Fifty Weeks Running

John Self    Drakkar Press

Fifty Weeks Running is a sort of on-line diary reflecting on running (and other things) based on experiences of running around the region and elsewhere for thirty years, on and off.

A pdf version of Fifty Weeks Running was placed on-line in 2011 but has been replaced by this html version.

Note for late-comers to this document: It was created and put on the web, week-by-week, through 2011. As promised in ‘the run-up’, I resisted the temptation to go back and tamper with any of the weekly entries, except to correct slips.

Contents

old salt road   The Run-Up
  1.      Take Up the Running
  2.      Running Commentary
  3.      Hitting the Ground Running
  4.      Do a Runner
  5.      Running Like Clockwork
  6.      The School Run
  7.      Running Down the Clock
  8.      Run Amuck
  9.      Should Find A Running Banquet Ere They Rested
  10.    In the Long Run
  11.    Runner-Up
  12.    Run Short
  13.    Running It Fine
  14.    Sorry, I’ve Got To Run
  15.    Home Run
  16.    Out Run
  17.    Running Rife
  18.    Running Gear
  19.    On the Run
  20.    Can I Just Run Over That Again?
  21.    Running the Gauntlet
  22.    A Run For Your Money
  23.    It’s Running A Little Funny
  24.    Running Sore
  25.    Run the Good Race
  26.    Run For Your Life
  27.    Running Away From Home
  28.    Running Away From Home (continued)
  29.    Running Away From Home (continued)
  30.    Having A Clear Run At It
  31.    System Failure, Run Recovery
  32.    A Close-Run Thing
  33.    Drug Running
  34.    Running on Empty
  35.    Run To A Standstill
  36.    Running Sacred
  37.    Up and Running
  38.    Giving Me the Run Around
  39.    Runs in the Family
  40.    The Running of the Bulls
  41.    I’d Run a Mile
  42.    Run Across
  43.    Run to Seed
  44.    Run Aground
  45.    Running a Risk
  46.    Run Your Eyes Over These
  47.    Don’t Run Away With the Idea
  48.    Running Wild
  49.    Running a Book On
  50.    Running Out of Time

The Run-Up

Why? Why do we ask ‘Why?’? Arctic terns fly over 40,000 miles a year; the Dracunculus vulgaris plant smells of rotting flesh; North American cicadas have a life cycle of 13 or 17 years. But they do not ask ‘Why?’. We ask ‘Why?’ of them.
      We also ask ‘Why?’ of each other, if we come across some apparently strange behaviour: Why does he wear a bow-tie every day? Why does she sing arias while gardening? Why does he collect Bulgarian stamps? If we feel bold, we might even ask the person directly. Rather more puzzlingly, we also ask ‘Why?’ of ourselves. Why do I continue to support Norwich City Football Club, despite decades of little achievement (that is, the football club, not me)? You would think that, if someone did something of their own volition, they would know why they did so.
      Nobody asks me why I run every day (well, almost every day ... well, ok, some days). But I ask myself, in a subconscious way, every time I reach for the running shoes. After all, there must be a reason why, at my age (65), I reduce myself to sweaty exhaustion.
      I have read quite a bit about running but I have read very little that relates to the way that I feel about running. I may not know why I run but I don’t think that it is really for any of the reasons that I read about. Maybe my reasons will become clearer as a result of writing this diary. If so, they will only be my reasons. I have no idea if they’ll be anybody else’s.
      One thing that I do know about running is that no runners run all day, every day. Even for the most fanatical runner, running can occupy only a small fraction of a runner’s time. For the large majority of runners, their non-running activities are much more important than their running. The answer to my conundrum lies, perhaps, in the relationship between running and the rest of life. We shall see, perhaps.
      I plan to write a thousand words or so each week about my running, with no doubt a few detours and perhaps hiatuses along the way, as there are with my running. In the past I have always found it better to write an introduction such as this after I have written what needs to be introduced (I have a slightly better idea what it’s about by then). A draft introduction is useful as a guide but I expected to throw it away later. That won’t do for a diary. It is against the spirit of a diary to come back and change the entries later. So, whatever thoughts are expressed one week will stay expressed forever.
      To write at all one needs to have some image in mind of the potential reader. I don’t know who, if anyone, will actually read these words other than me, perhaps, in twenty years’ time. Perhaps they will be of interest to someone who runs or who thinks about running or, since running is a ‘metaphor for life’ according to some, to someone who lives or who thinks about living. That about covers it.

1.  Take Up the Running
January 8th 2011

A wise proverb tells us not to run before we can jog (or something like that). Muscles and joints that have been dormant for a while do not take kindly to sudden excessive exertion. Last summer, for example, I did some energetic wheel-barrowing for the first time for years and for a month afterwards my arms wouldn’t let me pick up a cup or turn a door handle without complaining.
      This problem gets worse over the years. In our younger days our bodies forgive us after a day or two but I have learned to treat mine gently nowadays. I don’t suddenly surprise it; I creep up on it carefully. I do very little at first, and then a tiny bit more, and then a bit more, and eventually, before the muscles have noticed, I have them performing prodigious feats of strength and endurance (I can but wish).
      So I have this week restrained my natural enthusiasm. Like everyone, I can’t wait to put my New Year’s resolutions into action but my commitment to get back to running needs to be delicately nurtured. In this first week of the year, I have run a steady 14 miles in four short runs (to the Waterworks Bridge, around the bridleway, up to the little bridge over Tarn Beck, and to the fishermen’s hut).

lune valley Right: Part of my running arena: Brookhouse, Caton, Halton and the Lune valley from Quarry Road. A standard short run is from Brookhouse to the Waterworks Bridge visible to the right. Quarry Road is the road up to the windmills, to which I usually run across fields rather than up the road (when I am fit enough).

      I don’t know what anyone reading this epistle will think of 14 miles, and so I probably need to put it into perspective. A couple of years ago I started running again after not running for a few years. Last year, for the first time, I kept a record of how much I ran. I am sure that you would like me to share it with you. According to my spreadsheet, which is a stickler for precision, I ran 813 miles in 6488 minutes on 167 days of the year. That is an average of 16 miles a week (or about 20 miles a week if you ignore those weeks when I didn’t run at all). You may think that is good or bad or, more likely, ‘so what?’. I am just reporting the fact so that you know where I am starting from.
      Over the Christmas period I didn’t run at all. It is a time for the family, not to run away from the family. Ruth and Martin and Pamela and partners, plus other relatives and friends, have a break from their commitments, so I should have a break from running. However, we are not entirely idle. Most days there is a walk of some sort, sometimes up a mountain.
      Knowing that I wouldn’t run for the two weeks around Christmas it seemed pointless to run for the two weeks before, especially as we had early snow and ice. Extrapolating this argument, I would never have run at all last year, but I did, as I have just said. Nevertheless, these first runs of January have been much like starting afresh.
      Even when, decades ago, I used to run ‘seriously’ (and I realise that I am going to have to say something about my serious running later, as it’s all part of the reason why I am trying to run now) I never ran much in December. It was always a struggle getting going again in January. And yet an enjoyable struggle, for the process of gradually getting fitter is more satisfying, in a way, than actually being fit.
      And so, I am on my way. I have put 14 miles on the clock. I will do my best to put on a few more during the year, and also to add more words to this diary. But if I should not run for a day or a week or a month, either through injury, illness or idleness, then so be it. That is what running is like for me nowadays.
      Re-starting running is not the same as starting running. The metaphysical question of why I continue to try to run is deeper than the question of why I started running. I have an answer to the latter question, if not the former (although, funnily enough, I suspect it is almost the opposite).
      In 1977 I took up a new job at Lancaster University, a green-field campus. Well, the campus was a green field until they built on it but it remained surrounded by fields that were still green. For months, I was perplexed about what staff did during the lunch period. There were eight bars on campus but nothing like a ‘senior common room’, which most universities have in order for staff to eat, drink and chat. The intention, perhaps, was to encourage staff and students to mingle. I didn’t see much mingling. Some staff brought sandwiches to eat in their offices, perhaps with colleagues. Others escaped to those green fields. They would grab their sports bag, walk to the gym, and be on the fields within a few minutes.
      I sometimes saw these strange people as I drove around the university - bronzed (or weather-beaten) Olympians pounding along the lanes, arms like pistons and with a glazed look in their eyes. I then noticed the seedy complexions of those with whom I was eating sandwiches. I became increasingly depressed by conversations invariably about the problems of life, the university, and everything. Gradually I developed the thought that I’d rather join those out in the sunshine (or rain or wind or snow, as the case may be).
      But not at first. I couldn’t expect to breeze into the gym along with proper athletes. It would be too embarrassing when they powered away. First, I thought, I should get my body used to running and, in the absence of any better idea, I decided to run home. Home was about seven miles away. I hadn’t done anything sporty since I gave up playing football about ten years before. But I didn’t lead an unhealthy life and the family and the job kept me active enough. I wasn’t in a hurry. Surely, I thought, anyone reasonably fit can jog a few miles. Well, they can, but, notwithstanding my comments about muscle recovery above, not if they want to run again in the following week.
      I took things more gradually. Eventually, I got into the habit of, at 1 o’clock, joining the exodus to the gym, and then running out, sometimes with others but more often alone, as I didn’t wish to detain them. By December 1978 I was prepared to be persuaded to join the Stepping Stones race, the annual staff versus students race of about three miles, a loop over the eponymous stepping stones. It was, thankfully, not an altogether serious affair, partly because the students always won. I came half-way, 26th out of 52.
      I began then, in 1978, to be accepted as a member of a running group. Today, however, I always run alone. While I would never have started running in 1978 without the group to join, today all my motivation, such as it is, comes from within. We’ll see where it leads me in 2011.

2.  Running Commentary
January 15th 2011

Last week I reflected on why I started running but I did not say anything about why I’ve started this diary. To be straightforward about it, it’s a direct result of reading two books on running that I was given last year - books written by Haruki Murakami1 [1] and Christopher McDougall [2].
      No doubt it was meant well. I imagine that it was thought that the books would inspire me in my efforts to run again. Unfortunately, I found almost nothing in them that corresponded to my own feelings about running, either now or as I remember them from long ago. This diary is an attempt to draw out those feelings so that I am better aware of them. I have no idea if they will be more typical of the ordinary runner than those of Murakami and McDougall.
      Maybe it’s a cultural thing. I could not relate to the evangelical obsession of the Japanese and American authors. There is, of course, a paradox here. Anyone who sets out to write about running is bound, you would think, to be somewhat obsessed by running.
      I fear that it will be difficult for me to convey, through my half-hearted commitment to write a thousand words or so a week about the topic, that I am only half-heartedly committed to running. It is quite likely that at times during the year I will lapse from one or both. That’s the way it is and should be. I am not a robot.
      Actually, the word ‘lapse’ that I just used is the wrong one. It implies some failure. It suggests that I have some duty to run and to write and that by not doing so I am being neglectful. That is part of what I am reacting against. When I run it’s because I want to, and when I don’t run it’s because I want not to. That’s all there is to it. Perhaps ‘half-hearted’ is the wrong word, too. Maybe ‘balanced’ or ‘realistic’ is better.
      Murakami’s book explores his thoughts about running, particularly concerning its parallels with his primary occupation, writing novels. He reflects on the role that running has played in his life, with thoughts on the deleterious effect of aging. He shows a long-term commitment to serious running, which is manifest in his determination over 23 years to run at least one marathon a year.
      McDougall develops his ideas about natural running through a search for a tribe with legendary long-distance running prowess that lives hidden in the Mexican canyons. The Tarahumara Indians run extraordinary distances without any of the advantages that modern society is supposed to provide runners. I appreciate that the book is classified as nonfiction but I found that I could only read it as a fantasy novel.
      Both books reach a narrative climax with an exceedingly long run, of 62 miles (100 kilometres) in Murakami’s case and 50 miles over rough country in McDougall’s case. They say that they took 11 hours 34 minutes and over 12 hours, respectively. I believe them. The important thing, as they make clear, is not the time, although they are proud to tell us it, but that they completed the course.

lakes in snow Left: Dow Crag and Coniston Old Man to the Langdale Pikes, across the Lune valley, from near the windmills.

      I do not know what will unfold in the following pages but I think I can safely guarantee that there will be no such climax. I have no targets in mind. Indeed, I think it would be foolish to set any, at my age. I will be content with whatever transpires. I expect that I will return to the thoughts of Murakami and McDougall (and possibly others) but in the meantime I am sure that you are agog to hear about this week’s running.
      The weather has turned mild (wet and windy) after a few very cold weeks but on Tuesday, in the interlude between the two, it was sunny and clear. I ran up the hill in order to see the snow-capped Lake District hills over the Lune valley, before the predicted rain came to wash the snow away. On crystal-clear days like this Black Combe, 30 miles away, seems very close across Morecambe Bay, with the peaks from Coniston Old Man to High Street arrayed to its right. A bonus was the sight, some eighty miles away, of the Isle of Man, which is visible from my hill (Caton Moor) on only a few days of the year.
      On Sunday I ran up to the windmills, in cloud, but on the other days I sheltered from the wind by running in the valley, giving me a total of 18 miles for the week. The natural world seems quiescent at the moment. Nothing much moves down by the river, apart from the flocks of greylag and barnacle geese that gather in the winter, the former in the fields and the latter by and in the river. Otherwise, it is as if nature took such a battering from the record low temperatures of December, with its snow and ice, that it is waiting to be sure that it is safe to venture out. This is no doubt wise, as the ‘real winter’ normally begins about now.
      I am not moving much myself either. My running is intended mainly to gently exercise the legs, to try to ensure that they don’t forget about the concept of running. I am trying not to stress the lungs and upset the breathing channels. I am running as slowly as I can manage. I hardly think of it as running really. It is a sort of down payment, necessary if there is to be any real running later. It is difficult to tell the difference between the beginnings of a muscle strain and the slight soreness that inevitably follows the first runs after a few weeks off running. When one is fit it is easier: any soreness is a strain and needs a rest. At the moment I am proceeding cautiously, expecting (or, at least, hoping) that the soreness will gradually disappear as the muscles toughen up.
      This may seem a rather hesitant start to the year’s running but it is not as hesitant as my starting this diary. I am fearful that the fates will consider themselves tempted and will contrive to limit or even curtail my running altogether, because of my audacity in thinking that I might be able to run and write about running for a whole year.

[1].  Murakami, Haruki (2008), What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, London: Harvill Secker.
[2].  McDougall, Christopher (2009), Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, New York: Random House.

3.  Hitting the Ground Running
January 22nd 2011

lune flood lune flood 2 Unfortunately, the weather has played its part in limiting my running. It rained all day Saturday and Sunday. The left photograph shows my riverside path to the Waterworks Bridge (the little island is normally on my path, with the river beyond it). The right photograph shows my path to the fishermen’s hut (this is normally a green field, with the river beyond the nearly submerged fence). I later discovered that the footbridge I (used to) cross to reach the hut has been washed away. I doubt that the Angling Club will be in hurry to replace it, as we are outside the fishing season. This is a pity, as the run up-river, now out of commission, is serenely peaceful in winter, when the frisky bullocks of summer are no longer there. I liked to run a little further up the river - to the hut, then to Claughton Beck, then to the River Wenning - as I became fitter.

According to McDougall (p9), “up to eight out of every ten runners are hurt every year”. I am led this week to reflect on that statement for two reasons.
      First, I have eased back a little in my running. I think it wise not to over-stress my calf muscles. This is not fate intervening, as I feared it might last week. Actually, I don’t think I believe in fate. Actions have outcomes, intended or otherwise, but I am sure that the action of writing this diary will not cause problems for my running, through the malign interference of some agent called fate. It was the action of running two days in a row on the road that my calves did not like. The fields were waterlogged but it would have been better to run there.
      I am wondering if I count as one of McDougall’s eight out of ten hurt runners. I wouldn’t say I’m ‘hurt’. I can still run: I managed 15 miles in the week. I am just not running as far or as fast as I would like. If I were in training for the Olympics marathon then it might be more of a concern. Would McDougall consider me ‘hurt’? He believes that running often leads to injuries and that this is mainly because of poorly designed running shoes. If true, this would be a serious matter for millions of runners and for the billion-dollar running shoe industry. We need therefore to know precisely what he means by his statement. He doesn’t say where he plucked his figure from, if not the air, as he gives no references. But it certainly raises many questions in my mind:
  *   If you stopped ten people in the street at random and asked them “Have you been hurt in the last year?”, how many would answer “yes”? That, after all, is all that McDougall is saying about runners.
  *   If his statement is true, is it so astonishing? How many footballers, for example, are hurt every year? If you take a squad of 25 players, as for Premiership teams, and assume that one of them gets hurt every week, in training or in matches, then, on average, 20 players will be hurt in a 40-week season, that is, 8 out of 10. That seems about right: most players miss one or more games through injury during the season.
  *   Isn’t being ‘hurt’ the likely outcome of the macho, masochistic running culture encouraged by many (including McDougall himself), in which, for example, to be a real runner you have to run for twelve hours up and down mountains? The ‘no pain, no gain’ motto is familiar to all runners. It forces those of us not wanting to be thought wimps to run until it hurts, because otherwise there will be no improvement. Of course, some effort is necessary. Soreness and discomfort are normal, but pain means that there is a problem. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to tell the difference.
  *   Why does he say “up to eight”? The figure is presumably less than eight. Two is less than eight but I assume he doesn’t mean two. Later (p170) he says “65% to 80% of runners are injured each year”, again, without references. So, let’s settle for 75%.
  *   Does this 75% apply to all kinds of runner? Is it true for: new runners who perhaps push themselves too hard?; for old runners who just run too much for their own good?; for long-distance runners?; for short-distance runners?; for great runners?; for ordinary runners?; for fast runners?; for slow runners?; for runners who run once a fortnight?; for runners who run twice a day?; for heavy runners?; for light runners?; for male runners?; for female runners? ...
  *   What does he mean by ‘hurt’? Ask any runner if he is fit and he will respond with a list of ailments, sprains and tweaks. This is because runners know that they are often teetering on the brink of their limits. They have to be on the lookout for potential problems (and it helps to have an excuse if running is not as successful as it is hoped). They know that the slightest problem with any part of the body can make running difficult. But they are not really hurt, by normal standards.
  *   If a runner says on one day in the year “I’m a bit stiff from yesterday’s run. I’ll give it a miss today” does that count as ‘hurt’? It sounds more like commonsense to me. If I feel a tweak one day, I’ll have a brisk walk, not run, the next. I don’t consider myself ‘hurt’ but McDougall probably would. But then he probably wouldn’t consider me a runner if I couldn’t put up with a tweak.
  *   Is there any evidence that those who ran a lot in the 1980s (like me) have more leg problems in old age than those who did not? McDougall says (p173) that “the impact on your legs from running can be up to twelve times your body weight”, implying that that cannot fail to do damage. Murakami (p127) says each footstep when you run is “a shock equivalent to three times your weight”. Which is it: twelve or three (perhaps it’s that “up to” again, in “up to twelve”)? Surely, if running were bad for your legs, there would be evidence of infirm elderly ex-runners by now.
      Without answers to all these questions, it is hard to judge the significance of McDougall’s ‘statistic’, although that hasn’t stopped those looking for a pathway to painless running from throwing away their running shoes.
      My second reason for reflecting on McDougall’s statement is that I noticed from last year’s records that on January 24th 2010 I began running again after a few weeks rest to allow a calf strain to recover - and that since that day I have not missed a day’s running because of a leg injury (although I have, of course, given the legs the more-than-occasional day off and I have found many other reasons not to run).
      Last year my three longest breaks from running (apart from a holiday) were (1) after I tripped over a tree root in Aughton Woods and tumbled heavily, hurting my arm, (2) after I fell off a ladder while pruning the Escallonia, hurting my back, and (3) after I slipped on ice, bruising my ribs. Would they count as ‘hurt’ by McDougall? I was certainly hurt - and I was running on two of those occasions, so does that make them running injuries?
      It is impossible to reach general conclusions from one’s personal experience or from anecdotes. For what it’s worth, I have, in over thirty years (on and off), missed only a few days of running because of leg injuries. I have missed fewer days from leg injuries than I have from other injuries and from minor illnesses (colds and coughs). Perhaps I have been lucky. At all events, tomorrow I will celebrate having my legs in running order for a year. I certainly do not take this for granted. I might injure them the day after, who knows?

4.  Do a Runner
January 29th 2011

There was a news item this week about a 73-year-old man who was aiming to run ten marathons in ten days. The report showed him setting off on a training run. My first reaction to his running style was that it lacked style and was hardly running. He shuffled along, feet barely leaving the ground, with no more forward momentum than if he were walking. My second reaction was to realise that this man, though older than me, was aiming to run distances far further than I could contemplate and that if I imagined that my own running style was more athletic than his then I was probably deluding myself.
      Perhaps I need to re-think what being a ‘runner’ means. Murakami and McDougall do not define what they mean by a runner. They just assume that they themselves are runners, on the basis, I suppose, that anyone who runs is, by definition, a runner. I expect that they would agree that anyone who writes is a writer.
      Murakami includes a discussion of the three most important factors in achieving success as a novelist and, by implication, as a runner or anything else. He identifies talent, focus and endurance. Talent is one’s innate ability at whatever it is. Being innate, there is not much one can do to improve it. Focus is the ability to concentrate on the activity, ignoring any distractions. Endurance is the ability to persevere over long periods.
      I have not read any of Murakami’s novels but many people have and he clearly has talent, focus and endurance as a novelist. What about as a runner? He describes himself as an ordinary or mediocre runner. To appreciate fully what Murakami and McDougall tell us about running we should have an idea what sorts of runner they are.
      Usain Bolt runs the 100 metres in 9.58 seconds [1]. Haile Gebrselassie runs the marathon in 2:04 (that is, 2 hours 4 minutes) [2]. Both are undeniably runners. Gebrselassie’s time works out at an average of 17.6 seconds per 100 metres. Or, to put it another way, when Bolt breasts the tape, Gebrselassie would be only 54 metres down the track. The difference, of course, is that while Bolt wheels away, arms aloft, in triumph, Gebrselassie would continue for another 42,141 metres at the same pace.
      Bolt is a sprinter, Gebrselassie is not. How fast would an adult male have to be to reasonably be called a sprinter? Say, ¾ as fast as Bolt? That is, 12.8 seconds for the 100 metres. Then if you run slower than that, you may run 100 metres but you are not really a sprinter.
      McDougall says (p221) that “there are two kinds of great runners: sprinters and marathoners”. So Gebrselassie, who is clearly a great runner, must be a marathoner, although I know he doesn’t just run marathons. Murakami and McDougall’s best times for the marathon are 3:30 and 3:48, respectively. When Gebrselassie reaches his 54 metres, they would be 32 and 29 metres down the track. Murakami and McDougall are not ¾ as fast as Gebrselassie. So, similarly, I don’t think that Murakami and McDougall can reasonably be described as marathoners just because they run marathons. Let’s not beat about the bush: they are too slow to be called marathoners. They have the focus and endurance but not the talent to be called a marathoner.
      That’s fine: after all, McDougall said that a marathoner was a great runner and Murakami considers himself only ordinary and McDougall is still slower. But am I missing the point? The crucial thing is perhaps not the speed at which the marathon is run but the distance (26.2 miles) that is covered. And Murakami and McDougall run even further than marathons. They are ‘ultra-runners’. Perhaps, by running further and further, if slower and slower, they will somehow become great runners in their own right.
      Do they have talent as ultra-runners? Their times for their 62 and 50 mile epics are about twice that of the world records for those distances (worse, then, proportionally, than their marathon times). At their ultra-running speed they would have covered 23 and 18 metres respectively in the time that Bolt has run 100 metres.
      It’s worth pausing to picture that. It’s hardly ‘running’ at all, is it? You could walk it! Roughly speaking, it’s like walking the length of a cricket pitch in 10 seconds. Or, for American readers, walking from the pitcher to the catcher on a baseball field in 10 seconds. That is not my idea of running at all. Just because you can keep plodding along for hour after hour doesn’t make it running, in my eyes. I can’t help feeling that the motion needs to have some zip to it to count as running.

icy lune Right: The fishermen’s hut by the Lune, with Whernside and Ingleborough some 15 miles beyond.

      My point is that Murakami and McDougall are ordinary runners who have done some extra-ordinary running. We, as readers, need to be aware that this influences what they talk about when they talk about running. As for the extra-ordinary running of our 73-year-old friend, I wish him well but whatever I am looking for from my running nowadays it is not to be able to shuffle through ten marathons in ten days.
      I’d much rather run for a few miles by the river. The photograph to the right was taken in December, when the Lune iced over, but this week it has been more benign, dry with sunny spells - sufficiently so, in fact, to lure hundreds of lapwing, curlew and oystercatcher back to flock on the Lune floodplain. These are their first forays of the year as they contemplate their spring migration up the valley to their breeding grounds. The return of the curlew is particularly welcome as the first (perhaps premature) sign that the cold, dark days of winter are over.
      The birds are back but they are strangely quiet. The lapwings fly in dignified ‘clouds’ with none of the erratic diving and turning that characterises their summer displays. The curlews, too, are all but silent, without their distinctive bubbling call so redolent of the high moors in summer.
      I have found a way to run up-river despite the footbridge having been washed away. I run in-land, a little off the public footpath but close enough, I hope, because this is my favourite winter run. On Thursday, for the first time since last March, I ran to Claughton Beck and back, as part of my 24 miles for the week.
      The path by the river is far from any road. Walkers are so rare that the bullocks get over-excited if they see one (even more so, a runner). Thankfully, the bullocks are in the sheds over winter. There is little sound except for the birds, muted as they are. As I run up-river, I have wide views of Whernside and Ingleborough beyond Hornby Castle, with the Caton Moor windmills high on my right. Turning back, I am always impressed by how far I’ve run, when I see Brookhouse far distant on the southern slopes. I am even more impressed if I am able to run back.

[1].  I apologise for all the numbers in this text. Running tends to be about numbers but less so than, say, cricket or baseball.
[2].  Hours and minutes and seconds are separated with a : and . is a decimal point as usual. So 2:04:9.58 means 2 hours 4 minutes 9.58 seconds. 2:04 means 2 hours 4 minutes or 2 minutes 4 seconds depending on the context.

5.  Running Like Clockwork
February 5th 2011

Re-reading last week’s words I realise that I must come out and admit it: I am, or rather was, quite good at running and that is part of the reason that I keep doing it. I hope that doesn’t sound boastful. Whatever talent we have at anything - and ‘quite good’ is nothing special - is given to us. It is something to be grateful for but not proud of.
      It is a weakness of mine that I prefer to do things for which I have a modest competence. This has limited my life experiences considerably. I would rather stay in what is nowadays called the comfort zone rather than make a fool of myself by attempting new activities for which I expect that I have little talent. There is an enormous list of activities that I could embarrass myself at: hang-gliding, camel-racing, playing the flute, yodelling, learning Yiddish, spitting prune stones into cups (I knew someone who was dead good at that: you’d be sitting quietly eating your pudding and, plop, something dropped into your coffee cup from somewhere), ...
      Most people would, in my position, have long ago accepted that they had gained all that they would ever gain from running and would have moved on to explore new experiences. They would say that life is too short to keep on repeating the same old things. Certainly, there are no more ‘personal bests’ (PBs), beloved of runners, to be had at the age of 65. There are, however, PBs aplenty if I were to try completely new activities. I could, for example, time how long it takes me to spit 100 prune stones into a cup.
      But, forgetting all about PBs, I do gain satisfaction from running well, relative to my age, of course. There is, for example, a physical exhilaration to be gained from running at speed down the fields from the windmills. I am just beginning to feel, after a month or so of tentative struggle, that I can push the body on, and, yes, I am sure that the sense of competence does add to my physical and mental well-being.
      My body is better designed for running than it is for, say, weight-lifting or basketball. I am 5 feet 8 (1.73 metres) and 140 pounds (63.5 kilograms). McDougall is 6 feet 4 (1.93 metres) and 230 pounds (104.3 kilograms). I don’t know about Murakami. Running comes relatively naturally to me, although, of course, as I get older, the smoothness of my running has gradually disappeared.
      Nonetheless, the memory of it, and the hope that a vestige of it may return, is part of the reason that I continue to try to run. I run because I enjoy running - that is, the process of running. That may seem self-evident but many people say that they run in order to lose weight, to raise money for charity, to have time to escape from life’s problems, and so on. These, to me, are indirect, secondary benefits. To those for whom they are the main reason, running must seem like a medicine to take for the good it will do.
      Whenever I start trying to run again, as I did on January 1st, I reach a stage, usually after about three weeks, when I begin to doubt that I will ever run comfortably again. I begin to fear that my body is a clapped-out engine that, however tenderly I treat it, just cannot manage any more. The legs seem uncoordinated, the lungs are afire, breathing is laboured, energy is lacking. But I feel that I have, for one more time at least, crossed this threshold. It no longer seems inconceivable that I will run smoothly again.
      As I get fitter, I can extend my range to places that I haven’t run to for a while. It’s like seeing old friends. On Sunday I ran up to the Caton Moor trig point, for the first time since last June. In fact, it was the first time for six months that I have run for an hour, and, a little to my surprise, I felt quite comfortable. It was silent on the moor. No birds were to be seen, but I don’t blame them: it was very cold up there.

near windmills Left: The track down from the Caton Moor trig point past the windmills. (It is supposed to be a bridleway but I have never seen a horse here. I have never seen a runner either, but there is the occasional walker to spoil my solitude.)

      The run up to the trig point is the most straightforward of all my runs. From my doorstep it is uphill every step of the way, apart from two small dips, for an ascent of a bit over 300 metres (1000 feet), and then back down again. It is satisfying to take the challenge head-on and run up non-stop: it gives a sense of mastery over my local hill. I do think of it as ‘my’ hill, as I have, in over 30 years of running there, never seen anyone at my trig point, apart from the one day of the year when they run up from the other side of the moor for the Wray Gala race. I do think of it as ‘my’ trig point, too. Some years ago, the Ordnance Survey said that, as they didn’t need their trig points anymore, volunteers could look after them. I bid for the Caton Moor one. I never heard back from the Ordnance Survey. If anyone is looking after it now, they are not doing a good job: I will have to take a paint pot and brush next time I run up.
      Another reason for running there is that I might soon not be allowed to. There are proposals to cover the moor with a further 13 or 20 wind turbines, to supplement the 8 already there. If approved, the turbines will effectively eliminate the main virtue that Caton Moor has - the view it affords of the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District peaks.
      I said last week that I thought that to count as running the motion needs to have some zip, a technical term which I carefully didn’t define. If anyone were to say that my current plod hardly has zip then I wouldn’t argue too much. But I like to think that I run at a respectable speed for a pensioner. My average speed last year was about 8 minutes per mile, which is roughly the speed at which Murakami and McDougall ran their fastest marathons (but, of course, I am not running marathons!).
      To tell the truth, I am bemused by those runners, like Murakami and McDougall, who invest so much time and effort on an activity for which they have little natural aptitude and for whom running must always be a struggle rather than a pleasing physical endeavour. I could understand it if, similar to me nowadays, they just went for the occasional jog around the park, to keep generally fit, but they chug along for hour after hour, day after day, month after month, as you must to run marathons and beyond.
      Does it happen to the same degree with other activities? Are there people who swim, or skate, or trampoline, for 12 hours at a time without being particularly good at it? Is there perverse pleasure to be gained in persevering to extreme lengths despite some inadequacy? Do we actually admire those who persist in the face of adversity more than those for whom it comes easily? Do slow but persistent runners revel in the respect gained from good runners? McDougall reports the following exchange with Scott Jurek, one of the world’s best ultra-runners, after his 50-mile race:
    “You were amazing” Scott said.
    “Yeah,” I said. “Amazingly slow”.
    “That’s what I’m saying,” Scott insisted. “I’ve been there, man ... It takes more guts than going fast”.
This, remember, is McDougall writing about himself. He is saying that a supreme ultra-runner, a man who has run over 165 miles in 24 hours, thinks that he (McDougall) is ‘amazing’ and has more guts than he (Jurek) has. I am not amazed that McDougall can run 50 miles in 12 hours but I am amazed that he should want to. I hope now that you will excuse my apparent boastfulness above. It is, it seems, much more commendable to run far and slow than it is to run well.

