beach you can actually continue on the beach and then get back up onto the coast path later on but what you should be doing is following the path to the right let me just show you you can see the natural thing is to go straight ahead but actually there's no coast path sign there is a National Trust sign and you carry on up here to the right keep your eyes open for the Trenno Cove National Trust sign here but there is no acorn no coast path sign but this is the correct way to go and this is the coast path and this will take you on towards Marision if you do go wrong at Trenno Cove it's probably easier to turn around and go back where you came to find the coast path however if you've gone too far on the beach or you just simply can't bear turning round then you can carry on along the boulders for about three four hundred meters and you'll eventually come to this set of steps that's on the screen now climb up those steps and come back along the path to this point so this is where the coast path used to go so you used to go down here and then down the steep steel steps onto the beach along the beach for a little bit and then back up now you don't do that anymore you turn and go up this path here so you can see the coast path sign has been altered to tell you to turn right here so it used to be that you would go down that path there and onto the beach but now you turn and go up this direction and head to Marision that way once runners have finished at the checkpoint at Port Levin back on the coast path they'll go past Prasans or Prey sands and then through Perineuthno as well and finally they'll come inland Marision now the coast path again is changed here you do come inland a little bit earlier than you used to because again coast path has fallen into the sea and is no longer able to be used so you come in on this path here and you head past St. Michael's Mount unfortunately when you come on this road if you're one of the runners in the Arch of Attrition 100 you will probably not see St. Michael's Mount because it will be pitch black so you'll pass along this path take a note here of the acorn sign on the bin and then carry on up the hill again until you get to the road there's another acorn sign on a post just here and then you cross the road and sometimes crews will meet runners here because the next section is about 7 miles 8 miles into Penzance all on tarmac or path so you will sometimes want to change shoes here into road shoes some people do some people don't so you might be able to see St. Michael's Mount behind me that's off the coast of Marision and Penzance you've run past that you've run all the way along the seafront all the way along the promenade past the railway station and all the way to this junction here and when you get to this junction here there will be arch angels mud crew volunteers meeting you here to direct you right down this road to the rugby club which is the site of your second checkpoint no crew allowed in as always this is the rugby club and the doors those two red posts there those two red pillars are the entrance to the checkpoint so you come off the seafront the seafront is about a hundred meters up there you'll be running along Penzance seafront and somebody will run down with you on the road and see you into the checkpoint at the rugby club having made it out of Penzance you'll eventually find yourself in the beautiful little fishing village of a Mausole some people find it a little bit difficult to navigate the coast path through Mausole you are just still looking for the acorn sign so you can see here there's an acorn sign on here pointing you this way now it's not the only way that you can go through Mausole you can go plenty of different ways through Mausole but the coast path is this way and here again you can see another coast path sign telling you to turn left this will take you down just past the fishing boats and into the car park the harbour is looking a little bare at the moment make your way through the car park at South Key and then you'll see another southwest coast path sign on the post here and head up along past these houses here and once you get to this point in Mausole there is a handy sign with instructions of what to do so if you read here it says are you looking for the coastal path walk up the slope to the right of the builder's yard turn left onto the road and go up Ragnis hill for approximately half a mile then turn left at Port in his house back to the cliff so that's where we're going to go now and show you where that is so you walk up this path here so you walk up that path there you hit the road you take a left and once you're at the top of the hill we'll join you up there in a second it's been a long journey of tarmac starting at Marision going into Penzance coming through Newlyn out of Newlyn and through Mausole finally all the way along key road and all the way up this tarmac hill you eventually come to this coast path sign here and that finally leads you back on to the nice muddy coast path which you will be looking forward to having spent eight miles on tarmac and so from here you take a left off the road onto the path and it's two miles that way to Lamorna Cove head to the right of Port Ennis house and up we go four miles five miles on from Penzance this is Lamorna Cove crews can meet runners here it's very small little village nestled in a valley and very tight roads to get here runners will be coming through here in the middle of the night we're looking at 10 11 midnight to get here coming down this path in the night it does feel like you're quite close to the edge sometimes so it's about 45 miles in something like that comes for a little bridge with the coast path sign on it and the next section is very there's a very interesting bit that often confuses people so I'll just show you what I mean it's a little walk along the path here but it's it's worth seeing in