6.  The School Run
February 12th 2011

In the spirit of candour that has infiltrated these pages I now confess that I was a little disingenuous in my first diary entry. I did not start running in 1978. I had, like most people, run at school and had, unlike most people, enjoyed it. I am sure that the memory of those school-days was part of the reason I took running up (again) in 1978 rather than, say, swimming, of which the only school-day memory I have is of being pushed into the water to test the ‘sink or swim’ theory. I sank.
      Murakami says that running suits his personality because he doesn’t enjoy team sports and is not competitive. Neither applied to me at school. I don’t believe one’s personality fundamentally changes through life, although one’s physical state, environment and social context certainly do. If I am now more individualistic and less competitive, as my running indicates, it is not, I believe, because my personality has changed. If it has then running has been a cause rather than a consequence.
      At school I preferred football to athletics. Football is, of course, a team game. Any personal success or failure is secondary to that of the team. It is impossible to win anything at football unless the team does so. I realised in the first year at grammar school that there were several footballers more talented than me. As a result, I was only on the fringes of the school team. But talent is not always a blessing. Football came too easily to some boys. Often, they did not apply their individual abilities to the best advantage of the team, to the frustration of the teachers in charge. Consequently, over the years, they faded from football. In the end, I played four full years in the school first team and became captain. I learned that, as Murakami would put it, focus and endurance can compensate for a relative lack of talent.
      I would have played football all year if it were possible but the summer term was for cricket. I saw little point in standing in a field all afternoon so, along with a handful of others, opted for athletics, that is, running, in my case. I don’t recall any coaching. We were just left to run around the track as we wished. We couldn’t run all afternoon so we developed a form of interval training, with rather more intervals than training, I suspect.
      The training, such as it was, was more than the cricketers got and when the school sports day came around I was comparatively fit. I usually won one or more of the 440 yards, 880 yards and 1 mile, which were regarded as long-distance races for us. I was excessively competitive, to the mystification, I expect, of most boys. I am sure my head-to-head battle with Whitehouse up the home straight in the 1960 440 yards is talked about to this day. It ranks alongside the Coe-Ovett tussles in the Olympics. I was judged to have come second, by the way. I still hope that a photograph will turn up to prove the judges wrong.

young lad Right: Some young fellow winning some race in about 1960.

      According to the Athletics Association the athletics year started in June, whereas the school year started in September. This meant that I, being born in July, was racing against boys most of whom were in the school year below me. One year I adopted a strategy intended to emphasise my literally superior class. In the longer races, I sprinted off from the gun, leaving the others all far behind (the conventional thing was to jog round until the last bend and then sprint for the tape). Sometimes I ran the first lap of the 880 yards faster than the 440 yards winning time. After the first lap, I just hung on as best I could. It always worked: the others just ignored me and had a race between themselves.
      I never set any school records. My best time for the 880 yards was a shade over 2 minutes. At that time, the world record was about 1:45. So, 2 minutes was quite nippy. Enough to enable me to run for Norfolk a couple of times but then Norfolk is not renowned for its athletes.
      Athletics is not a team game. There may be an ‘athletics team’ and one may be inspired by a team-mate’s performance but ultimately individuals compete as individuals. Success or failure is largely down to the individual. It wasn’t because I am inherently self-centred that I enjoyed running. I appreciated the contrast with football. I felt the two sports complemented one another. In one it is essential to cultivate the team ethic; in the other it is individual determination that counts.

bridleway Left: The bridleway up to the little bridge and the windmills.

      I mention these school-day experiences not because I wallow in the half-century-ago past but because I realise now that they colour my attitude to running today. It is not something that I have ever talked about. Now that I think about it, I can recall some of those summer running activities. I used to run a lap of the track in, say, 75 seconds, then jog a lap and then see how many times I could repeat it. Nobody told me to do it; nobody cared that I did it. It was entirely a personal challenge. I just wanted to see what my body could manage.
      Even now, I have something of that attitude. I know that, if I’m reasonably fit, I can run from the windmills by the bridleway down to the road in 14 minutes. Sometimes, I try to run it faster, again, simply as a personal challenge. I do feel a little self-conscious, but there is never anyone on the bridleway to see me puffing along.
      Running is part of who I am and I am reluctant to lose it, as we inevitably lose so much of ourselves as we get older. I wouldn’t be trying to run now if I hadn’t run in the 1980s; and I probably wouldn’t have run in the 1980s if I hadn’t run in the 1960s. I run now because I can and because I am reasonably good at it (or was). I don’t run because my personality prefers non-competitive, non-team sports. If it were possible, I’d rather play football but I haven’t found a team with a vacancy for a 65-year-old midfield general who mainly gesticulates from the centre circle.
      Perhaps that’s it: running is for those who are not able to do anything else while running.
      Now, in case you are wondering why I’ve said nothing about this week’s running, that’s because I haven’t done any. We’ve had some wild, wet and windy weather that demanded more commitment and determination to run than I have. In any case, I have some sort of bug. A fast pulse, runny nose, aching legs, and generally feeling rough has removed all thought of running. This is a pity as my running this year had, up to this point, gone swimmingly (if that’s possible). It would have followed my schedule, if I dared to have one, for I had not missed a single run through lethargy, as happened many times last year. I was looking forward to getting fitter. One cannot, however, defy the body.

7.  Running Down the Clock
February 19th 2011

The English language does not have a tense suitable for writing about my running. It would be an amalgamation of the past continuous, the present imperfect, and the future implausible. When I write “I am” it often seems necessary to add an “(or was)”. What was so, is no longer so, and may never become so again, but I don’t want to concede this by writing “I was”. Of course, I am not trying to return to the past. I am, however, hoping that whatever I can regain of the running experience will help me to provide a perspective on the nature of running from a vantage point of antiquity.
      This thought was brought into sharp focus this week when I was pleased to pass 100 miles for the year, that is, in the first seven weeks of the year. Once upon a time I ran 100 miles in a week. To be precise, twice upon a time.
      It is odd how we runners go on about our mileages. Murakami, for example, considers 36 miles a week to be his standard for ‘serious running’ but there is no mention of speed. As in so many cases, length isn’t everything - it’s the quality that counts. 36 miles at 6 minutes per mile is very different to 36 miles at 10 minutes per mile. 36 miles up and down hills is very different to 36 miles around a running track.
      Runners’ handbooks always advise runners to keep a detailed log of their running. The idea (or hope) is that runners can analyse their logs to determine reasons for their success or failure and so adapt their training. Until last year, I never bothered, even when I was running with commitment. I guess it seemed too obsessional to me. Perhaps if we had spreadsheets in those days I would have done so, as it is mildly motivating to see the mileage total mount up.
      However, I do have records in an old notebook of my training runs in the three months before the second, third and fourth marathons that I ran. I must have wanted to ensure that I maintained the required mileages in those build-up periods. The records are too brief to count as a log. There are only five words written - “windy”, “snow” and “ice cream bug” - as explanations of missing runs. The last was for three days missed because of eating contaminated ice cream. It smelt vile, through meat leaking into it. We all, except Pamela, who took one sniff and refused it, were very ill.
      A typical entry, for 30 years ago today, is “9/58”, meaning 9 miles in 58 minutes. Of course, I have no idea now where the 9 miles were and whether it was a hard, easy, good or bad run. At least, I can sit here now and read with some incredulity how much I ran in those three sets of 13 weeks. Before my second marathon it was: 49, 54, 57, 50, 54, 45, 66, 70, 58, 74, 79, 47 and 40 miles (an average of 57 miles a week). And I didn’t just accumulate the miles - I went at a fair speed, an average of about 6:30 per mile. Of course, this is still puny by the standards of top marathon runners like Haile Gebrselassie, who run at least twice as far each week and much faster.
      For my third marathon I ran somewhat further in those 13 weeks: an average of 63 miles a week, also at 6:30 per mile. And yet further for the fourth marathon: 63, 66, 75, 76, 79, 52, 80, 100, 72, 75, 64, 72, 46 miles (an average of 71 miles a week). I ran the 100 miles just to see what it was like. I sense that my enthusiasm for keeping a record was waning at this stage, as the entries become even briefer, with the minutes missing.
      Now, they are just numbers on the page. It is hard to remember exactly what running 60 or 70 miles a week for month after month was like. I know it wasn’t easy. I recall that I used to say that I woke up tired and went to bed tireder. And that’s it. I kept no record of my later running, until last year. I suppose I saw no point in it.
      Nowadays, I run, if I’m lucky, about a third as far as in those distant days, and much slower. My spreadsheet tells me that since I started keeping the log in January 2010 the most that I have run in any week is 35 miles, which is proof that I am not up to Murakami’s standard of serious running.

hut lawson's wood Left: The River Lune and fishermen’s hut (a different hut to that shown in week 4), below Lawson’s Wood. Ingleborough is in the distance. This hut is 400 yards upstream of the Waterworks Bridge. I ran here after the heavy rain of a few weeks ago, when the river was full to the brim and lapping over the green fields, which was a scary experience. It is near here that Ruth has seen one of the otters that have recently returned to the Lune. I haven’t seen one yet: they can hear my wheezing a mile off.

      It is easy to see why runners get fixated on their mileages. They are something concrete to focus on. They give a measure of progress and provide a challenge to improve. But it’s like keeping a log of how long you spend gardening: it rather misses the point. From now on, I’ll stop trying to squeeze a mention of mileages into this text unless there is a good reason to do so (but, just in case any reader should feel bereft, I’ll tuck the mileages, for the week and the year, unobtrusively at the bottom left of these pages). There is, in any case, something irrational about focussing on mileages rather than minuteages. It is the minuteage that is the more precise measure, unless you use a GPS device, which is an unnecessary extravagance for me.
      A couple of weeks ago I said that I ran up to the Caton Moor trig point and back in an hour. I don’t know the mileage precisely. It is irrelevant, really. The route is an idiosyncratic one, up and down the hill, wiggling about on road, track, grassy field and rough moor. I can estimate the effective distance better by the time it takes me to run it than by what the map says. In fact, I know my runs better by the times they usually take me rather than whatever distances they might be. I select a run on the basis of how much time I want to run, not on how far.
      This week, mileage has been the least of my concerns. It is tempting, as the body begins to recover from illness, to set out to make up for lost time but, after an eight-day layoff, much of what fitness I had has evaporated. I still feel too feeble to contemplate anything like a run up to the trig point. I don’t have the energy for any hills at all, and have therefore just run along the riverside or the old railway line, which have the welcome virtue of being flat.
      I’ve settled for regularity rather than boldness. I’ve run every day since Sunday, but slowly and not far. I consider the runs, such as they are, to be part of my rehabilitation programme. I want my body to expect to run every day (before my bug, my running had been rather irregular and the body had always seemed to take offence when asked to run).
      While I’ve not been paying attention, nature has moved on a little. The dawn chorus has begun. The daffodils have shot up. The afternoons are brighter longer, enabling a run after tea-time. But it is still quiet by the river. The flocks of a few weeks ago seem to have been blown away by the gales of last week. Everything, including me, is in a state of uncertainty, unsure whether the winter is in the past or the present.
21/116

8.  Run Amuck
February 26th 2011

Focus and endurance are not enough. They only apply once an activity is underway. Something more is needed to get started. For runners perhaps this is the attribute of defiance, a sort of bloody-mindedness that relishes overcoming whatever challenges there may be. Or maybe it’s a lack of imagination, an inability to perceive that the challenges should be postponed for a while.
      I used to run with a runner who always accelerated when he came to a small hill. He seemed to take the hill as a personal affront: “this hill thinks it’s going to slow me down - well, I’ll show it”. McDougall seemed determined to defy the advice that his body wasn’t suited to running. My attempts at running today may be interpreted as trying to defy the effects of aging.
      Similarly with the weather. Sensible people regard bad weather as an excuse to stay indoors. Keen runners almost welcome bad weather. They defy it: “rain as hard as you like, be as cold as you like, but you won’t stop me - in fact, I’ll enjoy it even more”. Running, after all, is one of the few outdoor activities that need not be stopped by bad weather. Extreme weather adds a frisson to the challenge. There was always an extra buzz in the university gym when we gathered to run in a storm outside.
      This attitude begins, I think, with cross-country runs at school. The large majority of people do not enjoy such runs but I rather liked the paradoxical foolhardiness of cross-country running. Cross-country is what you do when the sports pitches are unusable because of the weather (at least, it was at my school). The worse the conditions, the more cross-country made sense. The games teachers seemed to think so because they took pleasure in making us run unnecessarily through muddy ditches and over hedges, when a convenient gate was often available.
      My very first competitive runs were not on the school athletics track but at cross-country. It was from the cross-country runs that I first realised that I had some ability at running. When the first-year cross-country race was to take place we all trekked out to the starting place and I eagerly positioned myself at the front. It turned out to be the back, for the race set off in the opposite direction. I had to weave my way through the majority of boys who were walking and jogging, with no enthusiasm for the race.
      By the time the finishing line came in sight I was fourth. A teacher urged me on: “He’s tiring, you can catch him”. The boy ahead did indeed seem to be tiring, with his head lolling from side to side. So, with a ferocious sprint, I managed to pip him to take third place. I overheard some spectators wondering why it mattered so much. I recall thinking that it was because I knew that the names of the first three boys were read out at the next morning’s assembly. All that effort for a little bit of fame! Motivation does not always have a commendable derivation.
      In the eight school cross-country races that I ran I always came 2nd, 3rd or 4th. I never won - but it was good enough to make me a regular in the school cross-country team. Every year we would travel to somewhere in Norfolk to race against the other Norfolk schools. It seemed to be a tradition in these races for the runners to run astray. Only the local runners knew the course and if they weren’t in the lead nobody knew where to go. Once, I recall, we ran around the Great Yarmouth horse-racing course and along the beach. I’m not sure if we were supposed to: it certainly didn’t seem much like a cross-country race. Somewhat miraculously, the runners usually finished up where they should, but not necessarily in the right order (as Eric Morecambe once said).

lune flood Right: The Lune floodplain, flooded, as is its wont.

      There was an element of this mayhem in the University Stepping Stones race. We all knew the course but the weather conditions were usually bad in December. In 1980 the stepping stones were far under water and a safety rope across the river was provided. Even so, I was washed away. It is not often that part of a race is run under water. That year I was 6th - but all the sensible runners did not run.
      I did run in one adult cross-country race, in some kind of Lancashire league competition, in about 1981 but, frankly, I thought it too foolish. It is one thing to splash about in mud when you’re young and told to but for grown men (and women) voluntarily to submit themselves to this indignity was incomprehensible to me. Apart from that, it is mainly the really good cross-country runners who continue into adulthood and I finished much too far back in the field for my liking.
      Nowadays I have become a little soft. I rarely run in bad weather, because, being retired, I can just wait until it passes and run then. It doesn’t rain all day very often. In the 1980s, when running had to be fitted in when it could, I ran whatever the weather. I do sometimes come back from my runs covered in mud, from running about on the boggy moors or on the flooded floodplain, but that is my choice. That makes all the difference.
      This is the hardest time of the year to run. In the cold, dark days of winter, runners don’t complain about the conditions. They are what you expect in winter. But now, as we approach March, we begin to think that we deserve some reward. We want the sun to warm us up a little on our runs. We want to discard some of the layers of winter clothing. We want running to become a more rational activity.
      But no, the cold winds continue to blow, the rain falls, and the cloud stays low on the hills. As a result, the fields stay waterlogged. The only comfortable run is along the sheltered railway line and back. But who wants comfort? If I wanted comfort, I could stay in bed or sit reading the paper or watching day-time television. Well, maybe, perhaps, just today, I could ... Runners like to imagine that they are engaged in a perpetual battle between the attractions of idleness and the compulsion to run. Sometimes they feel virtuous in repulsing the attractions; sometimes their free will triumphs over the compulsion.
      However, idleness is not the only alternative to running. I have many other, more or less useful, ways to pass my time. But none is really an alternative to my running. I am never so busy that I cannot find the time to run. The question is simple: do I want to run or not? Usually, I do. Even this week, I have continued to put on the wet running shoes and the mud-spattered gear, to get out onto the fields again, defying these unappealing conditions.
      On Sunday I ran up the moor to the windmills. The cold wind blew hard against me. The low cloud prevented me seeing the fresh snow on Ward’s Stone, the highest point (561 metres) of the Forest of Bowland. The bogs almost sucked my shoes off. But I am sure that I was the only person to defeat the moor that day.
      To my general breathlessness and tiredness, I have added stiffness of the thighs and shoulders, as a result of carrying skis up and down Raise, near Helvellyn, on Tuesday. This was so that Ruth could ski there for the first, and probably last, time this season (I have no wish to ski myself). Consequently, since Tuesday I have only been able to plod along the riverside. I’ve had it to myself because the fields are too muddy for all but the keenest walkers and, of course, there are no runners other than me.
      I don’t think that ‘run’ is the right word for my motion. There is a lot of slipping and sloshing about. I feel like a toddler splashing in the puddles. I really must try to grow up.
21/137

9.  Should Find A Running Banquet Ere They Rested [1]
March 5th 2011

Maybe the answer lies in spinach - the question being “Where can I get more energy from?” Popeye used to swallow the contents of a can of spinach and his muscles were bulging instantly. At least, his arm muscles were. I can’t picture his leg muscles but surely they must have been bulging too.
      I am struggling with my running at the moment. I am doing my best, I swear. It is not that I am so overcome with ennui that I cannot be bothered to run. I run, or try to, most days, but I have little energy. I am so listless that I am wondering if I will ever have any list again. I am in that state I mentioned in Week 5, of doubting that my body will be able to run comfortably again. My running seems laboured and ungainly. So much for the ‘zip’ I boasted about a few weeks ago. I also said then that I enjoyed the process of running. That was then: I am getting little enjoyment from running as badly as I am at the moment.
      If I didn’t know that I’d run up to the trig point just a few weeks ago then I’d scarcely believe such a thing were possible. When I reach any sort of slope now I can hardly keep moving. I am therefore avoiding slopes and continuing to jog along the railway line and river bank, which, through repetition, is getting a little uninspiring, picturesque though it may be.

lune at crook Right: The River Lune from the old railway line at the Crook o’ Lune.

      Perhaps I will have to accept that my body needs a nap, not a half-hour run, in the afternoon. No, no, not yet. I will persevere. I am just temporarily (I hope) run-down from my illness of a couple of weeks ago. I just need a little pick-me-up. Now, where’s that spinach? I don’t mean that spinach itself is the answer. That would be silly. Popeye was only a cartoon character. I mean that perhaps if I had a better diet then I would have more energy. Let’s see what the greatest athletes eat.
      Perhaps the Tarahumaras, the “greatest runners of all time” (McDougall, p4), can teach me something about diet. McDougall reports the case of an exhausted explorer who was handed “a gourd full of murky liquid. He swallowed a few gulps, and was amazed to feel new energy pulsing through his veins. He got to his feet and scaled the peak like an overcaffeinated Sherpa”. Sounds just like Popeye and his spinach. They also have a “special energy food ... a few mouthfuls of which packed enough nutritional punch to let them run all day without rest”.
      I don’t know if the “murky liquid” is the same thing as lechuguilla (McDougall, p15). This is a homemade tequila made from cactus sap and rattlesnake corpses. After partying on lechuguilla all night, the Tarahumaras could run as far as 435 miles. Why they needed to run 435 miles I have no idea. That would take them way out of their canyon, as far as the United States border and back. (Would live rattlesnakes provide even more oomph?)
      I have ordered fifty crates of lechuguilla. I am looking forward to partying all Friday night and then spending the weekends running to places like Cardiff, Middlesborough and Dundee and back. I don’t need to go to Cardiff, Middlesborough or Dundee but I will save a fortune in rail fares or petrol by running there.
      Perhaps the “murky liquid” is iskiate, which is described as a “gooey slime” (McDougall, p43). McDougall tried this and “within minutes, [he] felt fantastic ... the low-throbbing headache [he]’d had all morning ... had vanished”. He doesn’t say that he dashed up any peaks though.
      Iskiate is made by dissolving chia seeds in water with sugar and lime. According to McDougall, “you couldn’t do much better than chia, at least if you were interested in building muscle, lowering cholesterol, and reducing your risk of heart disease”. Well, who isn’t? I’ve ordered fifty boxes of chia, too. With McDougall’s assurance that “Aztec runners used to chomp chia seeds as they went into battle”, I should be well equipped to take on my trig point again.
      The Tarahumaras must eat more than chia, so I have searched McDougall’s book from cover to cover to see what else is in their diet. All I could find was that they live on “little more than ground corn spiced up by their favourite delicacy, barbecued mouse”. I don’t need to order these because I can buy corn locally and I can catch mice in the garden. I wonder how many mice I’ll need to make a meal. Do you think it would be ok if I topped them up with the occasional shrew, vole or mole?
      On reflection, perhaps I shouldn’t believe everything I read. It is said that the creator of Popeye had him eating spinach because he thought that spinach had ten times more iron than it actually did (through an academic misplacing a decimal point in some paper). As a result, generations of United States children were given extra spinach to eat. This is often held up as an example of how faulty policy decisions can be made if data is not carefully checked.
      Actually, although the misplaced decimal point story is often told, no paper about spinach and iron has ever been found with a misplaced decimal point. The story was made up, apparently. So those writers who continue to repeat it (and many do, as a Google search will show) are themselves guilty of not carefully checking their data. Anyway, we all know that Popeye wasn’t eating spinach for the iron. It was the vitamins he was after: “Spinach is full of vitamin A an’ tha’s what makes hoomans strong an’ helty” (Popeye, July 3rd 1932).
      Anybody want any lechuguilla or chia?
      Do you know that Alan Sherman ditty “Hello muddah, hello fadduh” to the tune of Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours? In it, a boy writes home to his parents describing the woes of summer camp - rain, poison ivy, ptomaine poisoning, alligators, malaria, bears. And then the sun comes out and he ends “... that’s better ... kindly disregard this letter”.
      I feel like that boy. The sun is shining at last. There is a touch of green on the hedges. The first lambs are in the fields. A few daffodils are out. One or two skylarks are singing. Some of the curlews are curlewing. Yes, that’s better. There is a touch of spring in the air - but sadly not in my step.
lune from wenning

The River Lune near where the River Wenning joins (I usually run along the left bank)

[1].  Shakespeare, William, Henry VIII, Act 1, Scene 4.
19/156

10.  In the Long Run
March 12th 2011

gate Right: My run up [1] to the windmills this week was halted at this gate when I saw four hares running around in the field beyond. In Britain the hare has declined more than any other mammal except the water vole but they seem content enough on Caton Moor. I stopped and watched them for several minutes. Of all the animals that I see on my runs, I feel the most affinity with the hare (if I may so presume). The others run, but usually in alarm; hares seem to run just because they want to.
      These four ran around the moor aimlessly, sometimes alone, sometimes together, occasionally pausing to box one another’s ears. They weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere particular. They just liked to run. And it all seemed so effortless, loping in graceful loops up and down the hummocks on the moor. Just like me, or so I imagine, although I don’t have any co-runners to box the ears of. Incidentally, it used to be assumed that the boxing was an inter-male challenge but it is now thought to be initiated by female hares rebuffing the males’ advances. I will leave you to work out any analogy to human behaviour.
      I left the hares to it and ran off in another direction.

Runners cannot stand still. They must always be on the lookout for the latest advances that might add that all-important edge to their running. New running shoe technologies, dietary supplements, psychological techniques, medical treatments, and so on, must all be thoroughly investigated or the runner risks being left behind.
      I have found fresh inspiration this week from news of the first robot marathon. The race in Osaka was won by Robovie-PC in a time of nearly 55 hours. So, Robovie-PC ‘runs’ about 2 metres in the time that Usain Bolt runs 100 metres. Of course, these are only the first steps. We need to extrapolate from this performance to foresee the implications for human running.
      The race rules insisted that robots must get up themselves after a fall. Quite right, too: human racers aren’t supposed to be helped if they collapse. Support teams could, however, replace robot batteries when they ran low. This is an excellent innovation. The rules for human races do not prohibit the carrying out of surgical operations during a race. This, I am sure, is the future. If I could replace my battery - and other failing body components - I might be able to complete another marathon after all, although there may not be much of the real me left by the end.
      I needed no such assistance during my first marathon. Before it, I had, after two years of running around the lanes near the university, been cajoled into taking part in a road-race. This was a momentous, life-changing step. To pin a number on one’s vest and compete on the public streets was a statement of commitment that I was not sure that I wanted to make. All road-racers then were serious: the concept of a ‘fun-runner’ was then unknown in Britain.
      Road-races were organised by local athletic clubs and contested by intense runners. My first road-race was the Windermere-to-Kendal 10-mile in March 1980. I thought that would at least provide a good day out for the family. I came 127th out of 335 in 58 minutes. Fourth was a 19-year-old Steve Cram who, five years later, was to break the 1500 metres world record.

lune at crook Left: The end of the 1980 Preston-to-Morecambe Marathon. The lady with the bag was disqualified for not running the whole course.

      My modest performance in the Windermere-to-Kendal race was enough for me to enter the local marathon, the Preston-to-Morecambe, to be held in July. No messing about, then. It is often said, mainly to alarm virgin marathon runners, that at the 20-mile point of a marathon you are only halfway, because of all the calamities that are likely to occur after that point. So, on that basis, a marathon was four times further than I’d raced before. The course was from Preston, north along the A6, through the centre of Lancaster, and on the B5321 to Morecambe. That route could not possibly be a ‘fun run’. I am sure that the police would not allow it today. They more or less ignored it then.
      It was, of course, a daunting prospect and I had little idea how to prepare for it, other than to run as much as I could. I thought that I should at least join the local club. When I rang the secretary to join and mentioned that I’d entered the marathon he wondered if that was wise, which was hardly encouraging. I reassured him by saying that I was ‘running with’ two long-standing members, Tony and Mike. Tony was ten years old than me and an experienced marathon runner, always winning prizes and medals in his age group. Mike was also a proper athlete with a smooth running style, more suited perhaps to a shorter distance and a faster pace than Tony’s short, pattering steps. I thought that the safest thing to do was to follow them, as far as I could!
      The only other idea I had was to try to forget that I was supposed to run 26 miles. I intended to ignore the race for 20 miles. I thought that looking at the other runners bobbing along in front of me for hours would make me dizzy, so I intended to keep my head up, look around, and take in the surroundings. I recall seeing the skyline of the Bowland hills, barely visible through the murky cloud, evolve on my right as the miles passed.
      Athletic clubs took great pride in organising these events. A few days after the race we were sent details of the race results, with 5-mile split times for all the runners, all carefully recorded by hand (no computer timing in those days). Studying them closely now, I see that I ran with Mike for 20 miles, always about 6 seconds behind Tony. At 20 miles, Mike began to flag. He dropped behind as we ran through the Lancaster Saturday afternoon shoppers. Beyond Lancaster, I came onto the shoulder of Tony, with the intention of saying “Let’s go get the guy in front”. But Tony was flagging a little too. So I finished first local runner (19th overall) in 2:37.
      Afterwards, it seemed that I’d just run on the others’ shoulders and then sprinted away at the end, a tactic which is somewhat suspect among friends, if acceptable to win an Olympic medal. However, looking at those 5-mile split times, I see that I ran 28½, 30½, 28½, 30½, 31 minutes for each 5 miles and that Mike took 35 minutes and Tony 32 minutes for the fifth 5 miles. I didn’t accelerate: they slowed more than me. I ran behind them for 20 miles because I didn’t know what else to do. It would have been foolishly presumptuous of me to try to run ahead of them!
      A few weeks ago I argued that Murakami and McDougall were not marathoners (that is, one of McDougall’s two kinds of great runner) because they were too slow. I didn’t mean to be critical. To help put their marathon times in perspective, if they had run their best times in the 1980 Preston-to-Morecambe Marathon they would have finished 98th and 110th out of 112. 88% of the runners finished inside 3:30. And the Preston-to-Morecambe was by no means a top-class marathon.
      Robovie-PC would have finished two days later. Or, more likely, would have been squashed on the A6.

[1].  Yes, up. I have found a little more energy this week but not enough to write home (or here) about.
23/179

11.  Runner-Up
March 19th 2011

A strange thing happened on my Sunday run. I set off intending to run up the road to the windmills and down through the hares’ playground. After 5 minutes I felt so tired that I nearly stopped and walked back home, but I struggled on slowly. As I did so I realised that it must have rained heavily overnight because water was pouring off the moor. I didn’t fancy the morass that the hares’ playground would be, so I continued instead on the track (shown in week 5) that runs below the Caton Moor trig point.
      After at last reaching the highest point of the track I thought that I might as well run along the flat top to have a view of Ingleborough. It was in cloud but Pen-y-Ghent was clear. Having come this far, I thought that I might as well continue to Roeburndale Road and return on the other side of the windmills, rather than retrace my steps. After 50 minutes running I reached a point from which I know that, when I’m fit, I can get back home in 15 minutes. I thought that I might as well try to do so then - and I did. It was a novel experience to run much further than intended (I often run less!). It was even more novel to feel better after 65 minutes running than after 5.
      Caton Moor is a dull pudding of a hill, without any rocks, crags or cliffs to appeal to the energetic scrambler, but it is a different matter across the Roeburndale Road. Here, on Haylot Fell, Blanch Fell and Black Fell, below Ward’s Stone, there are great jumbles of millstone grit boulders, covered in tough heather. It is impossible to run smoothly over this. There are, however, some rough tracks for rough running and a few smooth ones for grouse-shooters’ vehicles (and smooth running).
      Some people enjoy racing over such terrain. The ‘fell-race’ is the locally favoured form of cross-country race. It involves getting up some peak, or several of them, and down again as fast as possible. The courses are generally longer and always steeper than cross-country ones, and they are usually unmarked between checkpoints, so that the fell-racer needs mountain navigational skills as well.
      Back in the 1980s, when I was game for any kind of running, I felt that I should join in with the local customs, so I had a go. Three goes, in fact. I soon found that fell-racing was not for me. It did not suit me, physically or mentally. I do not have the upper-body strength to force my body up such steep slopes or the ankles to withstand the twisting and battering provided by rough, uneven rocks. More importantly, I am not mentally tough enough for fell-races. It is very difficult to keep running uphill when the thighs and lungs feel like bursting. Often, it is not possible, even for the best fell-racers. The run becomes a hands-on-knees scramble. Downhill is even worse. It is necessary to be recklessly brave to hurtle down craggy slopes at the speeds of the best fell-racers.
      I like to get into a rhythm when I run, with a steady stride gliding over the ground (I like to imagine). This is just not possible in fell-racing. You have to have the agility to adjust all the limbs as the terrain rushes by. The organisers of fell-races are not entirely sadistic, as racers are not expected to run over precipitous cliffs, but even so, there is a real risk of accident and exhaustion. It is not unknown for fell-racers to die of exposure after becoming injured or lost in bad weather.
      Most people, when they reach the top of a peak, are glad of the chance to rest and savour the panorama that they have earned. Fell-racers don’t have the time for that. They head straight back down, with not a glance about them. Indeed, there is no chance to appreciate the scenery on the way up or down: up, your head is between your knees and up the backside of the fell-racer ahead; down, you need to keep your eyes on the rocks ahead.
      And I felt sorry for the fells. They deserve more respect than this. Many of them are being eroded away by relatively gentle walkers. A few hundred fell-racers do them no good at all. A YouTube video of the descent from Scafell Pike during the Borrowdale fell-race shows the demolition that is caused.

skiddaw Left: Skiddaw on April 2nd last year. The fell-race route is up to the left of the gully at the right, past the tops of Jenkin Hill and Little Man, and on to the top of Skiddaw, and back the same way.

      My three fell-races were up Pendle, Skiddaw and Wansfell. I was totally unprepared for the first, Pendle. At the start, the racers sprinted across the field at a speed that seemed unwarranted, considering the total distance to be run. I soon understood why. Once onto the fell, there was only a narrow path, where over-taking was virtually impossible. I also soon found out that my footwear was quite unsuitable for the wet, slippery, grassy slopes. I came a chastened 140th out of 263.
      I did rather better at Skiddaw, coming 50th out of 193, taking 74 minutes, but I did not enjoy the race at all. The descent was headlong scariness. Wansfell was a traditional day-after-Boxing-Day outing rather than a serious fell-race. However, I did learn that ice and snow don’t make fell-racing any more enjoyable.
      It is only when you have tried and failed at something that you fully appreciate those skilled at it. I am in awe of the best fell-racers. The Wasdale course, up classic Lakeland peaks such as Great Gable and Scafell Pike (21 miles, 9000 feet ascent), in 3:25! How is that possible? The races are not all endurance ones. In some ways, the straight dash up and down Wansfell (2½ miles, 1500 feet ascent) in under 19 minutes is even more impressive.
      I feel I understand the great marathon runners. I have an idea of how they can run a marathon in 2:04. In fact, I’d be surprised if they couldn’t. But fell-racing is a mystery to me. I can’t conceive how they do it. The nearest equivalent in sport is perhaps the Tour de France cyclists who can pedal non-stop up huge mountains and then zoom down the other side.
      Fell-racers are an insular breed of runner. A walker might come across them and wonder what they are up to, but otherwise their exploits are unknown to the general public. Fell-races are never mentioned on television or in newspapers. Fell-racers like it that way. Recent British champions are Simon Booth, Rob Jebb and Rob Hope - good solid names but not exactly household ones, are they? The best fell-racers are clearly great runners but they are neither kind of great runner (sprinter and marathoner) identified by McDougall. Some of them run for longer than marathon runners but, obviously, road-racing is not their scene. And, I am content to admit, fell-racing is not mine.
26/205

12.  Run Short
March 26th 2011

cragg Right: Littledale and Ward’s Stone (above the barn) from the Cragg.

This week I ran a new personal best (PB). I ran up to the Cragg and back in 44½ minutes, which is my fastest time since records began. But hold the champagne! My records began only last January, and my PBs are very personal. So personal that I am sure that all my PBs are world bests. Nobody else runs the same courses as me.
      I blame my running shorts. My long running trousers for the winter months are quite content to let me merge in with the winter walkers but my shorts mean business. If I wear them, then I’ve really got to run. On Tuesday I woke up my shorts from their hibernation in the cupboard and they whisked me up and down the hill in no time. I exaggerate: in 44½ minutes, as I’ve said.
      Closer scrutiny of my spreadsheet showed that I had run up to the Cragg only twice before since January 2010. It is not my favourite run. The steep road down is hard on leg muscles not used to it but at least there is a fine view from the top - of Littledale and Ward’s Stone to the east and of the Lake District hills over Morecambe Bay to the west. My 44½ minutes was the best of the three times: a magnificent achievement, I’m sure you’ll agree. I need encouragement from wherever I can find it.
      The relationship between a runner and his PBs is one of the most emotionally intense in sport. It creeps up on a runner. He runs a ‘fun 10k’ in 50 minutes; someone says “not bad”; he thinks “it was only a jog, I can do better than that”; he runs another 10k in 48 minutes; and, before he knows it, he is elbowing to the front at the starting line in order to save a couple of seconds that might make all the difference to that elusive PB.
      There is an element of PB-chasing in all sports based on numbers. All batsmen know their highest innings; all snooker players know their biggest break; all golfers know their lowest round. Only in running does the PB become, for some people, the main motivator. Murakami writes that “Most ordinary runners are motivated by an individual goal, more than anything: namely, a time they want to beat”.
      The trouble with chasing PBs is that they take more and more effort to achieve. After a while, as fit as you may be, it takes a fortuitous combination of ideal conditions (weather, course, competition, and so on) to deliver a PB. Eventually, the PB becomes, not a motivator, but a de-motivator, as the reality of diminishing returns sets in. Why invest three months of hard effort for a marathon when you expect that it will show that you have run faster in the past?
      Murakami says, as he realised that PBs were no longer forthcoming, that “a sense of disappointment set in that all my hard work wasn’t paying off”. At least he kept running his marathons: I gave up road-racing in the mid-1980s after, but not because, I realised that there would be no more proper PBs.
      Running times are rather brutal in revealing the effects of aging. The best marathon times for different ages become steadily slower after the age of 35. Well, not quite steadily, as there are fluctuations but if you average over a five year period the trend is clear. To estimate the decline through aging we may compare, say, the present 60-year-old best (2:36) with the world best 25 years ago, that is, the 2:07 of Carlos Lopez. In this way, we can calculate the percentage decline: 
   40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79
    6%    9%    13%   19%   27%   30%   38%   59%
The women’s figures are similar but distorted because the modern breed of women marathon runner has not yet worked its way through the age groups and because very few women ran marathons forty years ago.
      These figures do not accord with those quoted by McDougall (p240). He says that marathon runners peak at 27 and that 64-year-olds run as fast as 19-year-olds. In fact, the world’s best times for all ages from 18 to 36 are in the range 2:04 to 2:06, with Gebrselassie’s record set at the age of 35, and the 64-year-old best is 2:44. This rather disputes his argument that “we’re not only really good at endurance running, we’re really good at it for a remarkably long time”.
      Assuming that the ordinary runner declines at the same rate as the best runner, then a marathon PB of 3:30 would equate to an ‘age-adjusted PB’ for a 60- 64-year old of 4:27 (that is, 27% slower than 3:30). If Murakami, now 62, aimed for that then he might be less disappointed. Actually, Murakami says that he peaked in his late forties, when he should, according to the above figures, have been 9% slower than his best. Perhaps if he had run seriously earlier he would have achieved a PB 9% faster, that is, 3:11. Then his age-adjusted PB would be 4:03. If I were Murakami, I’d forget about this refinement.
      It is not difficult, then, if you are a runner driven by PBs, to include an ‘aging factor’. It would, I imagine, be quite motivating to show that, although you are inevitably getter slower, you are getting slower slower than you should.
      For myself, I didn’t worry about PBs after the experience of the 1984 Great North-Western Half-Marathon. It was a very hot day. Runners were collapsing all around with heat exhaustion. It was the only race I ran where the medical staff at the finish leapt up to my assistance: I clearly looked exhausted (and I was). I don’t blame the organisers for the weather but I do blame them for arranging that a fun run, which set off after the half-marathon runners were on their way, should share the last mile or two with the racers. There is little worse for a runner than, when exhaustion is setting in and the legs are beginning to wobble, to have to weave through prams and pantomime horses spread out across the road. However, all was forgiven when I saw my time - a PB by a good 3 minutes! My training had really paid off this time.
      A few days later a letter arrived. The organisers apologised for the fact that, owing to roadworks, the course had been changed at the last moment and, on re-measuring, had been found to be more than half-a-mile short. I was somewhat deflated.
      Then, I thought, how accurate are these course measurements? Every race organiser knows that a reputation as ‘a fast course’ will boost the number of entries. If a course is short that will certainly make it fast. Excluding my first and last marathons, all my marathon times were within 1% of their average. I wonder, now, if the courses were measured to 99% accuracy. Nowadays no subterfuge is possible because rich runners are able to use GPSs to track themselves to two decimal places. In the 1980s courses were probably measured by a man on a bicycle.
      Then, the seconds mattered a lot. Today, they don’t matter at all. My so-called PBs now are just to add a bit of interest. Now, I never set out to run a PB. If I find that I am going well and a glance at the watch suggests that a bit of effort might bring a good time, then I might make that effort. But I just run steadily home. I don’t sprint down the street, eyeballs out, as runners say, collapsing on the doorstep. I don’t want to alarm the neighbours.
29/234

13.  Running It Fine
April 2nd 2011

In his preface Murakami quotes the slogan “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional”. According to Murakami, “the most important aspect of marathon running” is that “the [pain] is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner himself”.
      There are two aspects to all sporting activities: the physical and the mental. It may suit some marathon runners to present their achievement as an entirely mental one, as a heroic battle to overcome pain that shows their bravery and fortitude. Long-distance running should not require bravery, however. It is not an activity that has to skirt on the edge of danger, like downhill skiing, motor-bike racing or mountaineering, where a moment of inattention or incompetence can have body-shattering consequences.
      It is possible, as with all activities, to have accidents, by, for example, tripping over a kerb and twisting an ankle, but with running they are relatively rare and minor. Provided that there has been thorough preparation in the preceding months, a runner should not set off on a marathon expecting pain. The worst that should be anticipated is periods of weariness or struggle that have to be overcome by resilience and determination. Of course, it may turn out worse than this but that is no reason to depress or worry oneself by expecting it to.
      A marathon should not be a battle against pain, and nor should any other running. Not all runners agree with me: Clarence DeMar, who won the Boston Marathon seven times between 1911 and 1928 and who therefore should have known what he was talking about, said we should “run like hell and get the agony over with”.
      The answer to the question “How long does it take you to run a marathon?” is “About 100 days”. That’s assuming you are reasonably fit to start with. The final day is only the visible tip of the iceberg. It is the final day that gets all the attention, naturally, but the previous 99 days are the more important. An honest appraisal of the 99 days makes the final day entirely predictable, barring any misfortune. For this reason, I never felt elated at the end of a marathon. The race itself was always more or less what might have been anticipated. Satisfied and relieved, yes; but surprised and elated, no.
      Looking back, it was the whole 100 days, not the final day, that was the achievement. In today’s hectic life we don’t often have the opportunity to commit to a long-term project, involving hardship and effort, and to see it through. In previous centuries it was the norm. A farmer might look at a field and decide he needed a stone wall around it - he might work at it for an hour each morning, building a few feet of the wall, and after 100 days he’d have his wall. Or his wife might want a new rug for the bedroom, so she’d set aside an hour each evening to sew a few square inches.
      Marathon running is similar. You do a bit each day, gradually building up the reserves and strength, to deliver a product on the final day. The product is less tangible than a wall or a rug but the sense of achievement may be similar. For me, the most significant outcome was the realisation that I had the self-discipline to work at something for an extended period, often at some inconvenience, to deliver the best that I was capable of.
      I am a little disillusioned that Murakami considers that long-distance running is like novel writing. I would have predicted that he’d say that he welcomed the contrast between the repetitive commitment of running and the spasms of creative inspiration that illuminates the work of a novelist. I hadn’t pictured a novelist chaining himself to his desk every morning, forcing himself to write 750 words before lunch, much like a bricklayer might aim to lay 750 bricks in the morning (I know nothing about writing novels or laying bricks: 750 words or bricks in a morning may be wildly unrealistic). I thought that it was more like Mozart dashing off three symphonies in a month, when he was in the mood.

crook Left: The River Lune at the Crook o’Lune. I have three routes to the Crook, two by the river and one along the old railway line, giving six possible loops. I could have a different run there, 4 or 5 miles, every day of the week (with a rest day). I think I would be content if that was all that I could manage, for it is a fine stretch of river. In general, though, I prefer to mix in some runs up the hills (for the views), not that I have managed much of that this week. After the positive tone of the previous two weeks, this has been a steady week of consolidation: no real problems but not much progress either.

      After the 1980 Preston-to-Morecambe Marathon I knew that I was physically capable of running a marathon but not necessarily mentally capable. I had left all the mental stresses to my two pace-setting friends. I had deliberately avoided thinking about the race for 20 miles. So I felt an obligation to run a marathon ‘on my own’.
      I duly entered two marathons in 1981, at Huddersfield and Barnsley. Both were, like the Preston Marathon, organised by local running clubs for serious runners from clubs in the region, that is, the north of England. Unlike the Preston Marathon, they were out-and-back marathons, that is, starting and finishing in the same place. As with the Preston Marathon, the large majority of the runners (84% for the Huddersfield Marathon; I have lost the details for the Barnsley Marathon) finished inside 3:30. I came 8th in 2:33 and 23rd in 2:32 in the two races but, as I indicated above, the most important outcome was the knowledge that I had the discipline to run marathons.
      One thing that strikes me now, although it didn’t concern me much at the time, is how uneventful marathon races are. In 90 minutes of football you expect to be intrigued by the changing balances of play, to see the tactics evolve, to see moments of skill and calamity, and to be aware of the different qualities and contributions of the individual players. There’s enough to keep people talking and arguing until the next game.
      In a marathon nothing much happens. Runners set off at their different speeds, a handful go into the lead, one separates off to win. There are no incidents of interest (unless Paula Radcliffe sits down and cries). There is a subtle ebb and flow as runners have their spells of weariness and energy but this is hardly apparent to either participants or spectators. I have avoided the word ‘boring’ because, as a participant, I didn’t find the marathons so. But for spectators a marathon must surely be boring except for those brief moments when a relative or friend runs by. Perhaps it’s the sheer uneventfulness that appeals to some people.
      I can remember a fair amount about some football matches in the 1950s (such as Norwich City 3 Manchester United 0) but I can remember very little about the Huddersfield and Barnsley Marathons. This is not a failure of memory. There just isn’t much to remember. I recall being overtaken by an old guy (about 20 years younger than I am now) who was singing to himself, which seemed rather odd at the time, but that’s hardly of riveting interest.
      I do, however, recall being aware that this was probably as good as it would get, as far as marathon running was concerned. Maybe with a less undulating course I could have knocked a minute or two off. Maybe I could have got under 2:30 but that didn’t seem worth getting excited about when the distance itself (26 miles and 385 yards) is so idiosyncratic. Maybe I could have trained less to cause sufficient pain to make me feel more heroic.
26/260

14.  Sorry, I’ve Got To Run
April 9th 2011

On Monday, as I was trotting along the old railway line, one of man’s best friends bit my upper thigh. I thought it not unreasonable to remonstrate mildly with the owner, a smart, middle-aged lady. She replied “What can you expect if you come along here flapping your arms about? Piss off”. So I did, after kicking the dog and strangling the lady.
      When I’m running my difficulties with fellow humans are usually more subtle. Recently I’ve become more aware of a new problem, which hardly seems possible, after so many years of running. In the beginning, it was straightforward. Running became a routine, like shaving. Having decided that I would not be bearded, I did not have to go through the mental anguish every morning of deciding whether or not to shave. Similarly, having decided to take up running, I didn’t need to decide whether or not to go to the gym at 1 o’clock. Unless there was some insurmountable obstacle, such as a crucial meeting, I would be there. And so it went on, for month after month. If I met anyone while I was running, it was manifest to them what I was doing: I was on my middle-of-the-day run. Runner or not, known to me or not, they would have expected no more than a waved ‘hi’ from me.

flood Right: On Tuesday I saw my first sand-martins of the year. Their return to the Lune valley in April is always welcome because their whirling, twittering flight over the river is characteristic of the summer months. They come to nest in the tunnels they build into the steep river banks. Unfortunately, the Tuesday sand-martins had mistimed their return. The Lune was in flood. All their nests were underwater. The sand-martins, lots of them, were swooping over the turbulent river, puzzled. The river had subsided by Wednesday but no doubt their nests were somewhat soggy. The photograph shows the path to the Waterworks Bridge. The river is normally several metres lower in its bed to the right.

      When I began running around home it was a little different. I would meet local people, perhaps people I had not seen for a while, and people who, if I were out walking with Ruth, we would perhaps stop and chat with. Now I was running past, with a ‘hi’ but no time for a ‘how are you?’. Maybe I looked sufficiently committed to my running that no offence was taken. Over the years, I expect that they have all got used to me running by. I am as familiar a sight running along in my shorts as is the postman delivering letters.
      Today, things have changed. For one thing, I don’t have a routine. I want to decide for myself every day whether and when and where to run. I think I’m a rational person, capable of reaching decisions. If I decide for myself, every time that I go for a run, then I know that I am going because I want to, and not because I am set in some robotic routine. And when, some days, I decide not to run then I accept that to be a rational decision too.
      Making the decision is, for me, part of the process of running. It’s not something to get worked up about. I take into account what else there is to do during the day, what the weather forecast is, how energetic I feel, and so on. I then conclude that, say, I will run to the windmills at 12 o’clock. Even then, I feel free to change my mind, if, say, a blizzard starts blowing. In this way, I feel in control of my running, such as it is, rather than a slave to it.
      Also, my running is more casual. I am not training for anything. I am no longer able to speed past people. I am running slow enough that it is not unreasonable to expect me to stop for a chat (although I am not one for chatting and I know that if I stopped then I might have difficulty starting again). I probably look like I could do with a breather. So sometimes I stop but usually I continue with the ‘hi’ that people have become accustomed to.
      My new problem arises from the fact that the people I meet have changed. Hardly any of my contemporaries has been unaffected by the passage of time. They present a sad catalogue of illnesses and accidents. Some use walking-sticks; some are in wheel-chairs; some are too unwell to venture far. For some, the most exercise they can seek is a 50 yards struggle to a bench for a sit down. It is awkward to run past old acquaintances in such straits. It seems impolite not to stop and ask how they are. I doubt, however, that they want to discuss their problems with me, standing there in my running shorts. If I run by, or if I stop and then run off, it must seem to them that I am flaunting my fitness, although, heaven knows, I don’t feel that I have an abundance of it myself. I am sure that, if I were in their position, I would resent the unfairness of it all.
      It isn’t only walkers that cause me such angst. One day last summer, on the old railway line, I began to catch up a burly jogger ahead. My overtaking etiquette is to only do so if I am running much faster than the other runner, so that I can sail by with a brief ‘hi’. If I am only slightly faster then I risk being trapped like those motorway lorries that can’t quite complete the manoeuvre. I may then have to run alongside and even say more than ‘hi’, as though I were trying to strike up a friendship. This I try to avoid, especially if the other runner is a woman.
      On this occasion, there was no problem, as he was so slow, but as I ran by I heard a “Hi, John”. I slowed down and recognised him as one of those ‘Olympians’ I mentioned in Week 1, one of the original university running group. He gasped “Don’t run much now”. This was apparent but what could I say? It was sad to see but at least he was still trying to run. I found a side-path as soon as it was polite to do so.
      What can I do about this? Maybe I could avoid running where my contemporaries are likely to be, such as within a short distance of a car park. But why should I? It’s not my fault that they are much less fit than they were. For all I know, I may join them soon enough.
      The trouble is, I don’t like to dwell on our fragility and mortality. In the past when anyone asked “Have you heard about ...?” then I would anticipate good news: got a new job, moved, had twins, won the lottery, or whatever. Nowadays, it is invariably bad news: needs a knee operation, has cancer, fell and broke her hip, and so on. I can’t cope with it all. It is too depressing to think about. Perhaps I run to preserve the illusion that it won’t happen to me. There is, I admit, an escapist, enjoy-it-while-you-can element to my running.
      Fitness is relative. It is unreasonable, I know, but I feel a little dissatisfied to have reached a plateau with my running. I can comfortably run 5 miles or so 5 days a week. It fits into life almost without being noticed. I say “I’m just going for a run” much as I do “I’m just walking to the shop”. I don’t know if I could run 40 or 50 miles a week but I know that I don’t need to. When I think of other people’s problems it seems greedy to even contemplate it.
      I suppose I shouldn’t worry about all this too much. At least people don’t bite a lump out of my thigh. By the way, I didn’t really strangle that lady. Or kick her dog. But I will next time.
25/285

15.  Home Run
April 16th 2011

On Monday I had my first tip-out of the year. When Ruth drives off somewhere I sometimes jump into the car in order to be tipped out en route and left to run back home. I’m fond of tip-outs for several reasons. If a run has to finish at home (as almost all do nowadays), they increase the area within which I can run. Normally I run from and back to home. So, if I can run 6 miles then I’m limited to a circle of 3-mile radius. A tip-out widens this to a 6-mile radius, thereby quadrupling my running area.
      I was tipped out in the Quernmore valley 3 miles the other side of the Cragg (mentioned in Week 12). I had to run back up the Cragg, over it and down to home. Years ago I only ever used to run up to the Cragg from home in order to continue into Quernmore, but that is too far for me now.

cragg Left: Approaching the top of the Cragg from the other side.

      A tip-out is an implicit sign that I have confidence in my fitness. When I run from home I know that if I don’t feel as good as I hoped then I can just shorten the run (and, weak-willed person that I am, I often do). When I have a tip-out there is no choice: I have got to get home somehow. If I didn’t think I could manage it, I wouldn’t volunteer for the tip-out. Also, a tip-out involves Ruth in my running. Running is inherently an insular activity but having a tip-out and talking about it later makes it more of a joint activity. Another reason for liking tip-outs is that I have always preferred runs from A to B to runs from A back to A. It adds some, perhaps illusory, point to the exercise: I have transported myself somewhere entirely by my own effort.
      When I want to distinguish between the two, I’ll call A-A runs ‘loop-runs’ or ‘loops’ and A-B runs ‘line-runs’ or ‘lines’ (these lines are, of course, not straight). I might use the expressions ‘loop-running’ and ‘line-running’ (well, it’s not as ridiculous as line-dancing, is it?)
      All the great historical runs were line-runs. The legendary first marathon was run by Pheidippides from Marathon to Athens (about 26 miles) to warn of approaching Persian ships, Pheidippides dropping dead at the end of it, thereby providing a role model for subsequent marathon runners (although it is now doubted that it happened exactly as the legend says).
      And ... actually, I can’t think of any other historical runs right now but if I could I’m sure they’d be line-runs.
      The Preston-to-Morecambe Marathon was, obviously, a line-run. The Huddersfield and Barnsley Marathons were loop-runs. Most road-races are loop-runs, to avoid the problem of transporting runners or their belongings from one end to the other. Subjectively, it is a much more satisfying achievement to run somewhere, although some may doubt that the attractions of Morecambe warrant running to it. Preston to Morecambe certainly looks an impressive distance on the map but from Barnsley to, er, somewhere, and, er, back to Barnsley doesn’t sound such a big deal. I actually have no idea where the Barnsley Marathon route took us.
      Sometimes a line-run can be of practical use. We can, for example, abandon the car on the other side of the moor for a walk home and I will run back later to retrieve it. Or Ruth can take the car to a rehearsal, leaving me to run there later for the concert. Or I can take the car to the garage, leave it there, run home and then back to the garage. In these ways, my running is not always rather pointless loops from the house. Sometimes, it plays a useful role in our day-to-day life. Tip-outs, however, don’t normally have a practical purpose, other than to enable me to run through regions otherwise out of reach.
      Perhaps my favourite tip-out is one from the other side of the River Lune that provides me with a potted history of the region as well as exercise. After being tipped out on Bottomdale Road, I run south behind Beaumont Grange along Green Lane, an ancient track that was one of the main routes into Lancaster from the north. Nobody seems to use it now, apart from me. The Jacobites would have come along this track during their 1715 raid of Lancaster. Like me, they would see Lancaster Castle ahead of them, across the river. The old castle, built on the site of a Roman camp, was left relatively unscathed by the Jacobites, and appears today much as it would have then.
      At the bottom of Green Lane, I meet Lancaster Canal and run over the magnificent aqueduct over the Lune built in 1797. The canal was constructed to help get goods into and out of Lancaster, avoiding the Lune, which was too shallow to cope with the volume of trade during the golden period of the port of Lancaster. Dropping down by the aqueduct I join the so-called Millennium Park. This runs along the route of the old railway line that linked Lancaster with Leeds from 1849 to 1966. The railways, of course, made canals obsolete for the transport of goods. This particular branch of the railway was in its turn rendered obsolete by the growth of the road system, which I can appreciate as I run next under the fine single-span bridge of the M6 motorway, the noise and activity of the motorway above contrasting with the serenity of the old canal.
      Next, I pass Halton, the site of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle, one of a string of such castles up the Lune valley. At one time, Halton, rather than Lancaster, was the administrative centre of the region. On the north bank is the site of the old Halton Mills, now a symbol of modern problems, with its new ‘townhouses’, abandoned half-built because of the recession, and its ‘eco-houses’, planned but not yet built at all. So, there’s 2000 years of history to reflect upon as I run along.
      Ah, I’ve thought of another great historical run, which was indeed a line-run: the famous race between the tortoise and the hare, reported by the sports correspondent Aesop over 2500 years ago. Many runners have taken inspiration from this race, with its message that slow and steady will win in the end (although that has never been my experience). The message I take from the race, however, is: do not have a nap in the middle of a race. This is something I carefully refrained from doing, although I was tempted on occasions.
      Nowadays, as my running is no longer in races, the mid-run nap would be perfectly acceptable. Some days I am so lacking in energy that I feel that I could easily curl up into the hedgerow and have a doze. And why not? Well, if I overslept when on a tip-out run and was not back when Ruth returned home, she might be perplexed.
28/313

16.  Out Run
April 23rd 2011

roeburndale Right: Roeburndale, looking north, with Whernside to the right.

I don’t have to be driven somewhere for a run (as last week): I can drive myself. I normally only do this if I feel fit enough to justify it but after several months of running around home, I fancied a change. So on Wednesday I drove to the next valley east, Roeburndale. I ran south along the old track (the old salt road) for 45 minutes, and then turned and ran back. The distance did not matter. I was really there to enjoy the scenery.
      On the way up the dale, there are views of the wild, remote, empty expanses of upper Roeburndale. On the way back, the Lake District hills and the Three Peaks of the Yorkshire Dales (Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent) are arrayed ahead. The ancient track was used to transport salt and other commodities over the Bowland hills. In its southern part it merges with the Roman road that ran between Ribchester and Burrow. On Wednesday, there were only sheep, skylarks, grouse and lapwing - and me. It was remote enough for me to run with my top off, as I needed to, it being the hottest day of the year so far.
      This kind of run is a legacy of a decision I made, or, rather, of a conclusion I reached, in 1988. I realised then, after ten years of running around the lanes near the university and home, that my running had acquired a new purpose. I had come to appreciate that I lived within some of the most attractive landscapes of England. A circle of forty miles radius, centred on my home, encloses all of the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks, renowned for their rugged grandeur and limestone scenery. It also includes the extensive peat moors of the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with further hills of the Lancashire Pennines, such as Pendle. To the north it includes the rounded hills of the Howgills and the northern Pennines of Cumbria, such as Mallerstang. All this lay on my doorstep - or within one hour of it.
      So one of the purposes of my running became to explore this region. I kept fit by running around locally but no longer with the intention to race along roads with many others. I would, from time to time, take off to run alone, as the whim took me, around the nearby hills and dales. If need be, I could manage this within a morning or afternoon - one hour there, two hour run, one hour back.
      In January 1988 I started to keep a record of these outings. It was not a ‘running log’ as recommended for serious runners. It did not include distances or times - they were irrelevant. It was not a pre-marathon training record, like my previous records. It was simply a note of where I ran on my outings and of anything interesting encountered on the way. I imagined that I might like to read the notes in my dotage when no longer able to run, a state that I have nearly reached.

dow crag Left: Dow Crag and Coniston Old Man. On September 9th 1988 I ran from the bottom right corner, to the basin (wherein lies Goats Water) between the two. Then up the Old Man, north to Brim Fell, and back behind Dow Crag, returning on the Walna Scar track. On May 15th 2005 I ran roughly the other way round, up Dow Crag to Brim Fell and back over the Old Man.

      In 1988 I made notes of 22 outings, distributed around the region as follows: 7 in the Lake District (Longsleddale, Scandale, High Street, Nan Bield Pass, Winster, Coniston Old Man, Swindale); 5 in the Forest of Bowland (River Dunsop, Salter Fell, Fair Snape, Roeburndale, Burn Moor); 4 in the Yorkshire Dales (Ingleborough, Baugh Fell, Crummockdale, Scales Moor); 2 in the Howgills (Cautley Spout, Bowderdale); 4 elsewhere in the region (Bretherdale, Barbondale, Hutton Roof, Upper Eden valley). How I wish I could manage similar now! But I am grateful to have managed it then.
      I am not sure what to call these outings. They were not, of course, fell-races (as I described in Week 11). I always ran alone and while I did run energetically I was in no hurry to get anywhere particular. I was allowed to stop whenever I wanted, to look at anything interesting or just to admire the scenery. When I reached the top of a hill there was no compulsion to dash straight back down again. On the contrary, once up there, I’d hope to be able to run about on ‘top of the world’ for some time.
      ‘Fell-running’ is a possible description but to most people a ‘fell’ is a rugged mountain of the Lakeland type and fell-running involves scrambling up and down such mountains. There was some of that but I much preferred running along the ridges (High Street, the Helvellyn ridge, and so on) to running up and down the slopes.
      Then I came to prefer the rather more gentle contours of the Dales and Howgills to the craggy Lake District fells. Maybe ‘hill-running’ is a better term - but then my outings did not necessarily involve running up and down hills. I was quite content to explore dales, valleys, lakes, indeed anything on the map that looked promising. If the clouds are low or the winds are high, then a low-level run is obviously to be preferred. I always had half-a-dozen potential routes of various sorts ready to select from.
      Americans use the term ‘trail-running’ for off-road running. But I was not averse to some road running. In fact, I liked to start with a mile or two on the road to loosen up and then to end with a mile or two on the road when the legs were tiring. I was not following a ‘trail’, although I had no objection to doing so if it helped. Part of the aim was to run away from any sort of trail in order to reach places normally inaccessible. I will admit now that I often trespassed (this was before the access land legislation of 2004).
      I suppose I could just continue to call them ‘outings’. But that suggests trips to the sea-side and the like. Perhaps ‘run-outings’, or ‘run-outs’, for short, is better. But that’s the wrong way round. I didn’t run to get out: I went out to run. So, I’ll settle on ‘out-runs’.
      From 1988, then, a main purpose of my running became to stay fit enough to be able to go on out-runs, or to go out-running, in order to explore the region near where I live. Since then, I have made notes of 131 out-runs. I’m not sure if my Roeburndale run should count as an out-run. It was less exploratory than my out-runs used to be. But, heck, I can lower my standards now. Nobody is counting, except me. So, that’s 132, then.
31/344

17.  Running Rife
April 30th 2011

This diary is supposed to be focussed upon running but from time to time it becomes obvious that my running only plays second fiddle to the rest of my life. This week it has been pushed right out of the orchestra. During the Easter holiday Martin and Sarah said that they had decided to get married. In the circumstances my running didn’t seem so important. I have only run a little this week and I haven’t given it my full attention. There isn’t much to say about it, so I will resort to my running of the distant past.

Waterworks Bridge Left: Waterworks Bridge below Aughton Woods.

      I have run less this week but I notice that others are running more, encouraged out by the fine spring weather. I find it strange that the majority of casual runners go for such uninspiring runs. I rarely see runners on the hilly roads up to the moor or even by the riverside. Most of them run along the old railway track, because, I suppose, it is flat and simple (just run along it, turn and run back). It is as though they have been told that running should be a dull activity, so they find the dullest run that they can. If they ran just a few yards off the railway track, down by the river, they might see a kingfisher, as I saw the other day. Or a sand-martin (certainly), lapwing (probably), plover (possibly), oystercatcher (perhaps) or heron (maybe). Or salmon leaping. They would, at least, have a better view, along the Lune valley.
      In general, though, I am glad to see other runners about because it makes my own running seem less in need of explanation. Nowadays there is nothing remarkable about the sight of runners, especially in fine weather. When I started running in 1978 it was thought to be a rather peculiar activity. The transformation of running from being a commitment of dedicated athletes to a pastime that almost everybody could take up occurred in the early 1980s in the UK (and somewhat earlier in the US). As it happens, it almost coincided with my own transition from serious to less-serious running.
      I ran one marathon in 1982 (the Norfolk Marathon) and one in 1983 (the Windermere Marathon). The former was a line-run, from Kelling to Norwich; the latter a loop-run, around Lake Windermere. Unlike the three earlier marathons, they were not organised by running clubs but by charitable agencies that had noticed the increasing numbers of runners and realised that they were a source of income for their worthy causes. The Norfolk Marathon was run in aid of the Kelling Hospital Appeal and the Windermere Marathon was organised by the Rotary Club.
      The latter marathon was completed by 1407 runners, about ten times more than for the Preston and Huddersfield Marathons. The different nature of the runners is indicated by the fact that only 40% of them finished within 3:30, compared to 88% and 84% for the Preston and Huddersfield Marathons.
      In keeping with their less serious character, the races were only a component of the gala events of the day, which is part of the reason for running them: it gives the rest of the family something to do while runners are occupied. The Norfolk Marathon was my home county marathon and could be combined with visits to relatives. The race was through country that I knew as a boy. Not coincidentally, I knew the course would be flat, providing the opportunity for a fast time. Unfortunately, this opportunity was not realised because a gale blew directly into our faces as we ran from Kelling to Norwich. Experienced runners have mastered the skill of spitting on the run, as I discovered as I ran behind some of them, as was my custom, to find the gale showering me with phlegm.

norfolk marathon Right: The end of the 1982 Norfolk Marathon, in the courtyard of Norwich Cathedral.