the dark this is scary as it's not scary but in the dark it feels like it and you don't know where the heck you're going you've got a big cliff on your right-hand side but look so look how near we are to a fair drop down to the sea this is in the dark so you climb up here again right near the edge of a nice big drop down there and you look at this and you go where the heck am I supposed to go where's the path but you kind of make your way and it is here not that way but this way you have to be a bit sure of your footing and you make your way through here onto the rocks and then you suddenly see oh yes look a path of sorts I can't stress you're in the dark and there's another nice drop right beside you and and you head off along there so this is the coast path coming along from Port Kernow Beach so you've come down off one side of the valley across the beach and then back on to the coast path onto this side of the valley running along here and you get to this point here and you get to this coast path side here which directs you up these steps so away we go pitch black head torch on 50 miles into the arch of attrition 100 so you're halfway through so it's actually a good place to get to because you know that you've reached a milestone in the race Minak Theatre is an iconic place to get to and so when you're climbing these steps even though you are scared stiff of that drop there and you can hear the waves crashing on the rocks below you should have a sense of relief in you that you are getting the back broken of this run so at least and this is where it gets pretty steep hands on the floor as you climb up this bit again don't want to fall really here but it's not too bad you've just got to be a little bit careful as you go up again if you're nervous like I am always on height three points of contact make sure you put one hand down climb up and then you get here and it's a bit safer you've got a railing to hold on to the fencing the sea now feels a little bit further behind you and so the last thing to do is to meet your crew now in the car park of the theatre and you will see the lights of the cars and you'll hear some chatter hopefully there's only a couple of cars there now but this will be fairly busy this is Port Guara Cove we're halfway between Minak Theatre and Land's End absolutely beautiful little Cove as with most of the little coves that you come across in the arch of attrition you don't really get to spend any time here you come down the path off the coast path into the Cove and then back out again straight away you don't get to appreciate how beautiful they really are so you've made your way out of Minak Theatre and travelled another four miles along the coast path to your third checkpoint your third official checkpoint which is Land's End and that's here and your archangels will greet you by running you up this path here and into the checkpoint which is in the conservatory looking building at the back of the Land's End hotel just here your crew can meet you they can park in the car park at the front over there they can either come back here or you can go to them but remember they're not allowed inside the checkpoint you leave the Land's End checkpoint through that door there and you will travel this way behind the hotel and out and on your way to Sen and Cove you will make your way down the path to that white building down there and then you will cut right and head along the coast path and it's only about a mile to Sen and Cove in the distance you can see Land's End hotel this is where you need to come down because there is a left path that you need to take if you take this if you take the top path you'll end up going around the back of Sen and you'll have to come down on that road there into Sen and you'll extend your journey a little bit it's a bit of a pain the best way to do it the correct way to do it is to follow the path to the left to get to this building now in the dark obviously you won't be able to see it very clearly shine your head torches up to see if you can see it on the headland here one mile from Land's End this building and then you take this path going down so I just make sure your runner knows where they're going so a little tricky bit of navigation it's not the end of the world if you get it wrong it just extends your journey in a little way but this is the path you need to come down so you're gonna get here runners will get here 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the morning, 5 o'clock in the morning even maybe this is another little bit that's a little bit tricky but there will usually be a marshal here to tell you where to go so if you're running against to here this is the second part of Sen and Cove so you've come down from the promontory up there and you've come all the way through the village and you come to this second car mark and you might be a bit confused as to where to go next and this is where you go there will be probably a marshal here to tell you but you don't you don't follow the path down there you go up here and it's not actually marked there's no mark so basically that's the coast bar there you follow that path this is Gwynva beach which is just about a mile from Sen and Cove a couple of miles from Lanzend and just ran the corner from Cape Cornwall which you are heading to next do not be tempted to go up these steps which I once did that will take you all the way up to the car park at the top it is not the way you want to go you just need to carry on along the beach until you get round the headland and to Cape Cornwall just a few miles from Lanzend and Sen and Cove we get to here this is Cape Cornwall absolutely stunning spot if you can get here when it's light it is absolutely amazing just the sea again on the rocks the tower up there on the hill you'll arrive at Cape Cornwall by coming up these steps from the coast path directly into the car park where you can