      The Norfolk event was unusual in having both a marathon and a half-marathon, obviously with the aim of raising more money. We all started off together but at my halfway point the half-marathon runners peeled off to their finish. There was no way of knowing until they did so who was in which race. Maybe some runners aborted the marathon because of the gale. I suddenly found myself with only a handful of runners ahead and duly finished 4th in 2:35.
      I was probably fitter for this marathon than for any other and perhaps, without the gale, I could have run my fastest time. But I realised that some things (such as the weather) are beyond my control and that it isn’t sensible to set out hoping for a PB.
      I entered the Windermere Marathon because it had become our local marathon (the Preston Marathon would be too dangerous for such multitudes of runners and, in any case, would not appeal to the new breed of runner). It was undoubtedly the most pleasant marathon that I have run, if any marathon can be considered pleasant, with the autumn colours and the changing panoramas across the lake. It was, however, rather too undulating for really fast times, although that mattered little. I came 7th, also in 2:35.
      The character of marathon running had changed. No longer did only serious club runners run the races. They were now far outnumbered by newcomers most of whom had no intention of joining a running club. The new runners wanted to tackle what was considered to be the ultimate running challenge, in a noncompetitive fashion, possibly raising money for charity along the way.
      Human nature being what it is, serious club runners began to lose interest in racing marathons, once their reputation as a superhuman elite was shattered by the demonstration that almost anyone could run a marathon if they put their mind to it. The newcomers were so fixated upon the marathon that, to begin with, it seemed hardly to occur to them to run anything else. I suppose a 10-mile race doesn’t provide the same sense of bravado and achievement - and is less impressive to potential sponsors.
      As a serious club runner myself by that stage, I too began to lose interest in marathons. Serious runners had, of course, always run races of different lengths - and could continue to do so without much interference from the newcomers. I began to run more such races myself, not least because they are less disruptive of family life. Training for, say, 10-mile races, could be fitted into a relatively normal lifestyle. With, at that time, two young children (Martin and Pamela), it was hard to find the time for the hours of running necessary for marathon training. I didn’t want to find it, anyway: the children were more interesting and important. But even second fiddlers can be serious, at least about their running.
19/363

18.  Running Gear
May 7th 2011

On Friday I took part in an emotional ceremony. I bought my last pair of running shoes. I always assume nowadays that they will be my last pair, anyway. The shop assistants probably think that I am beyond my last pair, although they are too polite to say so.
      The young woman who came to help me immediately scuttled off for help herself when I caused trouble by asking a question. The young man who returned gave me a thorough eulogy of the virtues of the modern running shoe as though it were the newest electronic gadgetry the like of which an old duffer could never have seen before and certainly could not comprehend. I stalled him briefly by commenting that some of the New Balance shoes, which for the last thirty years had sold themselves as British-made, were now made in Vietnam, which he had not noticed. He did, however, stumble upon my Achilles heel when, towards the end of his peroration, he emphasised the importance of cushioning when running down steep roads. I am nursing a slightly sore calf from running down from the Cragg (as I had predicted might happen in Week 12) but I didn’t admit that to him.
      The need for running shoes has been increasingly questioned recently. The debate seems to boil down to an argument about whether the human foot has evolved to be suited for running in the 21st century. The answer depends to some extent on the kind of running you have in mind. Clearly, it would be remarkably fortuitous if the foot was ideally suited for running on the kinds of surface that big city marathons use, that is, hard roads.
      The answer also depends on your view of the conditions under which the human foot did evolve. If, as some believe, the foot evolved while humans were running long distances hunting down animals then perhaps it is ideal for running far over rough ground. If it evolved for hunting over short distances or for quick escape from predators then perhaps it is more attuned to sprinting. These are questions for anthropologists to answer, but they don’t seem to be able to answer them at the moment.
      If I thought my feet were ideal for the running that I do nowadays then, rationally, I should run in my feet, that is, barefoot. However, there are irrational considerations. I already feel self-conscious, as a 65-year-old running about showing off my legs. I don’t want the neighbours to think me completely odd, as they would if I ran along the road barefoot.
      There is a fashion, particularly in the United States, for running barefoot. We are biassed towards hoping that ‘nature is best’. The long-distance runners of the Mexican canyons run barefoot, or nearly so. In the western world, we picture the best runners today, who are usually African, running about barefoot as children. And yet none of them compete barefoot. The well-known barefoot champions of the past, Zola Budd and Abebe Bikila, hardly support the case. The former took to wearing shoes to protect herself from injuries. The latter only ran barefoot in the 1960 Olympics marathon because, as a late addition to the team, there were no shoes to fit him. He wore shoes when he won the 1964 marathon.
      If, however, I thought that my feet were not ideal then I would hope that running shoes would help. It is, after all, the case that many components of our bodies have evolved inadequately for modern life. For example, our eyes seem unable to cope with the amount of reading we do nowadays. I see nothing wrong, in principle, therefore with hoping that my shoes will offer protection, support and correction for any foot inadequacies.
      Runners run differently with and without running shoes [1]. With shoes, runners tend to strike the ground with the heel. Without shoes, they tend to strike more midfoot or forefoot. As a result, barefoot runners are not subjected to as high an impact force. The inference that some draw from this is that running shoes are more likely, not less likely, to cause injuries. This is, of course, a controversial conclusion, disputed by shoe manufacturers who have vested commercial interests in promoting new shoes with extra features intended to help the runner.
      Because barefoot running involves a different style to running with shoes, it is not easy to switch from one to the other, even if one were convinced by the argument. Myself, I have always run in running shoes. I prefer light shoes with thin soles, through which I can ‘feel’ the ground, which I understand is one of the objectives of barefoot running, that is, to strengthen foot muscles rather than to cause them to weaken through lack of use. In fact, most barefoot advocates do not themselves run barefoot. They run with ‘minimalist shoes’ (mimicking the sandals of the Mexican runners) that are supposed to correspond to barefoot running.
      I imagine that I would quite like the subjective feeling of being more naturally connected with the environment through running barefoot, as I do at the moment only on rare runs on a beach. However, where I usually run there are stones, rocks, thistles and nettles that would make me more aware of the environment than I would wish. It would take a hardy sole to run barefoot where I went to out-run on Tuesday.

wolfhole crag Right: The trig point on Wolfhole Crag (at 527 metres) in the Forest of Bowland, with millstone grit boulders and heather. (This photograph was taken on an earlier occasion: I wouldn’t want you to think that I ignored the ‘moor closed’ signs.) This moor is home to England’s largest inland colony of lesser black-backed gulls. I was looking forward to running amidst the cacophony of 25,000 nesting gulls. I would not have felt guilty at disturbing them, as I’m sure the land-owners would prefer grouse to nest instead and, in addition, all these gulls pollute Lancaster’s water supply.

      I headed for the Forest of Bowland, aiming to run from Tower Lodge, up by Tarnbrook Wyre to the watershed, along the ridge to Wolfhole Crag, and back across Brennand Fell. This is not a route to tackle after wet weather but I anticipated that the hottest April ever recorded, with strong winds and very little rain, would have dried out the peat bogs nicely. Unfortunately, they were too dry: the moor was closed because of ‘extreme fire risk’. The local news has been reporting extensive fires on the moors just south and I was foolish not to foresee this closure.
      But not to worry: I ran along the road, fairly empty of traffic, through the Trough of Bowland as far as Dunsop Bridge and back (about 90 minutes). Dunsop Bridge claims to be the centre of gravity of Britain, which does perhaps add a point of interest to the run. In any case, it was a very pleasant run, for Bowland changes little over the decades. The old boundary stone, Sykes Farm, the picnic spot at Langden Brook, Smelt Mill Cottages (now a Mountain Rescue centre) and Dunsop Bridge itself were all much as I remembered them.
      The real Bowland, however, is away from the road. It is up on the many acres of wilderness, millstone grit, peat bogs, crags and cloughs, with moor birds such as curlew, lapwing, grouse and especially hen harrier, for which it is England’s best breeding area. Perhaps the closure of the moor was for the best. My old running shoes are beginning to disintegrate as it is, rotting away after many miles in the winter mud. The millstone grit and tough heather might have made them even more minimalist than they have already become.

[1].  Lieberman, Daniel et al (2010), Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners, Nature, 463, 531-535.
27/390

19.  On the Run
May 14th 2011

Sometimes I just sit still for 90 minutes, with a break in the middle, doing absolutely nothing. Nobody has ever asked me “What on earth do you think about all that time?”. Instead I’m asked, for example, “What did you think of the Sibelius?” because it is assumed that I am thinking about the music that is being played for me.
      Long-distance runners are plagued by people asking “What on earth do you think about all that time?”. At least that is the impression you get from those who write about running, who labour at length to provide an answer. I suspect that they are just puzzled themselves, for nobody has ever asked me that question. I will answer it anyway: I think about running. If I spend a lot of time on anything then it seems sensible to me to think about it.
      I differ from Murakami in this respect. He says (p17) “... as I run, I don’t think much of anything worth mentioning. I just run. I run in a void”. I don’t know how he manages that. My mind doesn’t have an off switch. Whether I like it or not, it thinks all the time, if not as profoundly as Murakami’s. Since it insists on thinking, I’d rather that it thinks about something relevant. Even if I could switch off my mind I’m not sure why I should. Murakami himself emphasises the importance of ‘focus’ - and yet he chooses not to focus at all on running when actually engaged in the activity of it. If I wished to achieve a trance-like void, there is surely a less arduous way to do so.
      Perhaps I need to explain what there is to think about with running. There is an inner and outer aspect to it. Before I set off on a run I have an expectation of what sort of run it will be. This depends on various things, such as how I feel generally, how much running I’ve done recently, the weather conditions, what else I plan for the rest of the day, and so on. As I run I monitor how I’m running compared to my expectations. I don’t, of course, monitor in an overt, medical sense. It’s just a general awareness of how I’m running.
      I always run with a watch. Usually I ignore it because I know that it will only confirm what my body tells me (that I am too slow). Sometimes, however, it helps to add some precision to the monitoring process. I know, for example, that on an average day it takes me 13 minutes to reach the Crook o’ Lune along the old railway line. If I’m expecting a fast-ish run but it takes me 14 minutes then I know that I’m more sluggish than I anticipated. So, to go on to Halton Bridge, normally another 11 minutes, might take 12, that is, 26 minutes in total. This kind of minor mental arithmetic as I go along helps me to keep focussed on the running.
      Sometimes, especially when I am trying to get fit again, I time myself in order to make a note of how slowly I am running. This is in the hope that when I run the same route two weeks later I can be encouraged by the evidence that I have somehow become a minute or so faster.
      I try not to focus on any specific anticipated problem because I have learned that this may exacerbate it, by causing unnatural running. It’s better, I find, to try to forget it so that it merges with all the other aches and niggles that emerge. If it doesn’t then it is better to abort the run and jog gently back.
      In general - and this may be Murakami’s point - anything becomes more of a struggle if you think about the struggle. If you think only of the pain when in the dentist’s chair it will be more painful. If you think your breathing is laboured while running then it will become more laboured. If, somehow, you can focus on something else then a mile or two can pass without you even being aware of it. I suppose it depends on whether you think of running fundamentally as a penance or a pleasure. Personally, I don’t want miles to pass without me being aware of it.
      The outer aspect concerns my focus on the surroundings as I run. I always set off with some expectations about what I might see and hear. On the run over Halton Bridge I will want to see the progress, if any, on the eco-houses that are planned. If I run up to the moor in February I will listen out for the first skylarks of the year and glance in the ditches for the first frog-spawn (they are hardy frogs up there). If I run around the windmills I will be sure to appreciate the long-distance views of the Forest of Bowland, the Yorkshire Dales and over Morecambe Bay to the Lake District. And so on - and, of course, I will try to stay alert for anything unexpected en route. In this way I am always reminding myself how privileged I am to be able to run in such a region.
      bluebells As it happens, I have not managed a 90-minute run this week, unlike a couple of previous weeks. It is good to know that I am capable of it but ... I hesitate to regale you with a litany of my woes but I cannot give the full and fair picture of my running that you deserve without mentioning that I have been somewhat discommoded this week by bruises gained by falling in the beck. After a dry spell, as we’ve had, I work on the bank of the beck at the bottom of our garden to protect it against erosion during a very wet spell, as we will surely have. Anyhow, somehow, I fell in. Afterwards, if I tried to run I would wince at every step. I kept telling myself that “pain is inevitable; suffering is optional” but I kept answering back “pain is optional; running is not compulsory - walk instead”.

Right: Bluebells in Aughton Woods.

      Alas and alack: I am bereft, without running. The lump on my head has subsided but a sharp pain in the side of the chest remains. I don’t think it’s a cracked rib but even if it were there’s nothing I can do about it. So I have taken a few gentle strolls. One day I went across to the other side of the River Lune in order to see the spectacular displays of bluebells in Aughton Woods. I think it was a week or two late to see them at their very best but on this walk I was pleased to see another sure sign of the change of season, the return of another of the species that I keep my eye out for: the angler. I spotted one standing in the river below the woods.
      This strange species disappears over the winter. It discards its drab browny-green outer surface and semi-hibernates. Its reappearance in the spring and its disappearance in the autumn is, by some mechanism unknown to science, remarkably punctual, always occurring within a day or two of the same date each year.
      Anglers stand for hours on the river bank with a stick to dangle a wire in the water. Sometimes they stand for hours right in the river, not like a heron gracefully on a rock but half (or more) submerged in the water. Every so often they twirl the stick above their head. This is believed to be an attempt to mesmerise fish so that they may be scooped from the water. However, in thirty years of careful observation I have never seen an angler on the Lune entrap a fish in this way or indeed in any other way.
      Some experts believe the stick-twirling to be part of a mating ritual. If it is then it is sadly unsuccessful for the simple reason that there are no female anglers. As a consequence, there are no young anglers. This presents a conundrum for biologists. My own theory is that the angler is not a species in itself but merely a stage in the life cycle of some other species, like a chrysalis or a maggot, perhaps.
      Anglers are silent and solitary. They have no song or alarm call (unless they fall in the river). They communicate solely with their arms, which they stretch ahead and gradually widen. An angler’s territory is claimed afresh each day but once claimed it is never breached by other anglers. The range of their territory is determined by the size of their stick.
      I am fond of anglers because their peculiar behaviour makes my own seem relatively rational. The one I spotted was still there, in exactly the same position, when I walked back some 45 minutes later. What on earth does an angler think about while standing in the river for hours on end?
12/402

20.  Can I Just Run Over That Again?
May 21st 2011

Our outing on Saturday to the Howgills, where we went so that Ruth could rehearse for and then play in the Ravenstonedale Prom, had a certain poignancy. On the day of the Prom last year (which was in July) I had my longest run of recent years: this year I could only go for a walk.
      Last year’s run was a ‘tip-out-run’, which is a combination, naturally, of a ‘tip-out’ (Week 15) and an ‘out-run’ (Week 16). In a normal tip-out I am left to run back home from wherever I am tipped out. In a tip-out-run I have to run, usually over some mountains, to an agreed rendez-vous point, to meet up again with car and Ruth. These tip-out-runs don’t happen often because they take careful planning and require a high level of fitness on my part. When they do, however, they provide memorable runs that cannot be tackled in any other way.
      One tip-out-run that I recall well (on 24th July 1990, according to my records) was along the High Street ridge. I was tipped out at the Kirkstone Inn, from where I ran over Stony Cove Pike and Thornthwaite Crag to High Street, with a detour out to Kidsty Pike for the view, and then along the ridge - excellent running all the way - over Rampsgill Head, High Raise, Wether Hill, Loadpot Hill, Arthur’s Pike, and down to Pooley Bridge, where I was met by Ruth and Pamela walking up the track. They had had a leisurely drive alongside Ullswater. It was a hot, sunny day, with good views in all directions, but between Rampsgill Head and Pooley Bridge I did not see another person. That’s eight miles or so of one of the most scenic ridges in England all to myself, which is worth running for!
      Last year I was tipped out in Sedbergh to run over the Howgills to Ravenstonedale. When I’m running up hills I try to keep running as long as I can, albeit slowly. Once, as a challenge to myself, I ran non-stop to the top of Whernside, the highest peak of the Yorkshire Dales. If the intention is to keep on running then it is wise to tackle the longest, gentlest ascent rather than a direct frontal assault. So, I began in Kingsdale by Raven Ray, ran along the track to Twisleton Hall, and then along the West Fell ridge, climbing 480m without a pause.

winder Left: Winder, Arant Haw and Calders, the ridge along which I ran.

      Unfortunately, on the slopes of Winder, the hill behind Sedbergh, I soon found that I was not able to run up it. The first few yards were too steep. I feared that I might have been over-ambitious in aiming to run to Ravenstonedale, 10 miles away in a direct line (not that a direct line is possible). Eventually, I managed a slow trot skirting below Winder, to join the broad and, eventually, flattish, track that passes Arant Haw and on to Calders.
      I had to walk again up the slopes of Calders, where I met a couple of walkers on their way down. “That is The Calf, isn’t it?” they asked, waving to Calders. They clearly thought, or hoped, that they had conquered the highest point of the Howgills (which is The Calf) and were disappointed when I said “No, The Calf is another mile further on. You can see its trig point from the top there (Calders)”. They reluctantly turned to re-climb Calders.
      When I reached The Calf, I looked back and I could see them still at Calders, gesticulating with other walkers. I gave them a wave but I doubt that they ever believed that they were not at The Calf (it is only two metres higher than Calders). At the trig point a small group of walkers was already gathered. Normally I pause at the highest point to have a good look around and perhaps have a brief word with anyone else there. But this group seemed to find me a subject of amusement. Maybe the sight of an old guy puffing up to the trig point is amusing to walkers. Maybe they were taking bets on whether I was about to peg out. Maybe I imagined it.

bowderdale Right: Bowderdale in the Howgills, showing the eastern ridge that I ran along. Randygill Top is the rounded peak (all peaks are rounded in the Howgills!) to the right, with part of Yarlside to its right. The slope of Yarlside is one of the ones that I could not run up.

      I left them to it and jogged off on the path to Bowderdale Head. From here, I expected to be on my own. The Saturday walkers tackle the path from Winder to the Calf but very few of them walk on the eastern slopes of Bowderdale. I had to, as I was again reduced to walking, on the slopes of Yarlside. Actually, I am sure that even in my prime I would have had to walk up Yarlside. It is too steep and the grassy slopes too uneven to run on.
      After another scramble up Kensgriff left me feeling exhausted, I was relieved that it should be all running, and mainly downhill, from here to Ravenstonedale. I picked up the path below Randygill Top and ran on to Green Bell, where, as I reached the top, I was surprised to meet a party of walkers arriving from the northern slope. I did not linger in the cold wind. On over Knoutberry and Snowfell End and at last I could see Ravenstonedale ahead. After a wash and some food in the van, I was refreshed sufficiently to join the Ravenstonedale Prommers.
      I reached the van some 2 hours 20 minutes after I had been tipped out of it. As I’ve indicated, I cannot honestly say that I ran across the Howgills. There were several walking/scrambling episodes. Even so, I managed the whole distance in reasonable shape, which was not too bad, just a few days before my 65th birthday.
      The probably increasing rarity of such days makes them even more valued and memorable. As with marathons, the run itself is only part of the achievement. It is the knowledge that one is fit enough to contemplate even tackling such a run that gives greater satisfaction. One of the reasons that I continue to try to run is the hope that I may become fit enough to have further days like the traverse of the Howgills.
      Unfortunately, that seems some way away right now. The most frustrating aspect of running as you get older is the body’s decreasing ability to recover. Decades ago, minor problems would evaporate in a day or two but now they seem to linger forever. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned my “slightly sore calf” (no relation to The Calf). I could run for 90 minutes with it so it wasn’t much to worry about.
      I thought that a week’s rest, after my fall in the beck, would do the calf good. In fact, it is worse. How is that possible? It is as though my battle-hardened muscles of two weeks ago, when I was fit, protected their ailing comrade, the sore muscle, but have relaxed during their holiday and are now leaving it to fend for itself, which it is unable to do.
      I am on the horns of a dilemma. If I run to toughen up the relaxed muscles, the calf may be made worse. If I rest the calf, the muscles may become even more relaxed - and the calf may not recover for some time.
8/410

21.  Running the Gauntlet
May 28th 2011

To run or not to run? That is the runner’s question: whether it is better to run - to maintain general fitness at the risk of aggravating a minor injury - or to rest - to sacrifice general fitness in order to allow time for an injury to recover.
      In hindsight the answer ‘to run’ is always a mistake, because we never apply hindsight if it turns out not to be a mistake. The wrong decision here is the main cause of all those injuries mentioned in Week 3. On the other hand, if we rested whenever there was a possibility of making a suspected minor injury worse then we would hardly run at all.
      Whilst I am grappling with this problem, teetering on the tightrope of indecision, let us divert ourselves by turning for inspiration to the London Marathon, the zenith of so many runners’ ambition and achievement. I can postpone it no longer.
      The first London Marathon was in 1981. It is often assumed that the London Marathon caused the great growth in long-distance running in the 1980s. In fact, it was the other way around. Nobody would have gone to the considerable trouble of organising a marathon in London if they weren’t sure that many thousands of people would want to run it. Participation in long-distance road races was already increasing and the New York Marathon, which had started in 1970, had shown the popularity of mass-participation big city marathons.
      The London Marathon instantly became the largest British marathon: indeed, for the general public it was the only marathon. If you said that you’d run a marathon it was assumed to be the London Marathon. It was, and still is, the only British marathon televised live and featured on news broadcasts. Its theme tune became known to everyone as the marathon tune (it’s actually Ron Goodwin’s ‘The Trap’, written to accompany Oliver Reed canoeing down a Canadian river).
      The London Marathon initiated a new style of marathon for Britain, in which members of a vast sea of humanity provide mutual support as they strive towards a communal goal. The sight of such a mass of be-numbered runners proved inspirational to thousands. It showed, according to Chris Brasher, one of the initiators, that “the human race [is] one joyous family, working together, laughing together, achieving the impossible”.
      The new marathon ethos was perfectly symbolised by the two winners of the first race, who came to the finishing line hand-in-hand. Can you imagine the negotiation between the two leaders in the final mile? This gesture has not been repeated in any later marathon but in 1981 it was the taking part, not the winning, that mattered.
      I resisted the London Marathon until 1983. Then we set off for a weekend in London, along with many thousands of others. On the Saturday we joined the throngs registering for the race and getting swept up in the media hype. Early Sunday morning I made my way to Greenwich. The organisers had skilfully fixed the date of the marathon to coincide with the change of the clocks, so the 9.30 start was really 8.30. Despite this, I had ample time to enjoy the exciting facilities provided on Greenwich Park: black coffee stalls (to keep awake), running shoe stalls (bit late for that, I thought), portable loos (well, I hope they were portable) and back to black coffee.
      The London Marathon is neither a loop-run nor a line-run. It is a line-loop-line-run. You run from Greenwich to Tower Bridge, go on a loop through the Isle of Dogs back to Tower Bridge, and then on to Westminster. Its odd shape helps to create the unique experience of running it.
      I did, of course, expect to have plenty of company on this run, unlike the other marathons I’d run. I had not, however, fully anticipated the crowds of people lining the course, who, along with the TV helicopters whirring overhead, created a perpetual din. I was not used to this. Normally, on my runs, I hear only the sounds of nature - the occasional sheep or skylark, perhaps.

littledale Left: Littledale, from the footpath between Cragg Farm and Belhill Farm, is the kind of place where I prefer to run. The grassy ridge on the left, up to High Stephen’s Head, is a fine run; the rocky ridge on the right, up to Ward’s Stone, less so. I can be certain that there will be no other runners and no spectators. (I dare but whisper that I eventually decided to run, not rest, this week. The best that I can say is that I haven’t made matters worse but it feels as though my body is still re-assembling itself into working order.)

      Most people, I suppose, find encouragement from the cheering crowds. Like anyone, I appreciate hearing a friend or relative shouting out a “Looking good - keep it up”, which is all you hear during normal races. But why were complete strangers shouting at me? What were they shouting? How could I focus on my running in all this noise? Why were bands playing outside the pubs? Why were people gathered there, pints in hand, shouting at us? Was it really encouragement they were shouting? Did they know or care anything at all about running marathons or did they just like shouting at runners?
      It may not seem much to put up with but mile after mile of it overwhelmed me. Even the relative peace of the Isle of Dogs was disturbed every few yards by some well-meaning bystander shouting “Keep going - only twelve miles to go”, which is the last thing you want to hear. I stopped. I don’t think it was fatigue from running. I was mentally, rather more than physically, exhausted. There was just too much noise. Too much fuss all round. It was the opposite of what running meant for me: a chance to get out into the peaceful fields.
      I started running again and got back to Tower Bridge and the noisy spectators. I somehow caught a glimpse of Ruth and the children, and tried to indicate that all was not well. As I ran along the Embankment the packed crowds along the footpaths and on the bridges were shouting and waving. A runner ahead of me ran along with his arms aloft as though acknowledging the acclaim of people grateful to him for having won the Third World War single-handedly.
      “Sod it” I thought “I’ve had enough of this”. I stopped and walked over Hungerford Bridge to the finish on Westminster Bridge. A woman shouted at me “You can’t stop now - you’ve only a couple of miles to go”. I offered her my number to finish for me. As I look at the map now I am impressed by the rationality of my decision. It is much easier to reach the finish over Hungerford Bridge than it is to take the long detour along Pall Mall and Birdcage Walk.
      It is, however, very bad form to drop out of a race just because you are fed up with it. It is considered an insult to the organisers and the other runners. Even if, or especially if, you are not running as well as you’d like, you are expected to complete the course. There is a special appreciation for those runners who persevere although in obvious discomfit. For most runners, dropping out is a matter of shame and regret.
      But there we are. I ran 24 miles and then dropped out. Afterwards, it was hard to explain to people why. I wasn’t even injured. I wasn’t that tired. The family, all excited that I’d finished, eventually found me in the finishing area. But I hadn’t finished: I had dropped out.
      Everybody else seemed to relish all the hullabaloo. The cheering continued. Runners streamed over the finishing line, triumphant. It was a little hard to accept that I was the odd one out. I am perplexed that people can say that they like running because it provides an inner serenity - and then they run with thousands of others in a noisy bedlam. How can Murakami achieve his ‘mental void’ while running in the New York Marathon? I concluded that the London Marathon was not for me. I’d leave it for those who like that sort of thing.
19/429

22.  A Run For Your Money
June 4th 2011

At 9.29 on May 13th 1984 I was standing at the starting line for the 1984 London Marathon. Or very near the starting line, as my 2:34.59 in the 1983 Windermere Marathon had qualified me as a so-called ‘elite runner’ - by 1 second. I had unfinished business. This time there would be no distractions. I ignored all the hype. I ignored all the other runners. I ignored the crowd. I left the family at home. I was apparently spotted two or three times in the TV broadcast. Normally, it is impossible to spot anyone in that flood of runners but I ran apart from the rest, as far as possible. Around Cutty Sark I took a wide path, unlike everyone else. Along Birdcage Walk I kept myself separate. I was totally focussed on the race. I finished, in no distress, in 2:33 in 351st place. Job done. Now I really would leave the London Marathon to those who like that sort of thing.

london marathon Right: Proof that I completed the 1984 London Marathon. I expect the technology has improved by now but in those days a photographer snapped runners at the finish line and sent them a tiny photograph (which is what the above was - sorry for the quality), defaced in some way, in this case, with the ‘proof’ printed over it. You could then pay a large fee for a large photo as a memento of the occasion. I didn’t.

      For the only time in my life I ran for charity in one of the London Marathons, but I don’t remember which one. I don’t recall that my 1983 failure to finish caused any problem claiming the sponsorship money, so I think it must have been the 1984 one. In any case, I took no part in the money-raising effort. I agreed to be sponsored (to raise money for Ruth’s beleaguered orchestra) provided that others would arrange and collect the donations. It is hard enough, I thought, to run the marathon without having the stress of signing up sponsors and then feeling compelled to keep on running to earn all the money that is expected.
      The London Marathon is now the world’s largest annual fund raising event. It raises nearly £50m each year, with over 75% of its runners being sponsored. Not even I can be cynical about that. If that is what runners and their sponsors want to do, then it is wholly to be commended. If it provides extra incentive for many runners to know that they will raise money to help a charity that they want to support, then that is fine too.
      My motivation to run has never been to raise money. In view of my own deplorable efforts in this direction, I thought I’d find out what was involved and I found a helpful website that laid out five principles, which I summarise here:
   1.  Choose your charity with care. Find a personal link with one of them.
   2.  Be professional. Be precise and clear about the reasons for fund-raising.
   3.  Be persistent but not pushy.
   4.  Be proactive. Raise the profile of what you are doing. Use contacts shamelessly.
   5.  Use email and the internet to market yourself and to collect donations.
I particularly appreciated the comment that “It is a serious business and so you should approach sponsorship in the same way as your training, with dedication and effort”. This makes me feel relieved that, in the circumstances, I didn’t get involved with sponsorship as I had little dedication and effort to spare, after training.
      One of the problems with raising money by running is inflation - the rising demand for novelty. Sponsors become less and less enthused by such a mundane challenge as just running a marathon. So, year-by-year, runners for charity become more adventurous, with outlandish costumes, running backwards, playing a trombone, juggling, ... culminating (surely) in 2011 with the ludicrous ‘snail’, which completed the London Marathon course in 26 days. The snail claimed the slowest marathon time ever, as if that were an achievement. I don’t want to be pernickety but if you are allowed breaks, as the snail had, then I took a whole year to finish my 1983 marathon.
      I am consoled a little to read that the snail raised only a tenth of the money hoped for, suggesting that sponsors prefer to support an activity with some sense and some merit. But I am digressing from my brief because the snail clearly did not run: it inched along face down on a sled, nosing its way through dog mess, fag-ends, chewing gum, and so on.
      Returning to running, I am pleased to be able to report that the 73-year-old - whom I neglected to name in Week 4, John Dawson - duly completed his ten marathons in ten days, in aid of the Brathay Trust. After taking up running at 53, Dawson has completed about 300 marathons since he reached the age of 65. His average time for the ten marathons was about 7 hours, which is a speed of 16 minutes per mile.
      I don’t want to appear unappreciative of the inspiring achievement of an elderly man in covering 26 miles for ten days in a row, but I do wonder if 16 minutes per mile is ‘running’. In competitive walking they are very careful to define ‘walking’ to ensure that nobody breaks into a run. In walking, there is always one foot on the ground. If, at any time, both feet are off the ground it is running. Walkers are disqualified for running but runners are not disqualified for walking. It matters to nobody whether Dawson ran or walked according to the letter of the law (I expect it was a lot of both). However, the difference between walking and running matters to me, not for pedantic reasons but subjectively.
      When I go walking I wear and carry extra clothes, to combat all varieties of weather, and I also carry (as recommended for serious walkers) maps, compass, food, drink, camera, mobile, binoculars, and plasters, bandages, and so on in case of mishaps - mishaps that are in fact much more likely to occur when I go running, for which I discard all the above so that I may run unencumbered and uninhibited (well, not all my clothes - I am not that uninhibited). Walking is a trudge; running is a gambol. Subjectively, as I say.
      It had not occurred to me to include miles walked in my mileage figures below. If I did then it would be boosted considerably, as I’ve walked quite a lot recently, allowing my bruises to recover. Similarly, it did not occur to me to just walk the last two miles of the 1983 London Marathon, as I could easily have done. I wouldn’t have needed to make the 1984 expedition if I had.
17/446

23.  It’s Running A Little Funny
June 11th 2011



waterworks br Right: Waterworks Bridge, across which I have run many times, after it was opened to the public in the 1990s. Clougha Pike is in the distance.