meet your crew this car park is not normally so busy certainly not as busy as car parks further along the route at Pendine say so you should be able to find your crew no problem and then you head up the road there ahead of me and turn left and go back onto the coast path abandoned tin mines as far as the I can see here we are just a bit further on from Cape Cornwall the path here is strange because sometimes you'll be led off in all sorts of little directions and then you'll kind of join back onto the main path again then you'll go off again and back again just try and stick to your GPS map on your watch otherwise this path that I'm on now this path here pretty much goes all the way along where you need to go but you will be led off see here we go coast path off to the left here that will go off a little windy journey and then it will kind of come back onto that main path again so stick to the coast path where you can but if you get lost don't panic because this this path here will kind of lead you in the right direction but look at all these amazing tin mine buildings here these will light up on your head torch as you run through here looks awesome obviously if you're in the 50 mileer then this is all in daylight anyway I don't know if you can see over there in the distance Kenny Jack Castle and Kenny Jack Cliff is over there so runners in the 50 when you come through here it'll still be daylight be gorgeous sun will be out you'll be sunbathing it'll be fine hundred runners this is the dead of night but when you come through here and your head torch shines on the old tin mines here it makes it really ethereal and especially if there's a bit of sea mist coming in really mysterious and exciting so this is Givore tin mines here please remember as always you do have to stick to the path you just don't know what is off in the Bracken there are plenty of disused tin mines as you'll see from signs everywhere along the coast path stick to the path so we've come about a mile along the coast from Givore tin mines and this is Pending watch lighthouse with the foghorns just there and behind me the incredible cliffs and the seas smashing up against the rocks there with the tin mine chimneys as you can see in the distance you will arrive at Pending watch on this tarmac road here you'll come off the coast path and join the road about half a mile up there and you'll run in on the tarmac into the car park here there will be archangels here as well there'll be a van with drinks and some food in this car park for you once you are done in the car park you head down the footpath here and you head out onto the coast path this way now there are signs here painted on the rock that say private property but underneath it says southwest coast path on foot only so that is the way that you go this is one of the more exposed sections of coast path you'll be on this is Treveen cliff we are at least three miles still from Zenor two miles back from Pending nice sheer drop down there you need to be careful along here in the middle of the night it will be probably dark when you come through here might just be coming up to sunrise and because you will probably not get the views because it will be dark take them all in now enjoy it have a look around because you will just be running by the light of your head torch when you come through here nice example here of some of the rocks that you'll have to climb through on this section of the coast path so Gunnard's head behind me when you get here if you're a front pack runner it is still going to be dark so breathe in the views now while you can if you are a mid pack runner back pack runner it's going to be starting to get light when you get here may well be light now so enjoy this view this is right in the middle of the difficult section you've not yet got to Zenor you are well past Pending so this this is as remote as it now gets for you and and even then there are houses less than a mile away I can see dotted in the distance so never feel that you are completely isolated but yeah this this is about as remote as it gets and they put a new gate post since I was last here look that's a brand-new lovely gate since I was last here so this way is the way you're headed towards Zenor not far away from here and St. Ives about seven or eight miles further on and then back here this is the way you come already from D so here we are at Zenor you've done half the difficult section you've done six seven miles since Pending and you are halfway to St. Ives if you want to get out if you want to pack it in you're not that remote there are houses a hundred meters that way the town the village of Zenor is just half a mile down that path and this is a very easy place to decide that you're going to quit do not quit here do not quit it's too easy it's hard work you're tired you are done in you've had a difficult night the sun is just coming up do not quit carry on and get to St. Ives reassess when you get to St. Ives and this is what it's all about this is why you're here these absolutely stunning views the rainbow there the sun shining on your face in the morning light the views of the cliffs down there the sea crashing up against the cliffs it's incredible this is why you signed up for this race this is why you're here so I've come to the car park at Port Mere Beach this is where you can have crew if you want to just before you get into the checkpoint at St. Ives hopefully when you arrive at St. Ives it'll be as beautiful a day as it is today with the sun out and the morning sun on your face should give you a lift to get yourself out of St. Ives to do the last 20 miles before the finish behind me is the headland that you will round when you finally see St. Ives you will breathe an absolutely massive sigh of relief you've made it over the top section and it's now just a mile through the town into the checkpoint now the idea with St. Ives is