Perhaps I am a running snob. I used to take inner umbrage when people said “I saw you out jogging the other day”. I thought “Jogging is running slow enough to be able to chat, and I don’t think you could chat at the speed I go” but I never said it.
      On the other hand, some people object to being called a runner [1]:
      “I would never have guessed that you were a runner”.
      “This is jogging, Percy, not running. Running is sport. Jogging is punishment”.
      “You mean you don’t enjoy it?”
      “Enjoy it? Are you kidding? I only do this for my health. It makes me feel so terrible, I figure it must be doing me good”.
      I don’t mind being called a jogger nowadays. I am grateful to be even that. Nobody has ever called me a ‘fun-runner’. I enjoy running but ‘fun’ is not the word I’d use. I don’t think that I am alone in this. I doubt that Murakami and McDougall, for example, would welcome being called fun-runners. They don’t call themselves fun-runners, anyway. They have more commitment than the term suggests.
      The fun-runner was invented in the 1970s in the United States and was inevitably adopted in the UK. I am not sure that a ‘fun-run’ would exist if ‘fun’ didn’t rhyme with ‘run’. According to Google translate, a fun-runner is in Spanish a ‘divertido-corredor’, which doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, at least, not my tongue. The French don’t even have a word. Seriously, I think that linguistic accidents do have an influence. It is interesting that many nouns have become verbs and vice versa. ‘Run’, ‘sprint’, ‘steeplechase’, ‘jog’, ‘trot’, for example, are all noun-verbs. ‘Marathon’ is only a noun. You cannot marathon. But you can certainly fun-run. Anyone can.
      Are there ‘fun’ versions of other activities? I see that there is now a Great North Swim. The first was held in 2008, when 2250 swimmers swam over a mile in Lake Windermere. The 2010 swim was cancelled because of toxic algae, a hazard that I never encountered on the road. Are there fun-swimmers in these events? Do they dress up in enormous shark outfits? Or wear a mock paddle-ship? I suspect not as the organisers say that “costumes that restrict the swimmer or potentially cause any injury to other swimmers will not be allowed”.
      If the London Marathon applied such a rule then the field would be halved. But the sinking of a human paddle-ship in Lake Windermere could be a serious matter. In the London Marathon it could just berth by the road-side.
      The London Marathon has, over the years, come to be dominated by fun-runners. In 1984, when I completed it, 35% of the runners finished within 3:30; in 2011 the figure was 11%. (I am not implying that all slow runners are fun-runners; goodness, no, some of them insist on having no fun at all.) As I mentioned, the corresponding figures for the Preston-to-Morecambe and Huddersfield Marathons were 88% and 84%. In the 1980 Preston-to-Morecambe Marathon 8 out of 9 runners ran faster than 3:30; in the 2011 London Marathon 8 out of 9 runners ran slower than 3:30.
      In over thirty years on the roads I have never seen a fun-runner training. At least, not with his or her regalia on. Do they turn up on Greenwich Park and hurriedly try on the Houses of Parliament framework that they have knocked up overnight and say “OK, that’s fine. I can carry this for 26 miles”? I don’t know how they manage it sometimes. How can you wear a grizzly bear outfit for 26 miles and not collapse from dehydration? Do they not feel a teensy bit patronised to be called fun-runners, as if those 26 miles as a grizzly bear is a walk in the park?
      I think I dislike the term ‘fun-runner’ because of the presumption that ordinary running is not ‘fun’. How would musicians, say, feel if people began calling themselves ‘fun-musicians’, dressing up in fancy costumes, and playing, not particularly well, for money in town centres? I suspect that they would slightly resent the implication that they themselves were not having ‘fun’ playing music.
      Overall, though, I am happy with the concept of a ‘fun-runner’ as it reassures me that there are other people who regard running as a source of enjoyment. I was beginning to doubt it after feeling guilty about my comments in Week 13 about “pain is inevitable”.
      My sore ribs (from my fall in Week 19) have just about recovered. For a while, they hurt when I sneezed, coughed, lie on them, or breathed, not all of which I could avoid doing when I ran. Running with gritted teeth, tense shoulders, and a determination to avoid any jarring movements rather sapped my enthusiasm. The cause of my difficulties was not apparent to anyone else. Pain itself is not visible, only the effects of pain. Short of poking me in the ribs to see if I winced, you’d just have to take my word for it that they hurt. Medically, there is no measure of pain other than what the person with pain says.
      I appreciate now that this applies to other runners too. If Murakami says that “pain is inevitable”, I accept that it is, for him. Who am I to deny it? I apologise and sympathise. (Whilst I am in apologetic mood, I must also say sorry to Norwich City Football Club for my gratuitous insult in The Run-Up. Its magnificent achievement of two successive promotions to reach the Premiership is only just sinking in.)
      Perhaps pain is the standard condition for all other runners. I have no way of knowing. Runners are only too willing to talk about their problems, but I tend not to believe them. Perhaps I am exceptionally lucky. Pain has not been something that I associate with running, normally. I doubt very much that I would have the courage to run if it were. It was only to prevent my legs becoming unfit that I tried to run in recent weeks.
      In evolutionary terms, pain exists, I suppose, to ensure that we remove ourselves from potentially damaging situations and to allow time for the cause of pain to recover. If so, it is probably a mistake to run with pain. My excuse for doing so is that this particular pain was not caused by running and was not, I think, made worse by running.
      After a month of just ticking over, with no run of more than half-an-hour, I am beginning to get back into it. Indeed, on Thursday this week, as I ran by the Waterworks Bridge, I felt that I was really running, flowing, gliding, with abandon, free as the wind. I know that it was only relative to the previous painful month but even so it was a feeling that I hadn’t experienced all year.
      Although I have run this year as much as I might have hoped, it has all been rather tentative, constrained by the foreboding that if I let my running off the leash then I would regret it. It is very different to the old days, when I could, on a whim, decide to ‘sprint’ the next mile, say. Now, if I were to be so reckless, parts of me would rattle, seize up, burst, or fall off.
      I was also mightily encouraged recently by the comment of a local woman, who is an occasional jogger and who we met while out walking. She said that my running “looks effortless”. Bless her! Of course, it neither is nor looks it, but her saying so cheered me up no end. Murakami emphasises his determination to keep on running despite all his pain and in the final sentence of his book says that he’d like his epitaph to read “At Least He Never Walked”. I think I’d prefer mine to be a more all-purpose one: “It Looked Effortless”.

[1].  Lodge, David (1984), Small World, London: Secker & Warburg.
24/470

24.  Running Sore
June 18th 2011

There is one thing that I am particularly grateful to the fun-runner movement for. And that is the medals! When race-organisers began to insist that taking part was more important than winning, they were duty-bound to provide medals for us all, not just the winners. There must have been a boom in the medal-making industry in the 1980s.
      I have just tipped on to my desk the contents of a small box that has lain undisturbed at the back of a cupboard for nearly 20 years. Let’s see ... 39 medals. All those years ... all those races ... all these medals. I am overcome with pride and emotion. A lump comes to my eyes and a tear to my throat.
      There are 4 round, engraved ones in neat boxes. These are old-fashioned medals, won in old-fashioned times (at school). The other 35 are all shapes and sizes and colours. Some are a little rusty, but then so am I. Most of the medals still have their ornate ribbons, for hanging around my neck at the finishing line.
      Some of the medals have no identifying words, the race-organisers being too miserly to order medals with engravings. But now is the precise moment that, with amazing foresight, I must have anticipated all those years ago, because I see that on the back of each medal is a little sticker, with date, race and time details. Here, for example, is the Blackpool Half-Marathon of 16th October 1983 (15th in 74:45). The memory of it is creeping back. A ferocious gale blew. Ruth and the children went for a walk along the prom and said that they nearly got blown off.
      I have now turned all the medals upside down and what a panorama of athletic endeavour is revealed! I am reminded of the jigsaw puzzles I used to do as a boy. When it was finished my father would turn it over and carefully number all the pieces. Thereafter it was somewhat easier to do the puzzle upside down. I may have missed the point of the activity but at least I became red-hot on the order of the numbers, which has stood me in good stead.
      Now, if you’ll excuse me for a few minutes I’d like to arrange the medals into chronological order, for I am sparing no effort to raise the enlightenment coefficient of this epistle ...
      So, here they all are, from 19th June 1983 (Preston Half-Marathon) to 17th April 1993 (Coniston 14-mile). As you can see, my earliest races, including the first three marathons, didn’t go in for the frivolity of medals. The array, as I see it before me, reveals the flow and ebb of my road-racing career, such as it was. The number of medals each year is: 1983 - 8; 1984 - 11; 1985 - 6; 1986 - 5; 1987 - 1; 1992 - 2; 1993 - 2. Apart from the unaccountable little flourish in 1992 and 1993, I stopped road-racing in 1987.
      I am distressed to see that the largest medal is for the race I’d most prefer to forget, the 1986 Windermere Marathon. I don’t know why I ran it, as my enthusiasm for marathons had evaporated by then. Perhaps it was because I’d entered the previous two years and then withdrawn and didn’t like to do so a third time: it was, after all, the local marathon and should be supported.

windermere mar Left: Pinning my number on before the Windermere Marathon.

      At the start of any race, runners are nervous about the twinges that they’ve felt in previous days. They hope that they won’t cause a problem, and usually they don’t. If, however, there is a weakness, then a marathon will find it. By halfway my groin was more sore than I had feared it would be. By 20 miles I was hobbling. Runners streamed past, including Tony, my pace-setter for the Preston-to-Morecambe Marathon and still ten years older than me. I finished, just, in 2:54.
      I think that I had known all along that this would be my last marathon. Marathons, I had come to feel, are too big a commitment for too uncertain a reward. For example, after training for the 1984 Manchester Marathon I hurt my back a week before the race while fooling about on Martin’s BMX bike. It seemed that months of dedicated effort, with the looming marathon dominating my (and the family’s) life, had all been wasted. In fact, of course, I should have just been grateful for the months of good running.

w mar 2 Right: The end of the Windermere Marathon.

      So that was it, as far as marathons were concerned. Seven completed (one in pain) and one aborted two miles short. I never experienced the notorious ‘wall’. This physiological barrier, which is due to the body exhausting its glycogen supply, halts many runners after the 20-mile mark. It causes overwhelming body fatigue and fuzzy thinking. That was not my condition at Windermere: I had an injury. I’m not sure about the 1983 London Marathon: if anything, my neat escape over Hungerford Bridge showed rather unfuzzy thinking.
      The 1986 Windermere Marathon was an interesting experience but not one that I needed to repeat. Since then, I’ve treated (potential) injuries with respect. My guideline is to try to run for x minutes only if I know that I can run for x-10 minutes.

lune Left: The River Lune at the Crook o’Lune.

      So I am building up slowly again after my recent troubles. Whilst my attention has been inward-looking, the outside world has moved on. Spring seems suddenly to be over. The trees, which were in different stages of fresh verdancy the last time I looked, are now all in their full, dull, monotone green. Over-growing branches and brambles brush into me as I run along my paths. The grass in fields without livestock is up to my hips, bringing my legs out in a swollen rash, reddening my eyes, and blocking my nose with hay fever. I run, with difficulty, gasping for air.
      All the spring arrivals are here and well-settled. All, that is, except one: I haven’t heard a single cuc or koo. On the moor, the lapwings and curlews clearly have young, as they bombard me aggressively, with fearsome screeches of alarm, if I should accidentally run near them. This is a little counter-productive: if they kept quiet I would not know the young were there. If the curlew young are some distance away, the adults position themselves between me and the young. Therefore, if I see a curlew or two standing furtively in a field, I look beyond them to spot the implausibly cute mottled chicks. These, of course, do not have the remarkable bill of their parents but an ordinary one that will grow by degrees. The lapwings have taken on some of the dignity of parenthood. The acrobatic displays of the spring birds, rising, tumbling, somersaulting over their territory, are no longer necessary.
      Likewise, my winter running dormancy burst into an enthusiastic spring and has now settled into a summer maturity. I must try to avoid the decay of autumn.

Late news: The snail (Week 22) has been sacked by its charity, Action for Kids, for (it is said) not raising enough money, which, much as I disliked the snail, seems rather uncharitable.
18/488

25.  Run the Good Race
June 25th 2011

Is a road-race a race? I was never sure. A running race is the most elemental contest there is. It is one of the first contests we learn, as a toddler: “Race you to that tree”. The adult version is much the same. I was not given a list of rules or told to wear special equipment for my first road-race. Even boxers have rules (the Queensberry Rules) and compulsory equipment (boxing gloves).
      In a road-race you are side-by-side with your opponent. You can sense his strengths and weaknesses. It is your power and will-power against his. There is a direct comparison, moment-to-moment, with your opponent. In other races, such as cycling and swimming, the equipment and/or medium lessen this sense of personal conflict. In some sports, such as tennis, the conflict is face-to-face. The personal comparison is indirect, by means of some scoring system. In other sports, such as skiing, competitors perform at different times, lessening further the direct competitive element. And of course team sports, by definition, eschew personal conflict altogether.
      A road-race is a public event. It takes place on public roads. All this personal conflict is played out in full view of the public, if they are interested. The only similar public event is the cycling road-race but cyclists are at least unrecognisable in their helmets and at the speed they whizz by. All other sporting events take place in special arenas.
      This public view of personal conflict mattered to a sensitive soul like me. I had no wish to display my apparently competitive nature in public. Umberto Eco wrote that “Races improve the race, contests develop and control the competitive spirit, they reduce innate aggression to a system” [1]. I resent the implication that I am innately aggressive and I will punch anyone who says that I am. I am, however, soothed to realise that my participation in road-races helped to improve the human race.
      It is more straightforward when you are young (say, 15) and when you are old (say, 65). At 15, the whole point of a race is to win, or, failing that, to beat as many others as possible. There is no embarrassment or stigma in striving your utmost to win: that is what you are supposed to do. At 65, there is no need to compete in road-races. There is nothing left to prove. It is unseemly for a 65-year-old to try to summon up a sort-of-sprint in order to overtake some other runner at the tape. At least, I think so.
      In middle age (say, 40) it is less clear-cut, except at the extremes - at the front and the back of the race. At the front, there are prizes, medals and reputations at stake. Serious competition is in order. Indeed, it is expected, especially by the race organisers and the spectators. At the back, it makes little difference whether you come 290th or 291st out of 300. Runners who sprint at the end as though it does just make a spectacle of themselves.
      But in the middle of a road-race? It didn’t matter much to me whether I came 48th or 49th. On balance, I’d rather be 48th, of course, because of the miniscule increase in the sense of personal satisfaction. But I had nothing against the 49th runner. In fact, I’d prefer not to know who he was. I was never comfortable racing against friends and it seemed unsporting to overtake them in the later stages of a race.
      Because of my natural diffidence and because I always felt myself a novice road-racer I tended to start races further back in the pack than I might have expected to finish. This meant that I was usually overtaking other runners rather than vice-versa. I found the races less stressful that way, as it can be dispiriting to have other runners coming past you all the time. I tried not to notice who I was overtaking. They were just anonymous runners who I was using to help me towards a good time and a higher finishing position.
      It being twenty years or so since I have taken part in a road-race, I have almost forgotten that unpleasant tension that overcomes the body in the hours and minutes before a race. No doubt, it is a natural and essential part of the preparation but it is one that I am content to forego nowadays.
      Given my ambivalence about the competitive element of road-racing, an obvious question is: Why did I take part in them? The honest answer is, I think, the same as the reason why I (re)started running: because others did so. The talk in the gym was often about races coming up or just completed. As I became fitter and faster and the “Why don’t you ...?” questions became more frequent, I could see less reason not to join in with the others.
      Perhaps Umberto Eco was making a deeper point: that competitiveness, even aggression, is in our genes and needs to be channelled or controlled. In certain contexts perhaps it will always come to the fore. In all but two of the races that I ran I tried to run as well as I could at that time, which to an observer is indistinguishable from being as competitive as possible against the other runners.
      In the two exceptions I tried to not run seriously but failed. One was a 5-mile race at Morecambe, which I was treating as the middle part of a long training run. I ran from Heysham (where we had gone for Martin to use the BMX track) to Morecambe for the race, and after it I ran home. However, during the race itself I could not restrain myself, especially when other runners who knew me wondered why I wasn’t trying.
      The other occasion was at the Ingleborough fell-race. A French visitor was bewildered by the concept of a fell-race, so we persuaded him to take part in one. We set off sedately enough but it is an odd feature of many fell-races, where you run up a hill and straight down again, that as you are labouring up you suddenly find the leading runners sweeping by you on their way down. I found it impossible to resist the example they set and began to make more of an effort, leaving my French friend behind, I am ashamed to say.
      I seem to be constitutionally incapable of running a race and not racing. But was I really racing? I was ‘competing’ against myself, to run as well as possible, not against the others. And yet I seemed to need the others to spur me to run as well as possible. Perhaps this attitude is not specific to running: maybe in any competitive context I will compete. If I were given boxing gloves and pushed into a ring perhaps I would be unable to resist trying to pummel the other guy to a pulp. So, in fairness to the other guy, I avoid boxing rings. And as I don’t particularly want to race, I now avoid road-races.
      It wasn’t only races that caused me problems: I had elements of the same feelings during training runs with friends. There was always an undercurrent of comparison if not exactly competition. They would be aware of how well you were running, as you would be of them. I felt, as the years went by, that I didn’t really want this inter-runner subliminal rivalry.
      So I arrive at the paradoxical conclusion that I stopped running races, or even running with others, because I am too competitive. I cannot run in those contexts without being competitive - and I no longer wanted competition. But perhaps it’s not a paradox. For Murakami it’s the other way around: he says he’s not competitive and yet he carried on running his races.
            I completed the pdf page with these words ...
      I was going to fill up this space with a bright photograph but instead I’ll confess that I haven’t run much this week. No excuses: I just haven’t felt like it.
      Perhaps all this thought of races and competition exhausted me. Or depressed me, by reminding me how past it I have become. Who am I trying to kid? Didn’t I really give up road-racing just because I was getting slower? It is hard to be motivated to run slower.
      Who am I trying to kid, by running now? I have been endeavouring for 18 months now to reach a level of fitness that I am happy with, but whenever I approach it some problem crops up to set me back. The weeks are slipping by and it is frustrating that I have not this year reached even the modest fitness levels I briefly managed last year.
      Footballers, swimmers, boxers, cyclists do not expect their bodies to be up to the job by their 30s or 40s. Why should runners be any different? My body seems unable to sustain a reasonable amount of running for long. It must be at its limits for it to keep relapsing so often.
      I have been feeling generally tired and queasy. By non-running standards I am fine but it doesn’t take much to make running, hard enough at the best of times, seem not worth the effort. The whole business seems pointless. I feel a fraud putting on my running gear as if I were a proper athlete. If I am to run, I need to run properly, not dodder along.
      I think I need to consider in detail the complex psychology of motivation but I seem to be running out of
            Here I contrived to reach the end of the pdf page. This little 'joke' doesn't work in html.

[1].  Eco, Umberto (1987), Travels in Hyperreality, London: Picador (p161).
9/497

26.  Run For Your Life
July 2nd 2011

old tree Left: An ex-tree near Aughton, symbolising my physical and mental state at the beginning of the week.

After last week’s wobble, I have almost regained my equilibrium. I’ve been reading some wise words on the interplay between running and life. I noticed that those who write about running fairly soon begin to search for its deeper significance. It’s as though even running enthusiasts think that running is somewhat inexplicable and that underlying it there must be something profoundly philosophical, anthropological, psychological and metaphysical.
      Their first step is to draw analogies between running and other aspects of life. For example, when discussing competition in road-races (as I did last week), a real running-writer would go on to elaborate similarities with competition in business, work, love, and so on - and would then argue, ipso facto, that a good way to learn valuable life lessons, about perseverance, failure, planning, determination, and so on, is to run.
      It would be good to be able to learn so much from such a simple activity as running. In a book about cricket or golf one could fill chapters galore on the rules, techniques and equipment. There are few rules for running. There is little to say about techniques and equipment either, unless, like McDougall, you are campaigning against running shoes. Perhaps it is the simplicity itself that prompts deep meditation.
      The most inspirational and quasi-spiritual writer on running was George Sheehan, who is said to have been the first over-50 to run a 5-minute mile. His book Running and Being was a best-seller in 1978. He wrote that “When I run, I am a hunter, and the prey is my self, my own truth”. Likewise, Joseph Conrad’s Marlow said “I don’t like running - no man does - but I like what is in the running - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - what no other man can ever know” [1].
      Sorry, I have cheated there. Marlow actually said ‘work’ where I’ve put ‘running’. But you can say the same thing about anything onerous.
      The notion that running is a search for your inner self is a beguiling one. It is especially popular with champion runners, who like what they find there. For ordinary runners, it is probable that what the search reveals is not what is hoped for. Any failure to run as often, as far, or as fast as you think you should must, on this basis, be attributed to your inner weaknesses.
      The renowned runner Oprah Winfrey said that “Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it”. If you replace ‘running’ with ‘swimming’ or ‘gardening’ or ‘painting’ doesn’t the same apply? In general, don’t rewards reflect effort?
      Murakami, at least, agrees (p83) that running is a metaphor: “Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life”. Or, as the great runner David Bedford (former world 10k record holder and organiser of the London Marathon) put it, “Running is a lot like life. Only 10% of it is exciting. 90% of it is slog and drudge”. If I thought that my life was 90% slog and drudge I think I’d sort my life out, not waste time running.
      If you consider life to be full of desolation, wretchedness and despair then running may be just what you need, as it was for one of Garrison Keillor’s characters: “Despite the bum foot, I kept running four miles per day. I love the misery of running. I love the misery of feeling I should run more, hundreds of miles, and do it on my knees” [2].
      Running, however, is not like life or a metaphor for it. It is a part of life (my life, anyway). It is not somehow separate or external to life. If you think that running is to escape from life’s problems or that it is to be carried out in a mental ‘void’ then you might well conclude that running is not part of ‘real life’. But, for me, running is integrated with the rest of life. It is a part of that life, a small part, maybe, but an important one.

tree Left: A tree by the River Lune below Aughton Woods.

      For some people running is clearly an essential part of their life. The author Joyce Carol Oates wrote that “On days when I can’t run, I don’t feel ‘myself’; and whoever the ‘self’ is I feel, I don’t like [her] nearly so much as the other” [3]. The answer for people like Oates is obvious: run every day. There is a breed of runner who feels a compulsion to do exactly that - the ‘streak runner’ (not to be confused with the ‘streaker’, who has a different compulsion). The record is held by Ron Hill, former world 10 mile record holder, who is said to have run every day since 1964. There is even an association to join, if you are American, the United States Running Streak Association, Inc., with nearly 400 members.
      When running is taken to such extremes, it is necessary to be precise. According to the USRSA’s website, in a running streak one has “to run at least one continuous mile within each calendar day under one’s own body power. Running cannot occur through the use of canes, crutches or banisters, or reliance on pools or aquatic devices to create artificial buoyancy”.
      Now we know what a ‘run’ is. It’s not far (just one mile) and it’s as slow as you like. Hill’s Wikipedia page says that he used crutches to hobble a mile after bunion surgery. I trust that the USRSA has disqualified him, although he is British and probably doesn’t count. The US record-holder, Mark Covert, started in 1968, over 15,000 days ago. If he stopped tomorrow, I’d have to run every day until 2054 to beat his record (I’ll then be 109). Assuming I start tomorrow.
      Looking from this angle, I gain a clearer perspective on my own running. I run free - free of routine, of obligation, of commitment. At least, I thought so, but I see that I ‘confessed’ last week, as if not running were a sin that needed to be absolved. This week I have, of my own free will, run care-free and rather far, for me. Having cleared my mind of the duty to run, I felt more like running. This mental clarity coincided with a new sense of physical well-being. For the first time this year I am running without the fear that my legs are on the verge of breakdown. Of course, they may break down at any moment but the point is that I am not fearing it.
      I have also added some variety to my running. On Monday, when it was very hot during the day, I had a run at sunset, that is, at around 10 o’clock. It always seems slightly decadent to slip into pyjamas after the post-run shower. On Thursday I had a tip-out at Nether Kellet, on the other side of the river, to run back through Aughton and over the Waterworks Bridge. Normally, running from home, by the time I reach a bridge it is time to begin turning back. It is good to run in rarely visited territory that is not far from home. There are fine views across the river to Ingleborough, Caton Moor and Ward’s Stone. The run took me past the two trees shown.

[1].  Conrad, Joseph (1902), Heart of Darkness.
[2].  Keillor, Garrison (1985), Lake Wobegon Days, New York: Viking Penguin.
[3].  Oates, Joyce Carol (July 18, 1999), To Invigorate Literary Mind, Start Moving Literary Feet, New York Times.
30/527

27.  Running Away From Home
(as for) July 9th 2011

I apologise for disappearing for two weeks. I hope that you weren’t concerned. I thought it wisest not to announce to the world, or a small subset of it, that we would be away from home for a couple of weeks.
      My renewed enthusiasm for running continued up to Thursday when it had to be put on hold whilst we went off for a holiday in Ireland. Before then I managed a few good runs, revisiting places I haven’t seen for several months. On Sunday, I ran the Claughton Quarry loop, which used to be a standard run but has fallen out of favour because there is too much running along a road (the A683) that has become busier. Once up to the quarry there are good views to Ingleborough, to the Lake District hills, and over Morecambe Bay. Unfortunately, the quarry itself has closed recently, after over a hundred years of operation, because of the falling demand for bricks.
      On Wednesday I ran to Halton Bridge where I saw another sign of the problems within the building industry - the unfinished ‘townhouses’ by the river. This development always seemed out of place. It looks even more so now, with the few completed houses surrounded by boarded-up half-built constructions, abandoned when the builders went bust.

tree Left: The River Lune from Halton Bridge, looking west to the M6 bridge in the distance. I have not run across Halton Bridge so often recently because a bridge on the way to it has been closed for ‘safety reasons’. This necessitates a detour on the road. It is only a short one but it changes the character of the run. If it takes as long to repair the bridge as it did the adjacent similar one a few years ago then it is liable to be out of action for many months. This run also takes me past the site of the proposed eco-houses but I can see no sign of any work on them yet.

      I am running as comfortably - not as far or as fast, because I’m not that fit, but as comfortably - as I’ve been able to do for a year. I am reluctant to pause in my running but, halfway through the year, it’s perhaps a good time for a mental break.
      Running and holidays do not really go together for me although I see, from stumbling across them on the web, that there are such things as ‘running holidays’. It is possible to go to somewhere like Costa Blanca or Lanzarote and spend a whole week running with like-minded individuals - and talking, thinking and dreaming about running. What a prospect!
      For me, a holiday is usually a holiday from running too. There are different things to do on holiday. If I do take the running gear it often stays unused until I remember that I have it and think I’d better run once in order to justify bringing it.
      An exception to this was the holidays, many years ago, in the Cairngorms. It was Ruth’s parents’ custom to hire a large lodge at Kincraig, near Aviemore, as a base for a skiing week or two, it being one of their missions in life to introduce the joys of skiing to as many relations and friends as possible. It was also an opportunity to assess the mettle, calibre and fortitude of those relations and friends as they confronted the formidable challenge of skiing in Scotland.
      The rituals tested the strongest character. It was essential to get up to the slopes as early as possible in the morning, or even earlier. Therefore, breakfast ran with military precision. The evening before, the troops had all been organised to prepare for the following days skiing, making packed lunches, working out schedules, and maintaining the equipment. Fair enough: if you’re going skiing, it’s better to do it properly.
      The first couple of times I went the parents-in-law weren’t yet parents-in-law. I had no choice, therefore, but to demonstrate my merit by joining in with all this earnest endeavour. I could not ski at all but that didn’t matter. In fact, that was a good thing, because I was a candidate for indoctrination.
      After a few years, however, there were two young children to indoctrinate instead. They were more promising material than me. Children like sliding about on snow. They have more flexibility and less fear. I, however, did not enjoy skiing for the main reason that I was no good at it. It is an activity for flaunting your expertise. If you haven’t any, it is rather less fun. Apart from the skiing itself, I found all the associated palaver and paraphernalia tedious and unenjoyable.
      I knew a much simpler way of enjoying myself in the Scottish highlands. And so, with the excuse that I was in serious training for some marathon, I opted out of the skiing. The parents-in-laws didn’t mind: they had already found me a puzzle, through not playing a musical instrument, not going to church, not being interested in how cars work, and so on. I am sure that they could not conceive how I could prefer to run rather than to ski but I doubt that they were surprised.
      Those runs in Scotland are some of my most treasured running memories. They had a different character to my runs in the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales. The latter are sometimes described as wild regions but they are tame in comparison to the Scottish highlands. If I come across a deer locally then it feels as though the deer is intruding into the human domain. The land may be cultivated, the moors may be tended for grouse, there may be people living nearby and a deer is not what you expect to see. In the Scottish highlands, there was no doubt who was the intruder: me. The deer were in their domain. They did not expect to see me there, and reasonably so, because I ran miles away from any human habitation.
      I retain more of the general impression than the detail of those runs. Most of the time I must have pottered about near Kincraig but I do recall three very long routes, which perhaps I ran more than once. One was west from Kincraig along tracks past Coire Dhugain to the River Dulnain, north along the river, and back along a track past Alvie Lodge. Apart from the tracks themselves and the occasional bothy, there was no evidence of humanity throughout the 15 miles or so. It was silent wilderness, empty apart from the deer, as far as I could see. Another run was south along Glen Feshie. I ran along the glen to the edge of my map and then ran back, a good 15 miles again. There were several lodges along the glen but I don’t recall seeing any people. Some of the track was through woodland but otherwise there were fine views of the glen. On the way back I cut across wilderness to Baileguish and Inveruglass. The third run was the grandest of all tip-outs. I was deposited at the Cairngorm ski-lift car-park to run back to Kincraig. At least the skiers could see that I was really running and not idling my time away, heaven forbid. I made my way through the forests above Loch Morlich, across Rothiemurchus, crossing the Allt Druidh from Lairig Ghru, around the picturesque Loch an Eilein, and on to Kincraig. Despite the vast distance, I was back long before the skiers and could bask in a few hours peace before being engulfed by skiers anxious to prepare for the following day’s expedition.
      This rather idyllic arrangement was spoiled one year when the mother-in-law was inconsiderate enough to break her leg and require some care while abandoned at the lodge by the other skiers. I tried to persuade her to join me on my runs but she was reluctant. If only I had known then of Murakami’s slogan: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional”.
      The Ireland holiday was also an exception to my general practice of not running on holidays. Before we went, whenever we said to anyone that we were going to Ireland, they immediately mentioned the rain. So, I thought, if it rains that much, I’ll take the running gear: running is one thing that I can do in the rain. What I didn’t take on holiday was a means of continuing this diary, so I have a couple of weeks to catch up with, if you’ll bear with me.
24/551

28.  Running Away From Home (continued)
(as for) July 16th 2011

In order to re-synchronise this diary, to make the chapter number also the week-of-the-year number, I need to include a couple of chapters on our Irish holiday. I am reluctant to do this because if I eulogise about the sandy beaches, rugged cliffs, fuchsia hedges and white hills of Donegal then readers may beseech me to travel to more exotic locations and write more travelogues. That wouldn’t do at all because we are committed to a running diary. We can’t change tack in the middle. That would be like training for a marathon for a couple of months and then taking up ten-pin bowling instead. It would leave a sense of failure and a stain on our character that would linger forever.
      Instead, we must persist with this diary to see what unknown adventures lie ahead. Whatever they are, I’m sure they’ll be as engrossing as what has gone before. The best runs are the ones for which you don’t know what’s around the next bend. However, since rest and relaxation are an essential part of the running experience, let’s indulge in an Irish interlude.
      Our camper-van tour of Ulster included visits to four pairs of friends but I didn’t ask permission to name them here, so I won’t - but their hospitality and generosity was much appreciated, especially the loan of a cottage for our time in Donegal.
      We drove through Belfast to the young (50m year old) granite Mourne Mountains, where we walked up Slieve Donard without intending to. We were not sure of our walking fitness, so we set out with a ‘let’s walk there and see how we feel’ attitude. In this mood, setting off from Meelmore Lodge, we passed through the Hare’s Gap, walked along the Brandy Pad (an old smuggler’s route) to a spot within sight of Slieve Donard for lunch.

brandy pad Right: From Slieve Donard to the Brandy Pad and Hare’s Gap.

      As we sat there we could see many walkers toiling up its slope, almost all of them having approached from the shorter eastern side. We realised that our visit coincided with a holiday weekend associated with the Battle of the Boyne - and, we learned, the first good weekend weather for a while. The highest mountain (850m) in Northern Ireland beckoned irresistibly. The view was clear but not sufficiently so to see Scotland, England or Wales as is possible on the best days.
      On this walk we met the Mourne Wall, a substantial construction of 1904-1922. Some guidebooks say that it marks the watershed of the reservoirs built then. But a study of the map shows that it doesn’t. And why would a watershed need a wall? Those same books claim it to be unique, and I can believe them.
      We then drove west through Armagh and Fermanagh, crossing in and out of the Republic without being aware of it, apart from the miles and kilometres interchanging. Beyond the town of Donegal we walked up the Cliffs of Bunglass for the awe-inspiring view of Slieve League dropping 600m into the Atlantic.

slieve league Left: Slieve League from the Cliffs of Bunglass.

      From the cottage near Gortahork we had a fine view over Ballyness Bay, with its shades of blue ever-changing with the tides and the clouds. On Wednesday, while Ruth went for a ride on the sands of Sheep Haven I ran, in hot weather and accompanied by a cloud of flies, around Horn Head peninsula. After lunch we then drove to the head of the peninsula to leave our bikes, drove back to the foot, walked around the magnificent cliff edges to the head, with its 150m sheer cliffs, and then cycled back. I was quite exhausted by all these forms of motion.

ballyness bay Right: Ballyness Bay from the Donegal cottage.

      Nonetheless, the following morning we set out to climb Errigal, the highest mountain (752m) of Donegal, a distinctive pyramid of white quartzite scree. Unfortunately, as Errigal came into view we saw that its top was shrouded in cloud. We switched to Muckish (670m) but when we arrived there it too had acquired cloud on top. Optimistically, we set off but halfway up met the cloud coming down. It turned to rain.
      We retreated and settled for a drive around the rugged coastline of northwest Donegal, battered by Atlantic gales in winter. By late afternoon the rain had eased. The low cloud and patchy sunlight enabled us to appreciate why many artists find inspiration in this bleak landscape dotted with white cottages in fields divided by walls of large round stones.

marble arch donegal coast Left: Marble Arch, on the way to Horn Head.
Nearest left: The west Donegal coast from near Bloody Foreland.

      It was however a little depressing to see tourist blight encroaching into what are now the resorts of Bunbeg and Derrybeg. For example, the bay of Bunbeg is dominated by a large white hotel out of all sympathy with its surroundings. In a way, it is impressive that smart modern houses, presumably holiday homes, are reclaiming so much unpromising bog-land but it does mean that the landscapes are no longer pristine. Even the higher bogs, some of the largest blanket bogs in Europe, are not safe from humans, who scalp off the layer of peat.
      On Friday it was raining more heavily as we set off to Dunfanaghy to ride and run again, further this time, around Horn Head. It was a very different experience to Wednesday’s run! With some intrepidity I confronted the rain and wind. I could barely see the sea beyond the cliff edges. Muckish, a few miles south, was invisible. But at least there were no flies this time.
      At the furthermost point I met a lorry that had become wedged in the narrow lane. As I squeezed past, the lorry-driver shouted “Are you local?” with that rising tone that anticipates a “No” because no local would be silly enough to run in such conditions. Later, on reflection, I think it more likely that he was hoping for a local to help him out of the predicament into which his satnav had probably led him. For all I know, he’s still there.
14/565

29.  Running Away From Home (continued)
(as for) July 23rd 2011

On Saturday it rained. Again. All day, except for a few brief pauses when it clearly did not intend to stop. Our appreciation of the cloud effects dimmed. Now the sky varied only from dark grey to light grey.
      We cycled to Magheroarty for an invigorating walk along the Dooey Peninsula, a two-mile sand bar that almost encloses Ballyness Bay. Amongst the dunes we came across a group of artists setting up a sculpture trail for a late-evening exhibition. “A pity the weather isn’t better for you” we said to a man who smiled and replied “This is as good as it gets - soft weather”.

dooey penin Left: The end of the Dooey Peninsula, Horn Head dimly ahead.

      He had a point. It wasn’t raining hard. It was like living in a gentle cloud, quite pleasurable if you didn’t mind being a little damp. We were beginning to run out of clothes that were not a little damp. We retreated to the pub to dry out but there was no fire - and no food. There was, however, a crowd of people shouting at a large screen. We had stumbled upon some strange ritual, involving an alien language and a peculiar activity. Actually, of course, the language (Gaelic) and activity (Gaelic football) are not alien or peculiar to the locals.
      It is patronising to assume, as I did, that the influx of tourists and ‘modern development’ will sweep away the local culture. Perhaps all the smart new houses were not for wealthy in-comers. All these locals must live somewhere and I had seen no hovels for them. Perhaps they are wealthy too. In deference to the locals, especially those of Machaire Ui Robhartaigh, I’ll now use Gaelic place-names whilst in Dún na nGall.
      We had more soft weather on Sunday. An Earagail and An Mhucais were again shrouded in cloudy drizzle. We saw the sun three times for a total of 4½ minutes. For a suitably sombre experience we visited Caisleán Ghleann Bheatha (Glenveagh Castle). It is really just a large house with a castellated façade, built after the estate owner summarily evicted 244 farming tenants in 1861 in order to create a hunting forest. For nearly a century, the society élite came banqueting, deer-shooting, and promenading through the ornate gardens overlooking Loch Beagh. I doubt that they wasted time contemplating the fate of the 244.

glenveagh Right: Ghleann Bheatha with Loch Beagh.

      The Glenveagh Visitor Centre reminded me again of my ignorance of Ulster history. In Belfast we had driven through areas with familiar names and seen memorials to those who died in the recent conflicts, my attention to which had become numbed by powerlessness and incomprehension. The background to it all was vague to me, shamefully for an Englishman, as the English were the cause of much of it.
      While, for example, I had heard of the Battle of the Boyne (Cath na Bóinne), a pivotal event in European, not just Irish, history, I could not say a sentence about it. Regarding Dún na nGall I had not even heard of the Flight of the Earls, the Plantation, and the Sheep Wars. My understanding is still too shallow for me to demonstrate it here but my respect for those for whom it is all part of their personal history is deeper.
      At the pub in An Fál Carrach we found a larger crowd shouting even louder at a large screen. There was also a christening party going on (we were given some cake). The baby was as unaware as we were that Donegal were winning the Ulster Gaelic Football Championship for the first time since 1992.
      On Monday we saw the sun for 4½ minutes less than the day before. The low cloud, mist, drizzle and rain was all too familiar, as we began our journey back east. We stopped off at Droim na Creige, peering into the gloom to discern the shape of Cionn Dhún Damh across Loch Súilí.

droim na creige Left: The beach at Droim na Creige.

      On Tuesday we drove through rain to the Giant’s Causeway where the sun at last shone, if only briefly and too late to lift the depression that had settled over me. The Causeway was curiously underwhelming. Perhaps it is too familiar, from the countless photographs and films of it already seen.

The Giant’s Causeway. Right: The Giant’s Causeway.

      My knowledge of its geology was not increased at all by visiting it. Any guidebook will include a brief explanation that the polygonal columns were caused 60m years ago when molten basalt cooled rapidly. Perhaps that’s all a non-geologist can be expected to understand.
      Hundreds of visitors of many nationalities were clambering over the rocks and up the paths. Why do we feel the need to visit such sites in such numbers? Will there come a time when we will look back at the present ‘tourist period’ and consider it an emperor’s clothes phenomenon, in which vast numbers of people were deluded into travelling large distances for little benefit to themselves? I dare hardly say it but you can learn more, at much less cost, about the Giant’s Causeway in ten minutes on the web, through youtube videos and many documents, than by visiting it.
      Perhaps this will not be the case when the new £18.5m “world class visitor facilities” are completed. Nobody can complain of the problems of modern life when so many resources are spent to enable tourists to traipse dutifully about the world and when it’s only 150 years since the people of Donegal were being turfed out of their homes shortly after surviving the Potato Famine by eating seaweed.
      I did not run at all this week in Ireland. It didn’t seem to fit in. We had plenty of the promised rain but I didn’t feel in the mood to run about in it. Since getting back home I’ve had a couple of gentle runs. During the holiday I had a chance to reflect on what I hoped to achieve from my running in the rest of 2011. I said at the beginning that it would be unwise, at my age, to set myself targets. I have returned from holiday another year older but I am now more inclined to think of targets. I have been carefully recording my running now for 18 months and I have a better idea of what is feasible, barring major problems.
      I could set rather arbitrary targets, such as 40 or even 50 miles in a week or 1000 miles in the year, but mileages in themselves matter little to me. What I’d really like to achieve is a sustained level of fitness that enables me to manage half-a-dozen out-runs, as in the old days: two-hour runs exploring some new pathways within nearby dales and hills. If that seems rather imprecise to you, I’ll try to be more specific next week.
10/575

30.  Having A Clear Run At It
(as for) July 30th 2011

Runners! Are you short of vim? Do you find it hard to get out on the road? Do you wonder what the point of it all is? If so, I have the answer for you - my patented, copyrighted, trade-marked Fitnessometer. See the reward for every run! See the penalty for every run missed! No longer will you have no reason to run!
      It is the daily question for all runners: Why should I run today? Why not leave the run until tomorrow? If, like me, you are not committed to a training regime, the day-to-day incentive may be lacking. The reasons usually given for running concern long-term benefits: improve health, raise money, relieve stress, increase self-esteem, and so on. These benefits are not necessarily lost if you just miss today’s run. And, of course, you can argue the same thing tomorrow.
      It is up to each runner to find ways to get himself out running. Murakami (p178) describes how he lured himself out onto the road by anticipating seeing the smiling face of a “very attractive young woman” who, for several years, ran towards and past him. He says that he was too shy to speak to her - and a good thing too because young women need courage as it is to run without being pestered by middle-aged oglers.
      I have never had that particular inspiration. At the moment, one method that suits me, being a person who likes playing with numbers, is to refer to my Fitnessometer, which, as the name suggests, calculates my fitness. Right now I am 61% fit.
      How does my Fitnessometer work? I thought you’d never ask. It goes like this:
      First, I imagine how well I could run if I were as fit as possible (100% fit) - say, 7 miles in 49 minutes every day. This is in my imagination, I stress. If I actually average 2 miles in 16 minutes every day, then my fitness is some function of (2/7) and (7/8), the latter fraction being the ratio of the average speeds. The function is actually a weighted product of those fractions raised to some power tuned to provide a figure that seems about right. For 2 miles in 16 minutes it yields 44%.
      I don’t average, over, say, seven days because that generates too much fluctuation in the fitness figure. I use, or rather my spreadsheet uses, a ... [If I may just interrupt myself here. This is the point at which I say “if you don’t want to know the score look away now, or skip a paragraph”. I have included this formula to demonstrate that my Fitnessometer is at the forefront of technological sophistication.] ... weighted average (WA), calculated as follows: WA1 = 0.95 x WA0 + 0.05 x R1 where WA1 is today’s weighted average, WA0 is yesterday’s weighted average and R1 is today’s run. So if my previous weighted average mileage is 2 and I run 6 miles then it becomes 2.2. There’s a similar formula for the weighted average minuteage.
      If I don’t run then the averages will drop by 5% and my fitness figure will drop accordingly. This captures the sad fact that fitness is not like money in the bank. If left unattended it does not accumulate interest. On the contrary, it fades away.
      I add in some credit for my ‘walking fitness’, based on a similar calculation. If I’m not able to run but go for a walk instead then I feel I deserve some credit for that, although obviously less than if I’d run. If I were ever to cycle or swim instead then I would add them in too. My mileages are not as measured on the ground. It is 2½ miles to the Roeburndale Road cattle grid but I am slower running there than I am running 2½ miles along the old railway track. The cattle grid is 230 metres up the hill. I am faster running down the 2½ miles but not by as much as I am slower uphill. I therefore add in a compensating ‘altitude factor’. I also have an ‘aging factor’. I reckon that I have about 10,000 days to go, at which point my fitness will be 0%. So, I’m losing, on average, 1/10000 of my fitness every day, simply through getting older. That hardly seems fair, so I multiply my calculated fitness by square-root(10000/(10000-n)) where n is the number of days since I set the Fitnessometer off. That should do it.
      An important characteristic of my Fitnessometer is that the credit from a particular run is not fixed: it depends on how fit I already am. If I am averaging 2 miles in 16 minutes (44%) and I run 6 miles in 50 minutes then the averages become 2.2 miles and 17.7 minutes (46%). If, however, by some miracle, the averages are 6 miles and 50 minutes (81%) then the same run would leave the fitness level unchanged (but if I didn’t run it would drop to 79%).
      The outcome is that if I have a lengthy lay-off, as I am prone to do, and my fitness drops to, say, 30% then, as I begin to run again, it rises rapidly, which is just the encouragement I need. If I should become supremely fit, the Fitnessometer inspires me to keep fit. I also use it to provide private medium-term goals such as ‘get 60% fit before the Christmas break’. It is less stressful than a goal such as ‘run the Windermere Marathon in 3:40’.

fitnessometer Right: My fitness according to the Fitnessometer.

      My fitness, as assessed by my Fitnessometer, since the beginning of last year is shown to the right. You can’t argue with that! The subjective feeling that I expressed earlier, that whenever I approach fitness I have a problem that sets me back, is supported by the graph. My longest period of sustained fitness (above 65%, say) has been the two months from Week 9 to 18 this year. In the first half of last year my running was repeatedly brought to a halt. In the second half I never really got running consistently at all. The consoling thing, however, is that none of my problems were running injuries (they were other accidents or colds or bugs).
      I am therefore encouraged to hope that if I can steer clear of trouble, by avoiding falling in the beck and similar mishaps, then I may be able to drive my fitness up to unprecedented levels. So, rather than trundle on somewhat aimlessly for the rest of the year, shall we set a specific objective - say, to reach and sustain a fitness level of 75%, according to my Fitnessometer? I’m game, if you are. We do risk asking too much of my aging body and collapsing in an ignominious heap. I am, of course, not interested in 75% per se: it’s just that 75% fit means that I can do the running I want to.
      What does 75% mean in practice? It requires weighted averages of 4 miles in 28 minutes (too fast for me, I fear!), 5 miles in 42 minutes or 6 miles in 55 minutes (conceivable). The highest weighted average mileage that I have managed so far is 4.3.
      My Fitnessometer will, I’m sure, revolutionise sports science and enable the serious runner to get really serious. In the meantime, I need to get back to the business of running. My legs, I am relieved to find, are still in good working order after their holiday. I have eased them back into regular running, with five runs of 40 minutes or so.
      In my absence, my riverside paths have been transformed. Now, as I run along, I can imagine myself in the foothills of the Himalayas amongst swathes of sweet-smelling, head-high, purple-pink blossom - that of the Himalayan balsam, also known as the ‘policeman’s helmet’ and ‘kiss-me-in-the-mountains’, names that lead my imagination even further astray. In reality, the balsam, pretty as it looks, is an invasive weed, swamping indigenous plants and making river-banks vulnerable to erosion. I could pause on my runs to pull them up before they disperse their seeds but if I did I would, as there are so many of them, never reach my running Everest (of 75%).
26/601/61%

31.  System Failure, Run Recovery
August 6th 2011

At last I have managed to pin down a cause of my discombobulation this year: I have been having a rest day before I’ve done any running to rest from. Because January 1st 2011 was a Saturday I have this year considered my running week to be Saturday-Friday. In the past I always had a Monday-Sunday running week. The usual pattern was to fit runs into the working week, have no run on Saturday, and then a long run on Sunday. Saturday was a ‘family day’ and although there is now less family around to appreciate it Saturday has remained a day without running. So this year I have begun my running week by not running, which is surprisingly disconcerting.
      The role of rest, relaxation and recovery in running is a complex topic. It seems that my recent holiday has revitalised my enthusiasm for running, as my holidays usually do. In fact, I had become revitalised just before the holiday and was a little concerned that it would intrude upon my running. In general, though, nobody (except streak runners (Week 26)) denies the need for the occasional rest period from running. All running guides insist upon them. The question is: why?
      The following, from the runnersguide.com website, is typical: “These rest days are critical because ... the repetitive nature of running results in pounding on the joints of the ankles, knees and hips with each and every stride ... Without this rest the joints may regularly be sore or inflamed ... [and] the runner is at risk for injuries and issues which are commonly associated with overtraining. For example shin splints and stress fractures are very common overuse injuries which typically occur when a runner is ... not allowing regular rest days for recovery”. In other words, the rest period helps to avoid all those injuries that McDougall warned us about (Week 3).
      There is, however, a more positive reason for advocating rest periods - that is, that we improve when we are resting not when we are running. When we run we break down muscle fibres; when we rest the fibres repair and strengthen. For me, however, the benefit is more mental than physical. If you run conservatively, as I do nowadays, the body could probably run every day if you asked it to. But I welcome a day off because otherwise running becomes a stale routine. After the day off (or longer, if necessary) one returns to running mentally refreshed and keen to get on the road again.
      There have been many studies of the benefits of rest and recovery in a running programme. The overall conclusion seems to be that well-trained athletes can miss several days of running without losing endurance and that if they reduce the amount, but not the intensity, of running then their fitness is not affected. This, however, is not my experience, perhaps because I am not a ‘well-trained athlete’. I find that my fitness soon withers away if I do not run. In general, though, periods of recovery are recommended, not because we are like computers, which need to be recovered after failure, but in order to prevent failure and enable progress.

abbeystead Left: Looking over Abbeystead from Hawthornthwaite Fell.

      A few paragraphs back I said ‘occasional rest period’. How occasional does a day off have to be to count as a ‘rest day’? I have looked back into my 1980s records (mentioned in Week 7) and I find that in those 39 weeks I had 37 days with no running - about one rest day a week. It would, of course, be remarkably fortunate and practically convenient if the ideal amount of rest corresponded to the normal week. Nowadays, I feel I need more rest days. It is not because I am running so hard that I am damaging so many muscle fibres that they need longer to recover: it is because the fibres are less good at recovering. At least, that is my subjective impression. So, my ‘standard week’ this year has included two days without running, usually the Saturday and Wednesday. Perhaps, if I can get to 75% on the Fitnessometer I won’t need two rest days; or conversely, and perhaps more likely, if I am to reach 75% I won’t be able to take two rest days.
      A ‘rest day’ is in any case a misnomer. As Einstein showed, it is impossible for any body to be at absolute rest. All coaches are adamant that runners should not just do nothing. The important point is that rest days are for physical and mental recovery. This can perhaps be aided by some other activity, such as walking, swimming, cycling or digging the garden.
      So, where does this leave me in my quest for 75% fitness? At the moment, my body is comfortable with 40-minute runs. I need, I think, to change the 3-day 40-40-40-minute runs to 60-30-30 minute runs and then gradually to increase the 60-minutes. I need to distinguish between ‘long’ and ‘short’ runs and use the former to build endurance. Coaches distinguish between ‘hard’ and ‘easy’ runs. For me, it is a mistake to set out expecting an ‘easy’ run. I soon realise that there is no such thing for me now.
      Perhaps I can dream of evolving to 90-30-40-minute runs and dispensing with one of my days off. That would get the mileage up to the required levels. But first things first. This week I have managed two 60-minute runs, one a mini-out-run around Abbeystead in the Forest of Bowland.
      I was relieved that it was ‘mini’, as it was a murky, muggy day, so oppressive that the cows and sheep had given up all thought of motion. There was no breeze. Nothing moved apart from me, and I didn’t move so fast either. Sweat poured off me. The clouds blanketed the heat, only occasionally parting to reveal the sun. It was very peaceful, running along quiet lanes past idyllic-sounding homesteads such as Summer House Head, Meeting House Farm, Hawthornthwaite and Well Brook. It is hard to imagine it ever being different. But it was on May 23rd 1984, when an explosion killed 16 people. The ‘Lancaster Conjunctive Use Scheme’, intended to transfer water from the Lune to the Wyre, was considered of such importance that it had been opened by the Queen in 1980. The pipe exploded because of a build-up of methane while being visited by a group from St Michael’s-on-Wyre, a village affected by the scheme.
      Such events put my concerns into perspective. It doesn’t matter much but I will change my Saturdays. My new-found commitment is incompatible with starting the running week without running. I’ll move my rest day(s) towards the end of the week instead. But I won’t be dogmatic about it. All running should be a variable response to the body’s feedback.
28/629/63%

32.  A Close-Run Thing
August 13th 2011

A recent report on otters in the region has shown that their return to the Lune and Roeburn valleys, on either side of Caton Moor, is now well-established. Moreover, there is a “multitude of otter runs going over the watershed” on the moor. It seems that the otters come up and over the moor, especially in spring, to feed on frogs and newts. It is possible that they have holts within the now-abandoned Claughton Quarry.
      The presence of the otter, a predator at the top of the food chain, is an important indicator of the health of the rivers and moor. As mentioned earlier, the brown hare also flourishes on the moor, as do the skylark and lapwing, whose numbers have in 30 years dropped by up to 90% in England. I understand that there are rare spiders on the moor too although I haven’t paused to investigate. It is a privilege to share the moor with such endangered species. Caton Moor is, to most eyes, empty of interest, which is why so few people go there, which, in turn, is why the wildlife goes there.
      As a runner, I do not feel endangered on the moor but I am certainly rare. On Sunday I ran up to the Caton Moor trig point for the first time since February, seeing nobody, as usual - and, as expected, seeing no otters, as they are largely nocturnal in England. As always, I paused to admire the long-distance view of the Yorkshire Three Peaks, the Howgills and the Lakes. The trig point was unchanged. The proposal for windmills to engulf it has been rejected locally but has now gone, on appeal, to higher authorities, who may overrule the rejection in the national interest, if not in the interests of otters, hares, skylarks, lapwings, spiders, and a runner.
      I came to appreciate the fragile robustness of nature even more on Tuesday when we went for a walk in Smardale in search of the Scotch Argus butterfly. The weather forecast for the rest of the week was bad so I graciously forewent running on what promised to be the one good day of the week. The Scotch Argus is seen for a short period in August in only two places in England. It was not hard to find. There were large numbers of them, almost black in flight and, when they alight, with orange bands and ringed spots. The mystery (to me, at least) is why there should be so many here and none elsewhere.

smardalegill Left: Smardalegill Viaduct.
Scotch Argus Right: Scotch Argus.

      The forecasters were correct. It was rainy and windy for the rest of week, with the River Lune flooding. With considerable fortitude I maintained my running momentum with some wet runs. My 75% target, even though it is meaningful only to myself, does at least provide an incentive, which in the old days came partly from the road races.
      Before I leave forever the topic of road-racing and competitiveness - which caused me such vexation a few weeks ago - I’d like to mention an experiment I carried out in the late-1980s. At the time I thought of it more as a divertissement, intended to add some light relief to the increasingly routine lunch-time run. On the first Wednesday of each month runners could take part in the Conder Handicap, a 5-mile race, with runners setting off at different times, calculated from their previous runs in the Handicap. If the handicaps were perfect then all the runners would, if they ran to form, finish equal first.
      The effect, of course, was to give all of us, who previously would have said that we didn’t care about winning, as much chance of winning as anyone. Did we care about winning now that we had the chance to do so? Well, yes. Sometimes half-a-dozen runners would be neck-and-neck down the home straight - a novel experience for us all.
      However, those runners more used to winning (or, at least, used to running competitively) largely ignored the Handicap. Not, I think, because they minded being ‘beaten’ by slower runners but because they did not want to run in such a competitive fashion against their friends in such a frivolous event. The weekend races were for competition but the midweek runs were for training and relative relaxation.
      As organiser, I felt obliged to run but I was usually starting last (because all the good runners didn’t run) and endeavouring to overtake slower runners. It might have seemed that I’d set up the event precisely in order to overtake people, which wasn’t a comfortable position. So after a year or so I stopped organising it. I had borrowed the idea of the Handicap from the Open University, where they held a successful similar event. The reason that the Lancaster version failed was that its gym had a different sociology. At the OU academic staff do not need to be on campus much, because there are no students there to teach. Therefore, OU runners rarely saw one another. Their monthly event was partly a social gathering. At Lancaster we saw the same people every day.
      Still, it was interesting to discover that, in the right circumstances, most runners will compete. Is competitiveness an innate biological trait? Are some individuals naturally more competitive than others? Is one’s degree of competitiveness independent of context? Is competition necessary for progress?
      These are profound questions that have been debated, to no agreed conclusion, by psychologists, philosophers, biologists and anthropologists. In a general sense, competition seems central to our society, being the basis for capitalism. It also plays a fundamental role in evolution, as reflected in the ‘survival of the fittest’ slogan, although this does not, of course, mean the most fit in the athletic sense, but the most fit to the environment.
      However, the central role of competition is challenged by studies of other societies where collaboration rather than competition is more appreciated by the culture. It is perhaps significant that the Latin origin of the word ‘compete’ indicates that it meant ‘to seek together’.
      As far as running is concerned, the competitive element is more subtle than is often assumed. If you watch children run then you will see that they naturally compete, to get somewhere first. It is the obvious impulse, otherwise they wouldn’t be running at all. However, once it is clear that they will not get there first, they may indicate that it doesn’t matter anyway. Moreover, the winner may indicate that winning doesn’t matter much to him or her either.
      Overt competitiveness is somewhat frowned upon in our society. It is fine to win but one should not make it too obvious that one wants to win. It is undignified and a little demeaning to the losers. Also, if there is little chance of winning it is only sensible to indicate that winning does not matter. All I can say is that the Conder Handicappers strived to win and were pleased to win when they did. However, the blatant ranking of the runners, with its explicit challenge to catch the supposedly slower guy ahead, was too tasteless for most, who just wanted a relaxing run in the lanes and fields. In this context at least, competition was not for them.
      Since the ‘com’ of ‘compete’ means ‘together’ and I haven’t run with or against anyone for many years (and do not intend to in the future), I can now safely, and with relief, forget all about competition.
30/659/67%

33.  Drug Running
August 20th 2011

lune valley Right: Looking towards Ingleborough, up the Lune valley, from Halton Park on the other side of the river. I ran through Halton Park on Wednesday after being tipped-out at Netherby, near Gressingham. I began by running in the opposite direction, towards the Redwell Inn, and returned through Swarthdale and Addington. This was the second of two one-hour-plus runs this week. I dare hardly believe how comfortably (touch wood) I’m progressing towards our target.

When we went on our butterfly hunt last week we met a couple of friends who, when the topic turned to running, said “Our daughter runs every morning: it’s an addiction, isn’t it?” as though there were nothing more to say on the subject. I feel obliged to investigate this theory thoroughly in the hope that there is nothing more to write on it either.
      I’ve found a ‘running addiction self-help test’ [1]. I have to mark 20 statements on a scale from 1 to 10 to indicate the extent to which it applies to me and my running. If I score over 160 then I am “running addiction personified”. So, here goes: “If a shirt doesn’t boast a race logo, it isn’t one I want to wear.” Um ... I think I’ll mark that as 0. The statement seems preposterous. The only shirt with a race logo that I can recall wearing was a fine one given as a prize for the Heversham 10-mile (a race I ran twice and on both occasions the runners ran the wrong way, which may be why I won a prize).
      I need to take this more seriously. Addiction of any kind is not something to be flippant about. I need some precision but, inevitably perhaps, there is no universally agreed upon definition of addiction. This one will perhaps suffice: “addiction [is] a process whereby a behaviour, that can function both to produce pleasure and to provide escape from internal discomfort, is employed in a pattern characterized by recurrent failure to control the behaviour and continuation of the behaviour despite significant negative consequences” [2]. This highlights the two key features: the lack of control and the negative consequences.
      Addiction is usually considered to be of two forms, one concerned with the use of psychoactive substances, such as alcohol and heroin, and the other with a psychological dependency on certain activities, such as gambling and shopping, although some experts prefer not to regard the latter as an addiction. As far as running is concerned, any addiction would seem to belong to the second form.
      However, recently it has been found that after a 2-hour run runners had produced endorphins that had attached themselves to parts of the brain associated with emotions [3]. Endorphin is short for ‘endogeneous morphine’, that is, a morphine-like substance that originates within the body. Endorphins are released by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in response to various activities and produce analgesia (an inability to feel pain) and a feeling of well-being.
      The suggestion, then, is that runners may become addicted to their own endorphins. The activities that are listed as generating endorphins are: exercise, excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food, love and orgasm. Even if I restricted myself to exercise for my endorphins (and why would anyone?), I don’t think that it has been demonstrated that running is the most effective method for producing them. It is also unclear whether it is essential to run for 2 hours to generate them. If I ran for 1 hour twice a day would I be safe from endorphin addiction?
      Maybe, but in that case I might be thought to have the second form of addiction, a psychological dependency. What are the signs of such a dependency? According to Michael Sachs [1], they are: fatigue, inability to concentrate, an overemphasis on running quantity, missing appointments, running with injuries, adopting runners for friends, spending more time at the local club, subscribing to many running publications, watching running movies, buying more running shoes and clothes, searching for longer and more distant races, spending more time and money on training and trips, and steering every conversation back to running. I am greatly relieved that writing a running diary is not on the list.
      Tarquin Cooper concedes that many ultra-runners have addictive personalities [4]. Some have taken up running precisely to escape from other addictions. However, not many runners accept that they have an addiction, because they do not acknowledge any negative consequences, which, according to the definition, a genuine addiction has. Cooper quotes a runner who had run 619 marathons in 15 years: “I’m somebody that needs exercise. I don’t intend ever to stop. But I’m not addicted to running. I’ve just made it a part of my life. And it’s a positive thing”.
      If it is possible to be addicted to running, is there any ‘cure’? Nobody seems to have much to say about this. Obviously, one must run less and reduce all the associated factors that Sachs lists. And then there are liable to be ‘withdrawal symptoms’, some physical, some psychological: muscle twitching, bloatedness, headaches, sluggishness, tension, depression, anxiety, guilt, restlessness and irritability.
      Do I suffer from running addiction, in the medical sense? I have been running, on and off, for over 50 years. When I am off, for a day, a month, or years, I may have some withdrawal symptoms. It depends why I am off. When, for example, I go on a holiday and leave the running gear behind (as I usually do) I have no difficulty at all in forgetting about running. In general, if I had not anticipated running in a certain period then there is no problem for me in not doing so.
      However, if I am off (through having flu, say) when I expected to be on, then, yes, I would be depressed and irritable. I would feel the same way if I had planned to go for a drive and the car had failed to start. It seems to me a normal reaction, not the sign of an addiction. And, yes, I would feel guilty if I were off when then is no good reason that I am not on. The guilt, however, is not directly to do with running: it is because of a failure to meet one’s commitments (to oneself, in this case). I am still running, so clearly all my off periods have ended with me returning to my ‘addiction’. I have not proved that I can do without running. I think I need to go back to that test.
      Here’s another statement for me to mark on a scale of 1 to 10: “It exhibits their inbred weakness if people don’t want to hear my step-by-step re-creations of races I’ve run”. Well, of course you want to hear them. You don’t? Oh. Anyway, I would never attribute anything to someone’s ‘inbred weakness’. So that’s another 0.
      Here’s a couple more statements that are so ridiculous that I’d give them 0: “All my friends are runners and I wouldn’t consider befriending a non-runner” and “A string of running days must remain unbroken”. The most I can score now is 160. That would make me “leaning towards running addiction; beware”. I am not sure if the ‘beware’ is directed towards me or you.