getting from Port Mere Beach to this bay and Warf Road here now nobody's going to disqualify you for getting lost in St. Ives it is honestly a bit of a nightmare if you've got a GPS map on your watch then follow that if not study the map beforehand to work out how to get from Port Mere Beach over there over there to Warf Road here and once you're on Warf Road then you head straight for the lifeboat station over there now there should be archangels mud crew volunteers to help you get from here Warf Road through to the Guild Hall just a little bit further along let's go there now okay so this is the Guild Hall now don't panic about this you will be directed by archangels all the way into here so all you need to do is find your way over to Warf Road by the bay there and then archangels will guide you all the way in here and also they'll help you to get out as well so don't panic about that but this is the Guild Hall and we'll you just go in an entrance just to the side here let me show you so this is the entrance that you'll go in to the St. Ives checkpoint it's a it's a very small road it's easily missed so that's why they've got archangels making sure that you find your way and they help you to get into the checkpoint at St Ives so when you're finished at St Ives checkpoint you'll come back down here you'll have just come up this road and then turned up to go to the checkpoint there now you'll come back down this road and you'll head out and you'll go back down that road there and out that way so you'll see here this is the St Ives Art Club and you'll notice as you come down here you'll see the southwest coast path sign with a little arrow so you know that you are on the right route out of St Ives so as you come down this path through the West Cornwall Golf Club just look to your left you can see Hale and you can see the start of the sand dunes where you're about to go so as you make your way from St Ives you'll come to this beautiful little graveyard here Commonwealth War Graves here with the little chapel over there and then the bigger church here just as you come through Lalant here so here we are on the quiet roads just out of Lalant we're by Lalant railway station actually on the Saltings this is the quiet road that you will run down next to parallel to the railway line so this is Lalant railway station there's Hale over there you're heading over there but you need to go the long way around I'm afraid it's all flat from here coming out of St Ives it is pretty hilly actually it's not flat at all but once you get to here it's flat all the way along parallel to the railway line and then round and all the way into Hale before you hit the sand dunes so arriving in Hale now I just wanted to show you something that's just passed this sign here as we come into Hale you should really turn left because the coast path goes down here down this path here and runs along the riverside this the annoying thing about it is that actually in about 400 meters up there it just comes back up onto this road so you know you could just stay running on this road all the way into Hale but technically speaking the letter of the law says that a coast path is just down there and then around the other side of these houses here when you get to this point in Hale you'll find that a lot of people use this as a crew point so we're just across the the river from Asda here and you're heading up this way before you turn left onto North Key to head up to the sand dunes now what will happen is a lot of runners will have their crew parked in the laybys along the side of the road here so if you have crew it is it is fine to get your crew to park on the laybys here just in Hale and then you make your way up the road here to North Key now Hale can be a little bit confusing what you've done is you've come from St. Ives now St. Ives is way back over there in the distance you've followed the road and the coast path all the way along here now it's really not very far as the crow flies from over there to over here but actually you do have to run all the way around over there into the distance across a bridge and then all the way around through Hale to come to this point here you can see Asda the Asda shop there in the distance you will pass that you'll come through the North Key up North Key to make your way onto this path here to get yourself into the sand dunes so this is kind of the start of the sand dunes the really difficult part of the sand dunes isn't for a little while yet but you'll make your way past the holiday homes the caravan parks before you get to the main sand dunes so this is where you head out of Hale towards Gwythian and Godrevy before you get up onto the North Cliffs so here we are at what is commonly referred to as the dunes of doom but in all honesty they really aren't the dunes of doom at all even with 90 miles in your legs the dunes of doom are not like running on the sands in Morocco it's nothing like that in fact a lot of the time it's lush green grass like you can see below me and also that a lot of the sand is compacted in so it's not really that hard to run on at all and all you're looking for are these stones these standing stones each standing stone should have an acorn to show you that you are on the coast path and maybe even an arrow and also sometimes it'll have the name of the place that you're headed to so often you'll be looking out for Gwythian towns for example which is where you're headed to so just look out for these stones as you go through the dunes of doom yes at night time it's going to be a bit more difficult hopefully you'll get here when it's light but if not just keep shining your torch in different directions you should glint one of these stones in the distance and you'll be able to make your way through the dunes no problem at all now it is usually possible to see the next stone from the one that you're at however I have noticed a couple of stones have fallen over so this stone here for example that says Gwythian towns on it that is fallen over you can see the next stone in the distance there and I can also see the one behind and as you come to the end of the sand dunes there we are there's another stone these are the stones that are guiding you through all the way remember and this one has Gwythian towns on it and that's probably a good one to keep looking for any stones that say Gwythian towns head for those so you know you've made it through the sand dunes when you reach this point here this is Gwythian car park so Gwythian from here you need to go along to Godrevy car park which is another crew point you can meet your crew here if you want it Gwythian many people do meet their crew and there will be archangels at Godrevy car park which is just another mile or so further on before you hit the north cliffs it can be very tempting to miss out the sand dunes altogether and run on this absolutely gorgeous beach here but please don't do that that is not the official coast path route that is not the official arch of attrition route you've made your way through the sand dunes and across the beach and you come along here cross over the river on a bridge and you make your way up these steps and then you are into Godrevy car park so in this car park there will be volunteers there will be a van with refreshments if you don't have crew but if you have crew this is your second last crew stop in this car park here from here you've got 10 miles to go to the finish once you've come through Godrevy car park then it's a short flat run along the coast path with this beautiful view of the beach and the lighthouse on the cliffs over there and then you climb up onto the north cliffs heading towards hell's mouth and patreath further on so let's head on up to hell's mouth now I remember coming here on holiday as a child with my family this is hell's mouth so you've just climbed up from Gwythian back onto the cliffs these are the north cliffs and you hit hell's mouth here and then you have a couple of miles really of pretty flat fairly monotonous running if you're really tired which you should be it will feel like a bit of a grind just before patreath there are so many points on the coast path where you can see where the coast path once used to go before it all fell into the sea and there's an old post there look which used to have a coast path sign on it and the old path I guess used to go down there but ever since I've known it it's come down there it is incredible actually to see the levels of erosion that have happened over the years if you look at hell's mouth here you can see the grass at different levels on the cliff face where it slipped down and you know where the coast path used to be is now a hundred feet down below and gradually falling further and further into the sea so after hell's mouth it's fairly flat running until you get to this section here so I've just parked at Bassett's car park here and stunning cliff views again but we're going to go on now to a couple of stings in the tail I'm going to show you one of them short dips down and then sharp up the steps so let's go and have a look at those now okay so here we are about 400 meters on from Bassett's car park and it may not look much but believe you me when you have what you'll have 98 miles if you're doing the hundred you'll have 98 miles or so in your legs by now the whole race as I'm sure you know is well over a hundred miles 104 ish miles depending on diversions and you get to this and it's not funny it isn't funny and you have two of these short dip down and up the steps there you've got two of those to do and then you've got a valley now I'm not going to go to the valley but I will link it it's in my very first arc of attrition video from 2017 or something 18 perhaps I'll link it up there that will show you the valley that you need to go to just before you hit poor truth very near poor truth now but please do be careful if you are running here especially at night this is very close to the edge and a really sheer drop off the edge I think quite recently some of this has fallen into the sea so it is a sheer drop literally you know four meters from me at the edge of the cliff there please be careful once you've come down that dip and out again just keep your eyes on the path stay to the path aren't you glad you decided to do the arch of attrition look at that isn't that beautiful if you get to this point then you are very near the cliff edge at Portrice Portrice down there in the distance now you've actually come a little bit too far here because there is a path to the right here which you can go down now technically it isn't the coast path but it doesn't make a lot of difference the coast path does go just to the end of the peninsula there so this path here this is the very steep path that that you'll come down if you follow the coast path right to the end of the peninsula and down down the really steep path this is the the slightly less steep path that comes down now again we're just a few meters from those signposts there and there's always been a little bit of a question mark about this bit here as well and what you could do at one point was go down this slipway here and onto the beach which gives you a nice flat although sandy route into the center of Portrice the official coast path and technically the one that you should probably follow there's the sign you have to go on the road and unfortunately that does give you a little bit of a hill to get up and over and then down into Portrice but as far as I understand it as far as I'm aware and as far as the signposts say you go up that way so once you've come down off the cliff you'll go up the Tarmac hill and then down this road here and you'll see this coast path sign here so new coast path sign God Reeveys back that way but you are going to Port Tauan