[1].  Sachs, Michael L. (1998), Too Much of a Good Thing?, Marathon & Beyond.
[2].  Goodman, Aviel (2006), Addiction: Definition and Implications, British Journal of Addiction, 85, 11, 1403-1408.
[3].  Boecker, Henning et al (2008), The Runner’s High: Opioidergic Mechanisms in the Human Brain, Cerebral cortex, 18 (11), 2523.
[4].  Cooper, Tarquin (2009), Confessions of a running addict, Daily Telegraph, August 24th.
33/692/70%

34.  Running on Empty
August 27th 2011

Runners sometimes succumb to the distressing neurosis of gumpitis. They are most vulnerable when their running seems to have reached a plateau - when they are as fit and as fast as they are ever likely to be. Then they dream instead of running further, and further still. There is only one symptom of gumpitis: a pathological compulsion to run and run and run.
      I have reached that plateau and recognise the impending symptom. I will resist it. I am as fit as I can plausibly hope to be. I can comfortably run 30 or more miles a week at a reasonable pace. I am perpetually pleasantly exhausted but yet bursting with energy. Nowadays, I always feel keen to get out running.
      But I can’t say that running is getting any easier or that I am getting any faster. I don’t think my body is physically capable of moving faster than it is now. At least not without more commitment than I’m prepared to give - to run twice a day perhaps or to include ‘speed sessions’ into my training. That degree of seriousness would begin to dominant my life more than I need.
      I feel, however, that I could run further if I tried. I can run for 60 minutes. I expect that I could increase this to 90 or 120 minutes. But I need to be clear why. Running further just for the sake of it is the first sign of gumpitis. I only need a quantity of running sufficient to enable the quality of running that I hope for.
      This week, while Ruth was away in the Lake District on a music course-cum-holiday, I thought about following her and running up a nearby peak such as Great Dodd (857m) or Blencathra (868m). I then thought better of it. I must not be carried away with my fitness. I may imagine my legs to be as tough as teak but Lake District peaks would use different muscles than my gentle local hills. They would, I suspect, complain for a week if I forced them up and down Blencathra.
      Instead, in the absence of Ruth, I devised a new form of tip-out: I drove myself out, ran back home, and, later, took a bus to retrieve the car. I drove, in fact, to Arkholme in order to run back along the Lune Valley Ramble footpath. I imagined a serene, silent, solitary saunter along the soothing river bank, communing with the river-birds, and enjoying sweeping views across to the Yorkshire Dales and Bowland hills.
      In fact, for much of the way overgrowths of Himalayan balsam concealed not only the path but also brambles, nettles, tree roots and mud pools. Running is enough of a struggle nowadays for me not to appreciate it being made even more so.
      Beyond the Loyn Bridge at Hornby running was in more open fields - but fields occupied by livestock that took unwanted interest in my progress. Approaching exhaustion, I reached a gate beyond Aughton that informed me “bull in field”. How I was supposed to respond to such a blunt fact I don’t know. I was on a public footpath and if I couldn’t reach Waterworks Bridge ahead I would have had to detour for many miles. In the event, the bull seemed as tired as I was.

loyn bridge Right: The Loyn Bridge at Hornby.

      So, as long as I keep a sense of proportion with my running I should avoid the worst effects of gumpitis. The disease is named after the American philosopher Forrest Gump, whose case notes record him saying “For no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I’d run to the end of town ... [and then] maybe I’d just run across Greenbow County ... [and then] across the great state of Alabama ... [and then] I ran clear to the ocean ... [and then] I figured ... I might as well just turn back, keep right on going”. Gump’s mortifying story has been turned into an educational video, intended to help potential sufferers.
      The only way to cure gumpitis is to encourage and assist the afflicted to run and run and then, when they have run enough, to force them to run some more. This usually returns the sufferer to his senses and often builds an immunisation against further attacks. Sadly, however, sometimes the disease is made even worse. There is nothing to be done in this case.
      The fleeting thought of Great Dodd reminded me of the only other occasion I have run up it. In 1988, Charles, a member of the university running group, announced, to my surprise at least, that he would attempt the Bob Graham Round. Charles was a 3-hour marathon runner but the Round is an order of magnitude harder than a marathon. It involves an expedition of about 64 miles over 42 Lakeland peaks, with a total ascent of over 8000 metres (nearly the height of Everest), the whole thing to be completed within 24 hours. It is named after Bob Graham, a fell-runner who in 1932 set the then record of 42 Lakeland peaks in 24 hours.
      I volunteered to join Charles’s 20-person support team. I waited, with others, in the gathering gloom on Dunmail Raise for Charles and his co-runners to appear and descend Steel Fell. Then, like the pit team in a Grand Prix, we leapt into action: we fed him, we watered him, we changed his clothes, we massaged him, we encouraged him. The one thing we didn’t do was ask him how he felt, because we knew that he had bonked (that is, become completely and utterly knackered) on the aptly-named Ill Crag and had expressed a firm resolve to end this mindless torture as soon as possible.
      We pushed him back on to his feet to begin the trudge up Seat Sandal. By this stage, he had been on the go for a little over 13 hours, so we didn’t hurry him. There were five of us on the night shift, charged with getting Charles over Helvellyn to Threlkeld: Ken (navigator), Richard (pacer), Paul and me (donkeys, carrying everything that could conceivably be needed), and, of course, Charles.
      It was a nightmare. The rain was torrential. A gale howled. It was pitch black. It was cold - cold enough for gloves on a July night. It seemed never-ending. For hours, we saw no light at all apart from our own head-lamps. We struggled up to several piles of stones, on Seat Sandal, Fairfield, Dollywaggon Pike, Nethermost Pike, Helvellyn, Low Man, White Side, Raise, Stybarrow Dodd, Watson’s Dodd, Great Dodd, Clough Head: 12 of Charles’s 42. It took us 5 hours and 43 minutes to get to Threlkeld.
      Now, if you know the Helvellyn ridge, you may be thinking “I can walk it in that”. And maybe you could, although probably not in a tempest in the dark. We did not really run. We walked up all the hills. We shuffled along the levels and down the slopes. We barely broke into a trot at all. But that was what the schedule expected. We did, in fact, take just 2 minutes longer than the schedule suggested - a tribute to our navigator Ken, as we could hardly see more than a yard in front of us.
      We delivered a bedraggled Charles to his team in Threlkeld. He had another 4½ hours to go, and, yes, he made it. I left them to it and returned to Dunmail Raise, with dawn breaking and cappuccino-coloured cascades gushing down all the gullies.
      What possesses us to take on these self-imposed challenges? Who would want to ‘run’ for 12 hours, reach a state of exhaustion, and then ‘run’ on for another 12 hours? Who in their right mind would want to struggle along the Helvellyn ridge in those conditions? It was certainly an experience and I’m grateful to Charles for that, but it did not stimulate any thoughts of doing the whole Bob Graham Round myself. I don’t mind scrambling up one mountain, or even a small number of them, if they’re huddled together, but not 42 of them. A day and night of struggling up and down mountains, no, thank you.
      Maybe Charles felt the same immediately afterwards, but I expect that he looks back on it now as one of the achievements of his life.
      Gump, by the way, ran for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours - without, it appears, any support team at all. He then stopped and proclaimed to the accumulated multitude of disciples that he was tired and that it was time to go home. And you can’t say fairer than that.
31/723/71%

35.  Run to a Standstill
September 3rd 2011

Once you start ultra-running where do you stop? For ne-plus-ultra-running you might attempt to pass the kaihogyo at the Buddhist temple of Mount Hiei in Japan. This requires you to:
      • complete a seven-year training programme of physical and mental challenges;
      • go for seven days without food, water or sleep (it used to be ten days but too many trainees died);
      • complete ten periods of 100 days of running at least 20 miles every day, including one 100-day period of over 50 miles every day;
      • complete each run wearing flimsy sandals, eating only a daily bowl of noodles, and carrying a rope and knife, so that you may kill yourself if you should fail.
Why would you want to do this? Because it is a path to spiritual enlightenment, why else? It is apparently not a well-trodden path, for only 46 men (no women are allowed on Mount Hiei) have passed the test in the last four centuries. The number who have dropped out or dropped dead seems not to be recorded.
      Nowadays successful candidates become media celebrities rather than meditative monks. In a TV interview [1] in 2004 the latest to pass said “The training has taught me that everyone and everything is equal. Everything that is alive is equal”. Another opined “The message I wish to convey is please live each day as if it is your entire life. If you start something today, finish it today”. Which is a rather odd philosophy for someone who did not finish for seven years.
      I don’t know about you but I was hoping for more signs of spiritual enlightenment after their seven years of travail. With due modesty, I think I could manage more profundity after five minutes of contemplation. How about: “Live each day to make tomorrow better”. Feel free to adopt it as your motto.
      The human body is capable of some remarkable feats of endurance, often in the name of religion. Ramadan and Lent are less severe examples of self-denial to deepen one’s faith. However, the veneer of religion makes it almost impossible to criticise activities such as the kaihogyo. Almost, but not completely.
      Some Western runners quote the kaihogyo as a source of inspiration but I have pity, not admiration, for the kaihogyo trainees. Are they troubled individuals to embark on such a programme? Is it a form of suicide? Sure, some individuals survive, but then they often do in other attempted suicides. It is seven years when they could have been doing something useful or at least more enjoyable. Is there any evidence that it generates religious wisdom?
      If I were a revered religious leader in about 1100 (when the kaihogyo started) then I could have pronounced “Water is divine. To reach God you must swim the English Channel every day for 100 days. If you should fail you must allow your body to sink under the water”. No doubt, some of my devoted followers would tackle it. A very few would succeed. None would be enlightened.
      The kaihogyo is about endurance. It tells us nothing about running. Its spirit seems, however, to be part of the mentality of some ultra-runners. There is a belief, or hope, that beyond the limits of human endurance there is a promised land of serenity, insight, wisdom and enlightenment.
      Murakami seemed to reach this promised land after running a mere 47 miles. After 34 miles his “leg muscles tightened up like a piece of old, hard rubber”. The next 13 miles were “excruciating ... my whole body was rebelling ... different parts of my body, one after another, began to hurt ... they screamed, complained, yelled in distress”. He struggled through those 13 miles of “sheer torment” partly by repeating a mantra “I’m not a human. I’m a piece of machinery. I don’t need to feel a thing”.
      Hold on a moment. Let’s leave Murakami in agony for a while. Is this really why we run? Murakami has already told us he runs in a mental void. Now we are to be a physical non-entity too. Do we run to deny our humanity? My mantra is, if anything, the opposite: “I am human. I’m not a piece of machinery. I need to feel everything”.

green lane Right: Green Lane, with Ward’s Stone and Clougha Pike ahead.

      We have all seen film of runners collapsing towards the end of a marathon, physically unable to put one leg in front of the other, mentally disoriented. Is it simply a matter of will-power? If they persevered, would running eventually become easier? Is there always a promised land beyond the pain barrier? I don’t know, because I’ve never pushed the pain barrier that hard, but I doubt it. The only thing I’d expect to find beyond the pain barrier is more pain, or worse. In fact, seeing the state of runners at the pain barrier, I wouldn’t trust anything they say about what is beyond it.
      Where were we? Ah, Murakami, at 47 miles. At which point he “passed through” and all he “had to do was go with the flow”. He had “been transformed into a being on auto-pilot” and “physical pain had all but vanished ... everything was working just fine”. He comments that “running had entered the realm of the metaphysical”.
      Well, bully for Murakami. I do, however, resent the implication that this is what runners should aim for: to run so far that you may become “a piece of machinery” and “on auto-pilot”. McDougall’s awe of the super-heroes of ultra-running carries the same message: that ordinary runners should strive to run in their wake, despite, or perhaps because of, the exhaustion and pain that will be felt.
      Of course, some extraordinary athletes are mentally and physiologically suited to running very long distances. That does not mean that we should all follow them. There are extreme versions of almost all activities. You might as well argue, for example, that because some sailors sail around the world all sailors should try to. Or that because some divers can dive to a depth of 20 metres all divers should try to.
      McDougall’s argument, however, is that very-long-distance running is not extreme, it is natural. It is in our genes to run very long distances, because that is what, according to him, we did when hunting down prey on the African plains: “Running was the superpower that made us human - a superpower that all humans possess” (p239). However, the few modern persistence hunters run up to five hours, not twelve or more. They are careful not to run to exhaustion: they would become prey themselves if they did.
      My best-of-the-year 34-mile week, taking me (at one point in the week) to an unprecedented 75% on the Fitnessometer, pales into insignificance. But is Satie’s 19-hour Vexations better than Beethoven’s 70-minute 9th Symphony? Actually, Vexations is a 1½-minute piece repeated 840 times: like running around an athletic track 840 times. Perhaps Sorabji’s 4-hour Opus clavicembalisticum is a more genuine music ultra-marathon. Perhaps its title reflects its absurdity.
      As it happens, my longest run this week was a shade over 70 minutes although I wouldn’t presume to compare it to Beethoven’s 9th. I was tipped-out on the A6 near Warton to run back past the Borwick Lakes fishery, through Over Kellet to Nether Kellet, past the (seemingly inactive) limestone quarries, and on to the Crook o’Lune and home. The run is gently uphill until at the final crest, near Laverack Hall and Green Lane, oh, ode to joy, a breathtaking panorama is revealed, with Lancaster and Morecambe Bay over to the right, the Ward’s Stone ridge ahead, glimpses of the Yorkshire Dales peaks up the valley to the left, and, down below, nestled serenely below the Caton Moor windmills, the green fields of my home terrain. I am possibly biassed but there can be no finer view in England, especially when it means that a long run is nearly over.

[1}.  Australian Broadcasting Corporation (September 14, 2004), Japan - Marathon Monks, on-line transcript.
34/757/73%

36.  Running Sacred [1]
September 11th 2011

I missed my long Sunday run this week. My left knee asked for a day off. The rest of me took a day off in sympathy.
      A few weeks ago my knee had buckled when I stood up from a chair. Since then the knee had been happier running than standing. On Sunday, however, the knee had seized up a little. But I’m not complaining, after six full weeks of trouble-free running.
      Sunday morning has always seemed the natural time for the ‘long run’, the cornerstone of the week’s running, because after it I feel justified in passing the rest of the day in idleness. That, apart from the long run, is what Sundays are for. So, rather paradoxically, Sunday is my psychological rest day. Saturday may be a ‘rest day’ in the sense that I don’t normally run then but usually Saturday is hectic (at least, it was when the children were around) and far from a rest.
      I used to run great loops from the house: to Hornby, over Loyn Bridge and back on the other side of the river to the Crook o’Lune; or to Hornby, south to Haylot Farm and around Caton Moor - roughly half-marathon distance. Sometimes I would combine the two (about 18 miles). As I circled around the hills new panoramas of distant peaks opened up. Nowadays I am content with smaller loops on my Sunday runs, around the windmills or to Claughton quarry.
lune from wenning

Two views on the loop around Caton Moor: Deep Clough and Ward’s Stone (above), Haylot Farm and Roeburndale (below).

lune from wenning
      On my Sunday morning runs I pass people on their way to or from church, but less so than I used to, because I try to avoid them. There is no by-law against running on a Sunday morning but in a small village there might as well be. I can sense their frowns as I run past in my shorts, while they stride along in their Sunday best, as they have done for centuries.
      As I pass them I sometimes wonder whether what I am doing is a form of worship, of thanksgiving for health and for the natural world. But I soon pull myself together. I am not religious (clearly, as otherwise I would be going to church) but if I were I would expect more from religion than I have found in running.
      Some runners like to develop the metaphor of running as religion. Runners congregate for training and for a race; they have their bibles (revered running guides); they practise ascetic denial (they train, they suffer pain); they express gratitude to God at the end of long race (“Thank God that’s over”). But I am not sure that the metaphor can be taken any further for running than it can for, say, fishing.
      Those, however, who believe that it can will welcome the birth in 2009 of a new world religion, Runnism. Runnism worships physical well-being and derives from the peace of mind instilled by long-distance running.
      Just as Christianity has its ten commandments, so Runnism has its ‘seven steps’: live life to the fullest; value long-term health; understand well-being doesn’t come without sacrifice; ... No, I can’t continue. It must be a spoof, although it is often hard to tell on the web. However, a spoof only works if there is something to make a spoof of.
      It depends, of course, how you define ‘religion’. Its normal sense involves some belief in a supernatural divinity, and there is nothing supernatural with my running. If, more abstractly, religion is regarded as some means towards peace and enlightenment, then, perhaps, for some runners, running plays that role.
      When questioned whether he regarded running as a religion George Sheehan (who was mentioned in Week 26) replied that “Running is ... a monastery - a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal”.
      Far be it from to imply that runners should not commune with God as they run, if they wish. If you are religiously inclined then I imagine that you would so wish, as you would in all your other activities. No doubt it is better for you to think about God while running than it is for me to think about running while in church. My question is whether running makes you more religious or spiritual than you might otherwise be.
      McDougall addresses this question indirectly, by attributing a philosophy to the coach Joe Vigil, which, since it is described in approving terms, I assume is close to McDougall’s own philosophy. Vigil believed that “you had to become a strong person before you could become a strong runner”. This required “building [the] soul as much as [the] strength”. He felt “there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running”.
      It is an appealing idea that only strong, soulful, loving people can become good runners, and that good runners become strong, soulful, loving people. McDougall names (p99) three individuals to support his case: Emil Zatopek, Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela.
      Emil Zatopek was, of course, a great runner, winning three gold medals at the 1952 Olympics. I am sure he was a great man, too. I wonder if all Olympics marathon winners were or are great people. Perhaps so, for you clearly need strong personalities to win Olympics marathons.
      I am not sure of the running credentials of Lincoln and Mandela, although they are certainly worthy people to have on your side. They are described by McDougall as being included in “the pantheon of dedicated runners”. Abraham Lincoln’s running record is lost in the mists of time but he was a wrestling champion, enshrined as an Outstanding American in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
      Nelson Mandela did indeed enjoy long-distance running, although for 27 years he could run no distance at all, except on the spot. He said that running taught him that training counted more than intrinsic ability. He was also a keen boxer and was voted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame - but for knocking out apartheid, not really for his boxing.
      Who can possibly say whether Lincoln and Mandela’s status as great men is any way attributable to their running? Nobody - but I am prepared to give an opinion. No, it isn’t. Even so, it is certainly uplifting to feel, as I plod through the mud on a cold wet Sunday morning, that I am developing my soul, my spirit and my love and well as my fitness.
      Yes, the knee seems a little better. Thank you for asking.

{1}.  This may be a misprint for ‘running scared’. Who knows?
24/781/72%

37.  Up and Running
September 17th 2011

What passes for summer has passed. Not once this year have I been able to use the excuse that it is too hot to run. Not once has a forecast of high temperatures induced me to run in the early morning, before the sun has set to work.

crook o'lune Left: My path under the Crook o‘Lune bridge, under water again.

      Perhaps that is a blessing. My body is not attuned to energetic activity first thing in the morning. It needs a couple of hours to get prepared for running. But I used, in the 1980s, to be able to get up and out before 8 o’clock. Some days I must have been on the roads in the frost and the dark.
      Published marathon training programmes tend to assume that we are all professional athletes and will have no problem finding time for a long run every day. The only way that I could get the mileage up to the required 60 miles or so a week was by including runs to and from work.
      This was not as straightforward as it may sound. It meant being on the narrow lanes before the traffic (mainly university staff, who do not start work early) and in the evening running the ‘long way’ back over the Cragg to avoid the traffic (mainly university staff, who stop work early). I’d count that as 17 miles.
      Then there were the logistics to worry about. The day before I had to leave a set of clothes in the office to change into. I am relieved that I never had to spend the working day in my running shorts. If it rained on the way in, I’d have to wear wet gear for the run back. If the weather turned bad for the return run, I’d have to put up with it.
      One thing I remember about the early morning run of long ago is that you must fully commit to it the night before. It is not possible (for me, anyway) to lie in a snug bed in the morning and persuade yourself to get up and run. It’s like setting an early alarm to catch a train: you must just get up and get on with it. Your legs must be on the road before your brain realises what you’re up to.
      In retrospect, I quite enjoyed those early morning runs although they were hard work at the time. The quiet lanes were a pleasure to run along. Nobody, surely, could have a better view on their way to work than the one I had across the Quernmore valley to Clougha Pike. It was good to feel that the running was being put to some purpose, to save petrol. I could feel smug that I’d already had a long run by the time colleagues turned up for work. And I never once was so slow running in that I bumped into myself running back.
      As my enthusiasm for marathons decreased, so did the runs to and from work. In any case, my services became required as a chauffeur to get the children to school in Lancaster. Work began to involve more travel, to project meetings and conferences, many of them overseas. This plays havoc with any training schedule. The travel itself was debilitating enough and I never slept well or adjusted to any time change before it was time to return. So I was always too tired to run properly when away from home.
      Even so, I usually took my running gear. Often it would stay unpacked. If I did run, it was a problem to know where to run. If I wanted to run for, say, 40 minutes, I’d run in a random direction for 20 minutes and then turn and run back. I remember running in Taiwan and being gawped at by children who had clearly never seen an alien running along their streets. It was much too steamy to run, anyway, so I retreated to a few laps around the university running track.
      Gradually, as a career develops, the demands and expectations of work make it harder to find the time and motivation to run. When working with others, it requires determination and a thick skin to excuse yourself, as though you have urgent business to attend to, and then be seen running along the road. And academics are supposed to take work home (theses to read, lectures to prepare, and so on): it doesn’t create a good impression to run home with nothing.
      One of the advantages of running in retirement is that you can run at whatever time of day suits you best. I have no need, obviously, to fit in with the demands of work. But is it an advantage? Nowadays, it is easy to put off running, aware that I will always be able to find time later in the day. So, if it’s drizzling in the morning I might postpone the run until it stops. Then the drizzle turns to a downpour and I don’t get out at all.
      Perhaps I need to remind myself of the advantages of an early morning run. For one thing, it gets it over with: not that you have some penance to pay and you might as well suffer the ordeal as soon as possible but that once you have your run under your belt whatever happens in the rest of the day you will have done your running. There might, for example, be thunder and lightning in the evening, but you won’t mind.
      There is often something special about early mornings. The skies are a deep blue. The sun has barely risen, leaving a refreshing coolness in the air. There is a stillness, because the thermals have not yet been stirred into action. Sometimes a mist settles in the valley. In terms of the climate, then, in the summer early mornings are the best time to run. The evenings may be cool but there is often a dusty mugginess in the air at the fag-end of a sweaty day.
      In the early morning there are few people and little traffic about. The wildlife is in its natural element. The birds, hares, rabbits, deer may be active at this time because they too know that a siesta may be required later. If you run in order to commune with nature or to engage in private reflection then early morning is the best time.
      Also, there is something virtuous about the early morning run. While others are lazily starting their days, you are already out in the fields. It brings a rosy glow to feel that you have completed a five-mile run while others have struggled to do anything.
      These, then, are the advantages of early morning running. Persuaded? No? Me neither. In the 1980s I ran early in the mornings because I had decided to train for marathons. Today, I have no such commitment. I don’t need to force myself to run early in the morning.
      I will, therefore, reserve the early morning run as a special ‘treat’. Something, perhaps, for when hot weather is forecast to break into storms later in the day. That, however, is unlikely to happen this year now that the wild, wet storms of autumn are already tearing leaves from the trees before they have had the chance to turn brown.
      I made the most of the one fine day of the week (Thursday) by having a tip-out in Bolton-le-Sands and running back along the canal and old railway line. Despite having said that I’m not much concerned about mileages, I thought that I’d make an effort to run 36 miles this week as, who knows?, it may be my last chance to do so. As you may recall (Week 7), the significance of 36 miles is that it is Murakami’s threshold for ‘serious running’.
      It is perhaps twenty years since I last ran along this bit of canal and I had quite forgotten what a pleasant run it is. Not exciting in any way but as peaceful as possible, apart from about fifty people taking their dogs for an early (for me to be running) walk. I met nobody walking without a dog, no anglers, no runners, one cyclist, and a few people pottering in their canal barges. On the canal were many ducks, which I must learn to distinguish, and about a score of swans.
      The canal towpath has the considerable virtue of being flat. The Lancaster Canal was built to follow the contour - it is, in fact, the longest stretch (41 miles) of canal in England without locks. As a result, its path is gently curving, providing a view one minute over Morecambe Bay to the Lake District hills, the next towards the Ashton Memorial in Lancaster.
      From the canal, I dropped down steps to the old railway line, which is not only flat but straight. The track was again a haven of peace, although I could hear the traffic of the real world around me.
      So I have done some ‘serious running’ this week. I expect that I will revert to my normal ‘light running’ soon enough.
36/817/75%

38.  Giving Me the Run Around
September 24th 2011

Joe Henderson has been writing about running for over fifty years, including a weekly column since 1982, an achievement that I am well able to appreciate. He has the experience and opportunity to reflect upon a lifetime’s running. When he writes [1] that his “most memorable days are all race days” and that memories of ‘everyday runs’ “so easily and often won are short-lived” you have to respect that.
      I can only say that my memories are different. Of course, I remember something of events such as the London Marathon but of the scores of ordinary races that I ran I remember little. If I’d won a few, as perhaps Henderson did, I might remember them better.
      However, the contrast with a road-race is not an ‘everyday run’. The runs along High Street (Week 20) and from the Cairngorm ski-lift to Kincraig (Week 27) were not everyday runs. Those runs provide memories and have value in and of themselves, without needing to be considered as training for some race.
      Murakami finds comfort in running the same routes over and over again, for years on end, it seems. He even becomes fond of the people he sees regularly en route, although he doesn’t know who they are. He runs the same races repeatedly. At the time of writing his book he had run 7 Boston Marathons and 25 marathons in all even though he says (p68) that “it’s all just a repeat of what came before”.
      I have tried hard to ensure that my running over the decades has retained my interest. For me, variety is the spice of running. I said before that I prefer to continue doing something I’m competent at rather than trying something new. I do not, however, like to continue to do it in exactly the same way, forever. The awareness that I have run road-races in the past, along, of course, with my increasing decrepitude, makes it certain that I will not attempt them again.
      When I was running road-races I never ran the same race more than twice. Twice seemed sufficient to provide all that I would gain from that particular experience. I looked for somewhere different to race, because part of the enjoyment of racing was to visit different places.
      Nowadays, running from home, I can set off up the hill or down the hill. There are three routes up the hill: two lanes and one track. There are four routes down the hill: one up river, one over the river across the bridge, two down river (one along the old railway track, one by the river). That gives me seven starting routes.
      In any one week I may not set off in the same direction more than once. It is not a rigorous rule that I consciously apply. It’s just that each day I think “OK, where haven’t I run recently?” and I set off in that direction. After a while each of those basic directions branch out to provide various further options. In all, I must have a score or more ‘standard’ routes, all of which are loops, so that I could run them either way.
      Not only do I run different routes but I vary the time of day that I run them. I don’t want to see the same people walking the same dogs in the same place every day. A run up to the windmills in the morning with the sun ahead rising over Ward’s Stone is very different to a run in the evening, with the sun behind setting over Morecambe Bay.
      Even after all these years, novel incidents occur to keep me interested. For example, I was recently stopped, while running by the river, by two youths with a spade and two beagles. They asked me if knew where there were rabbits. As it happens, I know that there are rabbits galore in the fields right next to where they had parked their car. Rabbits are not foolish enough to live on a floodplain although some youths seem foolish enough to expect them to. I vaguely directed them into the wide meander, where they could pass many fruitless hours.
      A couple of weeks ago I came across a group of boys apparently on a map-reading exercise. They had been deposited at the Cragg with the task of reaching the car park south in Quernmore. I found them, lost, near Crossgill, north of the Cragg.
      My tip-outs also add variety. There are several places where I can be tipped out, each of which provides a number of routes home. In recent weeks I have been tipped out at various points of the compass and different distances from home.
      Of course, my out-running was (and is, perhaps) very much intended to provided variety. I have several hundred mountains and hills within my forty-mile radius circle, each with several ways up them. There are hundreds of dales and valleys to explore as well. I have never repeated, and will never need to repeat, an out-run. Every single one of them provides me with a unique experience.
      This week I went for an out-run in Wensleydale. Somehow I had never before seen the largest natural lake in Yorkshire, Semer Water. It may be the largest but it is not large. It is less than a kilometre across.
      I began in Bainbridge, a typical Dales village, with a wide village green, complete with stocks for miscreants (no longer in use, I believe). The River Bain is said to be the shortest river in England, only 2¾ miles long. Because of all the recent rain, I avoided the footpaths by the river and ran, accompanied by goldfinches, on the road above Semer Water to Stalling Busk, a quiet cul-de-sac.
      A rough track dropped down to a ford that is a problem for walkers who don’t want to get their boots wet. I don’t mind getting my running shoes wet, as indeed I did as the ford was far underwater. At Marsett cows wandered freely around the bridge and over a sort of village green. I ran on the other side of Semer Water to Countersett and then up a steep lane to reach Cam High Road, a track on the line of the Roman road that continued to a camp just east of Bainbridge.
      It took me about 90 minutes and did not exhaust me enough to discourage me from attempting more out-running, weather permitting.
semer water    cam high road    wensleydale

Semer Water and Addleborough, from the steep lane. Cam High Road to Bainbridge. Wensleydale near Hawes, from near Cam High Road.

      Running memories are not memories of running. That is, they are not memories of the activity of running, because the activity varies so little that any instance of it is not particularly memorable. Running memories are of the context of running.
      For Henderson, the context that interests him most is the road-race. For a while, it was for me too. But I no longer see running as a self-contained activity. It is part of a wider experience. I use my running to see what is happening nearby and to learn about and appreciate the environment within which I run. Anyone who has an ‘everyday run’ along the Cam High Road without imagining Roman soldiers marching along is missing half the fun.

[1].  Henderson, Joe (2004), Marathon Training, Champaign, Illinois: Human Kinetics.
32/849/74%

39.  Runs in the Family
October 1st 2011

Continuing my ceaseless endeavour to unravel the enigma of running, I have investigated the 1979 film Running, which, as its title indicates, provides a definitive study of the phenomenon.
      The Michael Douglas character is a loser and quitter because of a chronic fear of failure. But he runs. He runs to work in a suit and tie (I never thought of that). However, his family does not understand. The children ask “Why does he do that? He’s embarrassing”. The wife can only reply “It makes him feel good”.
      He eventually focusses on running the Olympics marathon, as you do. The wife cannot cope with all his training and his neglect of the family. He says “For the first time in my life I’m doing what I want”. They separate. He deliberately comes fourth in the trial in order to avoid selection but an injury to another runner means he has to run anyway. So ... actually, I’ll leave you to work out the rest of the plot. I am more interested in the notion that serious running is incompatible with family life.
      Running is inherently an individual activity. There is a lot of “I” in the books of McDougall and Murakami - and in this diary, too. If running is a journey of self-discovery that’s only to be expected, I suppose.
      I may have missed it but I didn’t see any indication in McDougall’s book that he is a family man until the acknowledgements on page 286. He seems able to run about and trip into the canyons of Mexico without the distraction or support of his family. Runners, writers, medical experts and coaches all feature in the fable but the family are irrelevant, which is at least consistent with the opinion that “the secret to happiness is right at your feet”.
      Murakami says (p21) that he “just can’t picture someone liking [him] on a personal level”. So we imagine him to be a loner, as runners are assumed to be. However, he has already said (p16) that he has a wife. Can he not picture her liking him on a personal level? She pops up again (p32) but only to say “All right”. Murakami explains: “I thought I’d change my lifestyle entirely, so we moved out to Narashino”. She reappears (p149) to ask “What in the world happened?” after a disappointing marathon by Murakami. I have no idea if Murakami has children: it is of no account, as far as his running is concerned.
      This, it seems to me, is unduly harsh on the family. It is taking the loneliness of the long-distance runner too far. As I have said, I prefer to run alone and when running a marathon you are pretty much on your own, mentally if not physically. However, I doubt that I would run at all without the support of the family - not in the explicit sense of coming to cheer at the road-side but in the sense that the family accepts and appreciates that this is something that I like to do and that I need to find time to do. No more and no less than we each accept and appreciate that each of us has our own interests to pursue.
      Ruth has never suggested that I should not run. There has never been an implicit “you’re not going running now are you, when there’s [insert a long list of jobs] to do?” On the contrary, in fact. If I say “I don’t feel much like running today” she’s more likely to say “Why not a gentle one down to the river? You might see a kingfisher”. There is just a subjective understanding that it will probably do me good.
      In a reciprocal way, I like to think that I’ve never been less than encouraging to Ruth’s riding (or anything else that she gets involved in), although I do, of course, take every opportunity to point out that riding is much more expensive than running. Without this mutual support, we might not have continued running and riding while collecting our pensions.
      When the children were young (when I was road-racing in the 1980s) they were often taken along for an outing, which I don’t believe was too much of a chore. I’d say “How about coming to Southport tomorrow - nice beach, I believe”. To them, no doubt, the race was the least important part of the day.
      I did not run the same races over and over. I’d pick ones that could be combined with a family day-out. Without thinking too hard now, I can recall family day-outs, with a race for me an incidental activity in the middle, to Ambleside, Barnsley, Bentham, Blackpool, Carnforth, Clitheroe, Coniston, Dent, Fleetwood, Heversham, Huddersfield, Ingleton, Keswick, Kirkby Lonsdale, London, Lytham St Annes, Morecambe, Preston, Southport and Windermere.
      As the children grew up and developed their own interests, occasionally - not often - they (the interests, that is) could be combined with my running. For example, in 1990, when Martin was keen on radio-controlled gliding, we went to Parlick, a cone-shaped hill known for its air-currents whichever way the wind was blowing. I left him there, happily gliding for an hour or two, while I went for a run through Fiendsdale and Bleadale.

crook o'lune Left: Glider over Parlick.