and that sign there says three and a quarter miles to Port Tauan so you'll cross around here that there might be your crew here your crew can meet you here for the last time before you get to the finish line and sometimes there's a marshall here directing you kind of round down this road here and round the town and then you'll go back up onto the coast path via this Tarmac road that leads up and out of the town and you see the houses up on the hill on the other side of the valley there so you'll go up all that way up to meet the coast path again for your final three miles to Port Tauan it is a really long slow drag up the Tarmac road out of Port Trees just keep going you may think the coast path is never going to appear but it will appear I promise you keep going up the hill when you get a little bit further along it gets kind of flattens out a bit and you will then reach this coast path sign which says God Reeveys eight and a half miles back that way you now only have five k to go three miles to get to Port Tauan and if you are lucky enough to make it here when it's still light then there are still some fantastic views of the cliffs as you make your way over your final three miles so once you reach here you are almost at the end of your journey you will come down the coast path here and then Port Tauan is the village down in the valley there the old coast path used to go down here but it's now blocked off it's too close to the edge of the cliff so instead you go down the Tarmac road just down there that Tarmac road is quite steep and you will have trashed legs so just take care when you're going down it and once you get down the bottom you will run through Port Tauan and out of the other side now just out of historical interest many moons ago in the days of yore when the archer of attrition was just a baby it used to finish right here on the beach pretty much in Port Tauan right next to the blue bar which is currently getting refurbished so I can't go and have a coffee there but that was the finish line of the archer of attrition now when you come into the finish you will come down the coast path from the cliffs up here and you'll come down on the road but that is not the end of your race now because the race now finishes some way out of Port Tauan so when you reach the foot of the hill in Port Tauan that is not the end you still have at least a mile or so to go through Port Tauan you'll be directed onto this road when you get to this sign here that's when you come up onto this path you'll make your way along this path here to a small bridge so after all the hours you've been running or walking you finally get to your last climb this will be the last climb of your race this will take you to the finish line you'll get to this bridge here you'll follow the path over and you will start climbing and you will start climbing until you reach the very top of this hill somewhere in the distance over there let's go and have a look it's a narrow path it's bracken strewn right so those guys are on the way down but you will head up here to the top of that hill once you get to the top of that hill it is the end you have about 400 meters to run on the grass into the eco park and to the finish line of the archer attrition or the arch 50 and this is the top of that final hill you might be able to see Port Tauan over there in the distance and you've climbed all the way up that long slow drag at the end of the race and you come to this point here you'll see this sign here which says footpath to the beach and then you head along this field here and into the eco park it's literally 400 meters and there it is there's the finish line the eco park in Port Tauan there will be obviously there'll be a big finish line arch there if you're coming in in the dark it'll all be lit up you'll be able to see where you're going you run through that finish line and that is your journey over you've done it you've done the arc 50 or you've done the archer attrition 100 you've completed your journey and well done for doing so because it's not easy this is the Mount Pleasant Eco Park this is just outside Port Tauan on the top of a hill beautiful location and this is where you will arrive for registration on Thursday evening or registration on Friday morning this is also where you will have your kit checked and where you will catch the bus to the start of the 100 at Covrack or the start of the 50 at Minak theatre this is private parking here for staff and the like but the main parking is over in the field over to the right that building there is where most of the action happens kit check race briefing that kind of thing will happen in there there's a cafe here hopefully the cafe will be open for you at some point whilst you are at the Eco Park at the beginning or the end of the weekend and then we walk here to what will be a very busy room certainly at the end of the race this is the finish line of the archer attrition that arch there there will be a little bit more razzmatazz than just that but the arch there is the finish line you'll run across that field having come up the hill run out of Port Tauan along the road up the hill across the field and you will finish right there this will all be very busy on Saturday evening as runners finish their 150 mile races and round here this is where you will jump on the bus there will be plenty of buses to take you to the start line don't panic about getting on them or missing them you can't drive down there Covrack is very small not enough car parking space for everyone to descend on their in their cars so you must get the bus the Eco Park is also where we will have the trophy presentations that will be at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning presented by Vassos Alexander so make sure you're there for that and that is the end of this arch prep series of videos enjoy your race and we'll see you out on the course