      I don’t want to make too much of this. The running day-outs were only a part - a small part - of what we did as a family. My running was an oasis of calm within the whirlwind of the others’ activities but running was not something from which the rest of the family was excluded. It was and is just part of our life.
      When I began out-running the children were more or less independent but even so I couldn’t have done it without the family’s acceptance or even encouragement that I disappear for half a day or more. Now that I am retired there is even more encouragement for me to disappear out of the house.
      This week, inspired by last week’s Cam High Road, I tackled a Roman road nearer to home. As mentioned in Week 16, the track (the old salt road) over the Bowland fells merges with the Roman road to Ribchester in its southern part. I had run up to the old county boundary gate from the north but never from the south. So I set off from Slaidburn to run to the boundary gate or for 60 minutes (whichever happened first) and then turn back. In the event, I ‘only’ ran 55 minutes before turning back, because of an unfortunate incident.
      I ran in peace, for the track is far from any road or houses, as far as the gate on Croasdale Fell at the highest point (416m) of the track, a mile short of the boundary gate. For the last few hundred yards I was preceded by a dozen Belties that insisted on jogging along the track ahead of me rather than diverting onto the vast moor available to them. Belties are Belted Galloway cattle, black with a distinctive white belt, a tough breed that can survive on the wild moors.
      As we approached the gate, with a wire fence both sides, I assumed that they would then turn aside. Instead they went straight through the wire fence as though it wasn’t there. It isn’t now. I’m very sorry about that. I didn’t foresee it at all. The bullocks were not panicking. In fact, they seemed to be enjoying the exercise. We weren’t running fast by any means. It just shows what momentum a herd of bullocks has.
      I stopped at the gate for a few minutes wondering what to do. I could only retreat. If I had gone on I might have driven the bullocks through the next fence and on into Roeburndale, miles from where they should be. I returned to Slaidburn, more exhausted than I have felt all year.
      Later in the week the temperatures rose to record highs for late September. The swallows have already left, having given up on our summer, but no swallows don’t make a winter. I tried to make good use of the weather but I have felt quite drained after the Slaidburn run. Perhaps my body is beginning to say ‘enough’.
      ...
      So, what do you think happens in Running? No, he doesn’t win the Olympics marathon. That would be too simple. He goes into the lead - but then falls and injures himself. He lies in agony for some time. Long after all the other runners have finished and the medal ceremony has concluded, he experiences a revelation, rises and staggers, in pain, in the dark, through traffic, to a crescendo of adulation, to the finishing line, into the arms of his wife, to gain the acclaim of the nation and the respect of his children.
31/880/75%

40.  The Running of the Bulls
October 8th 2011

Running around the fields, hills, fells and valleys as I do nowadays makes me feel more at one with the local fauna. Too at one sometimes.
      I am still distraught that my encounter with the Belties last week led to the demolition of the wire fence. I wasn’t running where I oughtn’t. It was open access land. I didn’t really alarm the cattle. They seemed content, as I was, before they ran through the fence. Normally, if I see cattle ahead I will detour so as not to disturb them but on this occasion I didn’t fancy leaving my track for the boggy moors, to which the Belties are so much better suited than me.
      The reaction of cattle to my running is unpredictable. Usually, they just look at me, puzzled. Sometimes, one may break into a trot. Then another may join it. Before you know it, a stampede may be underway. I am never convinced that cattle know where they’re running when they run. I am sure that the Belties did not ‘want’ to run through the fence.
      The herd on Croasdale Fell was prevented by cattle grids from reaching public roads. It is, however, not uncommon to encounter stray cows and even bulls on the road. It is even less uncommon to find stray sheep. Cows on the road tend to ignore me but sheep will run on ahead. Generally, we think of sheep following behind but a worse problem is when they persist on running ahead (like my Belties). Sometimes if I were to continue running I’d chase the sheep into the next village, maybe miles away. So I usually hop over a fence or wall to leave them be. Even within their fields, sheep can be a danger. I was once butted in the chest by one which hadn’t heard me approach and leapt, startled, into my path. I now shout a warning to them. (I try to make sure humans know I’m coming too: they are a very nervous breed.)

crook o'lune Right: A Lune valley sheep.

      The most excitable farm animal is the horse. The sight of a runner is liable to set it galloping around its paddock. A pack of runners, as in a road-race, may drive it to a frenzy. It has been known for a horse to escape from its field in its eagerness to join the race. This, of course, can be dangerous for both runners and horse. On the other hand, I have found the fell ponies that roam freely in the Howgills and Shap Fells perfectly docile (at least, so far).
      I have met many varieties of farm animal that has escaped from its farm: chicken, peacock, goose, goat, pig (although that was while walking, not running). Some farmers use electric wires to keep their stock in but that, too, is a danger to runners. I have run into three such wires and when you are running at speed you stay in contact with that shocking wire for what seems a very long time. All the wires were across public footpaths, without warning.
      As well as being electrocuted, butted and harassed by ferocious animals, I am often under aerial assault. Lapwings and curlews are the most aggressive, at least, during the breeding season, when they will swirl above with the most blood-curdling calls. I have had buzzard circling close overhead, as if deciding if I were prey.
      Grouse wait until you nearly step upon them before bursting out. Snipe scare the wits out of you by darting out of the grass at your feet and zig-zagging away. Other game-birds are bred in profusion at the local halls - Littledale Hall, Halton Green, Claughton Hall - and, especially in autumn, provide alarming company when they bluster out from cover. If only they’d evolved to stay where they were - they’d not be shot then.
      I noticed that this year Claughton Hall specialised in red-legged or French partridges. These birds are, as the second name suggests, not native. In fact, it is only in recent decades that they have begun to breed in northern England. Now, thanks to Claughton Hall, the local moors are liable to be full of them.
      Red-legged partridges are dainty, trusting birds. They are reluctant to fly. If they are being bred to be shot then I don’t think that they would provide much of a challenge. Indeed, they are so friendly that I could probably grab a brace as I ran past. The halls do not breed snipe, perhaps because they are too difficult for the average paying sniper to shoot.
      The native hunters, such as they are, ignore me. In fact, I’ve never seen a fox locally. When I mentioned this to the Littledale gamekeeper he said “No, because I kill them all”. The most he’s killed in one year is 27, apparently. If he didn’t kill them, there would be no lapwing, curlew and, more importantly, grouse, pheasant and partridge - for people to pay to shoot.
      I do see stoat occasionally, including two white ones (ermine), which are becoming rare in our milder winters. Once when a stoat hid in a stone wall I stopped to see if I could spot him. After a few seconds he popped his head out of a crack, we stared at one another for a while, and then he went back in. He repeated this half-a-dozen times. He then made a very aggressive squeak and I recalled that I’d read that he’s a bloodthirsty killer. So I ran off.
      However, all these hazards pale into insignificance compared to the runner’s bête noire - the pet dog, which is the only animal that runs towards me rather than away. Farm dogs are generally no problem, although one sheepdog did bite me on the buttock. Everybody who parks at the Crook o’Lune for a walk has to have a dog, or several. It’s compulsory, I believe.
      Some dog owners can only stop their dogs chasing runners by grabbing them tightly (the dogs, that is). They expect me to thank them, as I run by, for all the trouble they’ve gone to on my behalf, caused by their own incompetence. More usually, the dogs are left to run free. It always seems to come as a surprise to the owners, but not to me, when they bound into my path.
      I particularly like what owners say to their dogs, in a show of remonstration. The most recent effort was “That’s not on, is it?”. I like to imagine the dogs carrying out a semantic analysis to determine the deep significance of such utterances. Sometimes the owners speak to me rather than their dogs. The other day I was smilingly told “She always does that” as compensation for having my leg gnawed off.
      Nothing so untoward has occurred in this week’s running. It has been too grey, wet and windy to tackle an out-run, or even a tip-out. However, I have, with commendable determination, continued to run around locally and I feel that I am beginning to disprove my comment of Week 34 that my running is getting no easier and no faster.
      Now, when I set out for a relaxing run I find that I can complete it, with ease, in a time that would have required a lung-bursting effort a few months ago. And on Tuesday when I ran what I call the Hawes House loop - a loop that I run fairly often - I sailed round in under 39 minutes. I had never beaten 40 minutes before (since the beginning of 2010, that is). I feel that there is yet more life in the old legs still!

      P.S. On my Sunday run this week a car drew up ahead of me. In it was Charles, of the Bob Graham Round (Week 34), whom I had not seen for many years. He said that he no longer runs after “a combination of the marathons, Morris dancing, fell-running, and the Bob Graham” led to two knee operations. I reckon it must have been entirely due to the Morris dancing.
      P.P.S. The appeal against the Caton Moor windmill rejection (Week 32) has been withdrawn. So, no more windmills, for a while, at least.
      P.P.P.S. I hope you don’t mind but I have decided to change the title of this document from “Rusty Running”. The rustiness of my running no longer seems its most relevant characteristic, so I’ve relegated it to the sub-title. Ten weeks of 30 miles or more has given me a well-oiled smoothness beyond my anticipation! It’s now “Fifty Weeks Running” (I plan to stop two weeks early, for Christmas).
32/912/75%

41.  I'd Run a Mile
October 15th 2011

This week has been very muckish, an adjective that entered our vocabulary during our time in Donegal. Standing at the cottage door we could either see the mountain of Muckish or it was too muckish (drizzly, with low cloud) to see it.
      It’s been perpetually gloomy, with the windmills lost in cloud. Lancaster weather station recorded 1.7 hours of sun in the whole week. Some people say that they like autumn but for me it can be the most dismal time of the year, with everything in a state of decay, winding down for winter. Mouldy leaves lie everywhere. Strange fungi sprout on the lawn. And, most depressingly, all my paths across the fields have become muddy, as they will remain until April.
      It is hard to be motivated to run on such dull days. I don’t mind light rain but I like to see the hills when I run - or, better, to run on the hills, but there is no point in cloud. I cannot justify taking the car to go out-running in these conditions and, lacking inspiration, I have run along the old railway line more often than I’d like.
      I noticed that they have recently put up a sign at the Lune Aqueduct saying “Caton 3”. Just for the heck of it, I thought I’d give myself a ‘time trial’.

crook o'lune Right: The Lune Aqueduct carrying the Lancaster Canal over the River Lune.

      Over the year I have become intrigued by the question of how well a fit 65-now-66-year-old might be expected to be able to run. If I have an unrealistic view of the possible then I can hardly assess the actual. I might get disappointed at failing to reach optimistic goals or elated at surpassing pessimistic ones.
      In the spirit of inquiry, I turned to Jim Sloan’s Staying Fit Over Fifty [1] where I found the following: “if you can run a 6-minute mile in your thirties ... what will be your mile time when you’re 65? ... Well, ... you should be able to run that mile in ...”.
      What figure do you think he gives?
      Earlier (Week 12) I commented on Murakami’s disappointment that, as he entered his fifties, his marathon times began to worsen and on McDougall’s claim that 64-year-olds can run marathons as fast as 19-year-olds. I pointed out that the men’s best marathon time for a 65-year-old was about 30% slower than the best marathon times of 30 years ago.
      I am not interested in running marathons any more but I can manage more than the mile that Sloan asks about. In any case, I cannot find figures for the mile - it is not raced so much any more. Let’s consider the 10k (6.2 miles) instead. Old runners may be able to plod on forever but the 10k, while not exactly a sprint, requires a bit more leg speed.
      The decline for the men’s best 10km times is: 
 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79
   7%   11%   15%   18%   25%   28%   36%   49%
These figures are similar to those I gave for the marathon (Week 12). The decline for the 10k is a little steeper than for the marathon up to 55 and then less so. We might now hazard an answer to Sloan’s question, but first let’s consider whether the various factors that constitute aging are likely to affect our mile times more or less than they do our marathon and 10k times.
      The science of aging is complex and the signs of aging manifold. Some superficial changes (such as wrinkles and balding) do not affect our running. Neither do some profound changes (such as loss of memory). The main changes that seem relevant are a loss of muscle, balance, reaction time and flexibility, a hardening of the arteries, and a weakening of the bones. Energy fades away, like the tidal waters receding over Morecambe Bay, imperceptible over a short time period but manifest over a longer one. Unlike the tidal waters, it will never return.
      Although these changes cannot be prevented, they may be mitigated. At all events, if they are the cause of the decline in marathon and 10k times, then they will surely cause a similar decline in mile times. Possibly more so, since at any instant mile-runners are closer to their physical limits than long-distance runners.
      So I predict that the world best mile time for a 65-year-old male is about 30% slower than the world record of 35 years ago (3:49.4), that is, about 4:58. And my answer to Sloan’s question is ... 7:48.
      The answer that Sloan gives is ... 6:27. 6:27! Where have I gone wrong?
      My table above is for the 'best runner'. However, it is not the same individual producing these world bests. The 60-69-year-old record holders are not the same runners as those who held the 30-39-year-old records 30 years ago. Clearly, the former have declined less than 30% and the latter more. Perhaps I should focus on the former, since I’m interested in what is possible in theory. Unfortunately, it is hard to calculate their decline since some were not even running 30 years ago. For example, Yoshihisa Hosaka, who set the 60-year-old marathon record, started running at 36.
      Also, I assumed that if my 'best runner' declined at 30% then so would an ordinary runner. Perhaps ordinary runners decline less fast - after all, they have a lower standard to decline from. Sloan’s 6-minute miler has declined just 7% in 30 years.
      Perhaps I am wrong to focus on percentage declines. Maybe all runners decline the same amount each year. If so, then, according to Sloan, that amount would be about 1 second per mile.
      Where does all this leave me? Given that I could run 10k in 33:20 in the 1980s how fast might I hope to run 10k now? If I have declined at 1 second per mile each year (or 7%) then my predicted time is about 36:00. The world best 10k time for a 66-year-old is 35:59. I just need to get fit and I’ll be challenging world bests. I find this a trifle hard to believe.
      I’ll return to the number I first thought of, 30%. This predicts 43:20 or so, that is, about 7 minutes per mile. That feels more like it. It happens to correspond to the 100% I built into my Fitnessometer. I have no intention of running a 10k race but if I did I’d rather be hoping for 43:20 than for 36:00.
      Why do authors like McDougall and Sloan insist that old runners don’t need to get much slower? I frankly find it absurd to suggest that a runner who runs a mile in 6:00 in their prime should be able to run it in 6:27 at the age of 65. There may be an example of such a runner, but not many, I bet.
      Of course, McDougall and Sloan have a narrative to support. They need to suggest that, if we do things right - that is, in the way that they suggest - we need not get much slower. I fear, however, that they are carried away with their runner’s ego. Runners like to think that they will run fast and, failing that, that they will run far and, failing that, that they will not get slower. Runners, however, are not super-human. We age. We slow down. We should accept it.
      So, how did I get on in my ‘time trial’? Well, I ran - without competition (obviously), no adrenaline, just an ordinary run - from the Crook o’Lune at Caton to the Lune Aqueduct and back in 37 minutes. I deduce that the Crook o’Lune is not what the sign-makers mean by ‘Caton’! I don’t believe I can run 6 miles in 37 minutes. However, taking my ruler to the map - as I should have done before - I find that it is a good 5 miles. And that’s good enough for me.

[1].  Sloan, Jim (1999), Staying Fit Over Fifty, Seattle: The Mountaineers.
33/945/76%

42.  Run Across
October 22nd 2011

In July (Week 29) I set myself a seemingly optimistic target - to sustain a level of 75% on the Fitnessometer, a level that would enable me to go out-running. Having luckily avoided accidents and illnesses in the last few months I am fit enough to out-run but the weather recently has not been fit enough to allow it (at least, on the days that I have had the car to be able to out-run). This week we’ve had cold winds and heavy showers, with the first frosts of the season.
      Still, I have managed to reach Murakami’s 36-mile standard for ‘serious running’ again. Of course, it is an arbitrary standard but 36 miles happens to remind me of my own most serious running, although we didn’t think of it as such at the time.
      In 1993 I had a mild attack of gumpitis. I had no wish to run for 12 hours or more, pushing myself beyond the limits of exhaustion and pain. Instead I tackled a long run with the characteristics that I had come to prefer. I ran: alone; where I wanted to; adapting the route as I wished; along road, lane, track and footpath as necessary; in a series of tip-out-runs; to see the countryside that I was running through; to provide a sense of achievement; as part of a ‘family event’.
      In short, we decided to take a week’s holiday during which I would run across England (and in the midday break Ruth would ride at a nearby stable). We hired a camper van and made our way, me on foot, Ruth in the van, from Flamborough Head, passing Helmsley, Bedale, Reeth, Tebay and Ambleside, to St Bees Head. We did not follow Wainwright’s off-road coast-to-coast route because we liked planning our own routes, we were happy with quiet country lanes, we didn’t want other pedestrians cluttering our path, and anyway his route is too short. It is an unsatisfying 192 miles: our route was a round 200 miles.

flamborough head Left: Setting off at Flamborough Head.

      I ran 36 miles for 5 days and 20 miles on the 6th day. The 36 miles were run in four shifts: 9 miles before and after a coffee break and 9 miles before and after a tea break, with a long break in the middle of the day. Each shift was 90 minutes. It was, at first, a novelty to run as slowly as 10 minutes per mile.
      As we did not know where exactly would be a good place to meet, we agreed in advance a lower and upper bound, at about 8 and 10 miles. Ruth would park somewhere between the two bounds. I would begin looking for her at the lower bound. If I did not see her, I’d wait at the upper bound, assuming Ruth had been delayed a little. It worked smoothly, apart from once, when we had varied the routine a little in order to meet up with friends for lunch (and a ride for Ruth) and had mis-agreed the nature of the stop in Muker.
      The run itself was not particularly stressful. Of course, I was a bit stiff for the first steps in the morning but it soon wore off. It was only when we reached the rainy Lake District and I had to run on rocky, slippery tracks (such as the Garburn Pass) that my knees began to object. A little agony wasn’t going to stop me then though.
      We enjoyed the week and have fond memories of it. I remember, for example, at the end of the second day, reaching the crest of the Hambleton Hills and getting the first view of the hills of the Yorkshire Dales some 30 miles ahead over the plain and thinking, by tomorrow evening, I will have run there. Also: paddling at Flamborough; running on a very narrow footpath through a field of wheat above my head; a Helmsley man saying “nice day for a run”; a view of Rievaulx Abbey; Ruth reconnoitring the Swale crossing at Maunby; the first curlews near Leyburn; an army sergeant at Wathgill Camp shouting “get those knees up”; drizzle in Swaledale; downpour by the Howgills; Charlie (the bull) keeping us awake at Beckside Farm; heavy rain to Troutbeck and Ambleside; sun breaking on Wrynose; running non-stop up Wrynose, as a challenge; camping ‘wild’ in Dunnerdale; cloud on Hardknott; paddling at St Bees.
      Overall, we gained a different appreciation of the nature of England. We avoided busy roads, of course, and also the desolate high hills. We mainly used quiet lanes and tracks, passing through innumerable villages and hamlets, most of them off the tourist routes. There was a timeless charm with a peaceful air of activity. We saw nothing of the ‘industrial north’. It was an England that is normally unseen and yet one that perhaps captures its character best.
      There is, of course, a sense of satisfaction in running across one’s own country but it is more than that. It provides an intangible feeling of ‘ownership’. I am familiar with every step along the way across it. Indeed, I think I can picture it all still. My country, I feel, is within my physical and mental compass.

st bees Right: The end at St Bees Head.

      I feel much the same now about all the hills and valleys within my 40-mile radius circle. I have run up and along nearly all of them. Mention any of them and I can picture instantly what it is like there. They are ‘my’ hills and valleys. Perhaps I know them in a way that nobody else does. Without this feeling I would not have had the effrontery to write a guide to the local region, The Land of the Lune.
      However, enjoyable as the coast-to-coast expedition was, afterwards we had no wish to repeat or lengthen the experience. One week was about right. Beyond that, the logistics, never mind the running, become more difficult.
      I was fairly confident beforehand that I could run 200 miles in 6 days. I had done the preparatory runs. I should say, we had, because we’d had a 36 mile trial run around the Forest of Bowland, following the planned timings, including a ride for Ruth in the middle. But another 200 miles in the next week? - I doubt it.
      Before our coast-to-coast run, we had vague ideas of a John o’Groats to Land’s End expedition to mark my 50th year. After the coast-to-coast, we realised that, after the first week, it would become an obsessional slog, with little enjoyment. Sweaty, smelly running gear would become increasingly unpleasant travel companions. It would rain. I would exhaust my stock of dry clothes. I would not be able to guarantee my legs would survive, making it hard to book riding stables ahead. The routine would become just that, a routine.
      JoGLE is hackneyed. John o’Groats and Land’s End are tawdry places that one may be relieved but surely never pleased to arrive at. In between, much of the route would be far less appealing than Yorkshire and Cumbria. We have completed our unique, private crossing, and we are content with that.
      This week a BBC TV programme Origins of Us said, without equivocation, that our bodies evolved for long-distance running. Three special features of our bodies were adduced as proof. Interestingly, the human foot was not one of them (see Week 18). They were: the nuchal ligament that keeps our head steady as we run; the buttocks’ gluteus maximus that helps prevent over-rotation of the torso; and sweat glands that enabled us to keep cool while running under the African sun.
      It would ease my quest to discover the whys of running if long-distance running were natural for the human body. I remain sceptical, but perhaps I should not be so satisfied with my 36 miles a week (although 36 miles a day is a shade too far now).
37/982/78%

43.  Run to Seed
October 29th 2011



Dow Crag and Coniston Old Man. Right: Dow Crag and Coniston Old Man.

This week we’ve had a short break near Coniston in the Lake District, which gave me the mental and physical rest from running that I needed.
      When I reach a relatively high level of running fitness I am tempted to run day after day for fear of losing that fitness. Then I risk it becoming like running on a treadmill, a commitment devoid of all interest and novelty. I do my best to avoid this but I have to admit that a degree of staleness had crept in recently.
      Physically, also, although I had continued to run 30 or more miles a week, I was beginning to feel weary, with one or two specific problems, such as a soreness in the calves.
      I should, from time to time, pause and reflect on two simple facts:
             I am 66; I can run for an hour.
I need then to contemplate the multitude of ways in which the latter could be made impossible. And then to appreciate what a minor miracle it is that not a single one of them is preventing me from running.
      It is inconceivable that my father, or anyone else that I knew of his generation, would have gone running in the fields at the age of 66. They would never have run or jogged when they were middle-aged, let alone when they were old. In fact, my father at 66 had only one more year to live. After working in the same factory for 50 years (with an interlude for World War II) he was pensioned off for ill-health at 62. He therefore had no retirement to speak of.
      When I retired at the end of 2001 at 56 and people asked me, as they tended to do, what I planned to do with all my newly-acquired free time, I said that I would go running on the hills. This was partly to convince myself, if not them, that I wasn’t completely past it. But I did, in fact, go running on the hills and I am still at it, after a fashion, ten years later.
      I have, however, since I started my out-running in 1988 had a couple of long fallow periods, as indicated by the number of out-runs that I have recorded each year: 1988 - 22; 1989 - 18; 1990 - 13; 1991 - 14; 1992 - 6; 2002 - 17; 2003 - 14; 2004 - 14; 2005 - 9; 2010 - 4. In 1993 I must have focussed all my efforts on the coast-to-coast run but from 1994 to 2001 I did not run much at all.
      I am not sure now whether to put this down to a lack of enthusiasm or a lack of energy or a change in my work situation, or to a combination of the three. In 1995 I moved to the University of Leeds, directing a research lab there. At least, my work moved there; we still lived here near Lancaster. This meant extra travelling, which reduced the time available for running.
      Running did not fit in, either at home or at work. With only an extended weekend at home, it didn’t seem right to spend some of it running away. With going to all the trouble of driving to Leeds, it didn’t seem right not to devote myself to work when I was there.
      To be fair, I was quite content to focus on the work in Leeds and to forget about running. It was a productive time for the lab, with many research projects, most of them involving overseas collaboration, and a score or more of international research students. I was happy to work a 12-hour day when in Leeds. In the evenings, there was, for me, away from home, little else to do but work. Like many people, I imagine, I came to think that I couldn’t stop work for something as trivial as running.

Dow Crag and Coniston Old Man. Left: Rainbow in the Lune valley.

      It is easy to get carried away with the apparent importance of work. Crucial meetings; decision-makers to cultivate; important ‘political’ discussions; papers and reports to write; research students to talk to. How could I possibly waste time running?
      There was also plenty of overseas travel, which most academics (but not me) relish. It can turn your head to be invited to, say, Taiwan and be treated like royalty. I remember on one occasion flying to Taiwan by economy-class and the conference organisers saying that they had budgeted for me to fly first-class - and promptly handing me the difference in cash (about £1000). Ruth brought a healthy sense of perspective when she came to Taiwan: she asked the hotel for a smaller room than the huge one that we had been given, a request that rather flummoxed them.
      By 2000, however, all was not going smoothly with the lab. I have no wish to re-live that period but, in brief, there was an unsolvable problem: we could not stay within the department where we were administratively based but the department could not let us leave. The incentive to work all hours on an unsolvable problem waned.
      In the past I had never regarded running as an escape from problems. Generally, I ran most when I was most content with life. When I was not feeling so good about life, I didn’t feel like running either. But in Leeds, for want of anything better to do, I took to running in the evenings (it was better than turning to alcohol).
      This presented another unsolvable problem: where in Leeds is it worth running? In every direction that I ran I had to stop every 100 yards or so at the end of another row of terraces to avoid being flattened by traffic. I could pound around the park of Woodhouse Moor but that soon became boring. I found only one usable route: an old footpath that had miraculously survived, weaving past the back gardens of houses in Headingley, Meanwood and Adel to eventually reach the countryside beyond.
      So I would run, gradually a little further, along this path and back. By the time I was able to take the opportunity to escape from Leeds University I could run a few miles, at no great speed, and was ready to tackle those hills, as promised.
      As I look now at the details of the 2002 runs, I see an understandable tentativeness in them. There is not the boldness of my 1980s runs. There were, for example, only two Lake District out-runs, and those were up the modest peaks of Carrock Fell and Wansfell. Most runs were gentle, if long, valley runs. I preferred running without the scrambles of my earlier expeditions.
      Subconsciously, then, I had accepted that in the autumn of my years it was too exhausting to run, or even to contemplate running, up the likes of Coniston Old Man.
      Despite what I said a couple of weeks ago, autumn is not such a dismal time - if the sun is shining. In the summer the sun has only uniformly green leaves to play with. Now, while the leaves are turning, it can frolic with all the colours of the rainbow, or at least the outer half of it.
22/1004/74%

44.  Run Aground
November 5th 2011

The weather has again thwarted my hope to go out-running. Now that it is November perhaps I should not expect otherwise. However, although I am more than content running around home, I feel a little nostalgic for the tops of the mountains.
      Locally I run on the flat asphalt of roads and tracks and on the alluvium and glacial till of gently undulating hills. But on the mountain-tops a range of all-weather running surfaces would be available to me.
      These surfaces can be classified under six broad headings: slate, limestone, millstone grit, granite, tuff and peat. The first three are sedimentary rocks and so should be flat but usually aren’t. The next two are igneous and are never flat. The last isn’t rock at all. It’s plant debris that has accumulated on rock.
      Of these, peat, when in its ideal state, is the best to run on. When it is dried out in the summer it provides a flat, springy surface that one cannot fail to glide across. Unfortunately, it is very rarely dried out or flat. It is usually a squelchy, boggy morass. I can run across the peat, provided I don’t hang about, as it does not form quagmires that swallow any runner foolish enough to set foot upon them. At least, I had always found it so but recently there was a report of a walker found dead after becoming stuck in a Bowland bog.
      For some reason, peat erodes in patches. So, peat mounds rear up, surrounded by dark, boggy pools. When running on such a surface most of the time is spent clambering up and down the mounds. Also, because peat is such rich soil, plants grow in it, even on mountain tops. Heather tears my shoes to pieces and requires me to goose-step across the moor. Moor-grass grows in large clumps, which it is impossible to run comfortably on or around.
      Peat can be a few inches or several metres thick. The thicker it is the more metric it becomes. If it is no inches at all then I’m running on bedrock. Within my region, the Silurian slate of the Howgills provides the gentlest running surface. It is the oldest of the sedimentary rocks here and therefore has had the longest time to become smooth. That may not be the geological reason but it’s good enough for me. The end result is gentle slopes and long ridges, with just a veneer of grass.
      The Howgills (or at least the southern half) are part of the Yorkshire Dales but perhaps they shouldn’t be because, as everyone knows, the Dales are mainly composed of limestone. A geological fault runs between the Howgills and the Dales proper. The limestone is 100 million years younger than the Silurian slate and is therefore less smooth (according to my naive theory of geology).
      There is only one thing I need to remember when running on limestone: don’t. Limestone forms ‘pavements’ but not like the pavements by the road side. Rainwater slowly dissolves limestone and so corrugates the surface and chops it up into blocks separated by deep gullies. If my leg were to slip into a gully I might have to leave it there. There are also pot holes. If I slipped into one of those I might have to leave my whole self there.
      In limestone regions, the safest procedure is to run on paths next to the limestone. A reconnaissance force of walkers and sheep has already investigated these paths for us. If I do manage to run to the top of a Dales peak without calamity I will be rewarded with a different kind of bedrock, millstone grit. Being on top, the millstone grit is younger than limestone and therefore even less smooth.
      There isn’t much millstone grit on the top of the Dales peaks but there are whole mountains of it south in the Forest of Bowland, from which the Yorkshire Dales are separated by another set of geological faults.
      Most of the millstone grit is covered by peat, which is a relief, unpleasant though the peat may be, because where the grit is exposed, on Bowland Knotts or below Clougha Pike, for example, it forms great piles of huge boulders that it is quite impossible to run over. Even when the millstone grit forms small piles of less huge boulders, it is liable to turn an ankle, if it’s as feeble as mine, especially if the boulders are concealed under heather, as they usually are.
      My igneous rocks are all in the Lake District. Whole books can be written on the geology of the Lake District but not by me. Suffice to say that Lake District rocks are rocky. As far as a runner is concerned, it doesn’t really matter because all the natural paths have been worn away by walkers and been replaced by those stony step-ways that you find in municipal parks. They are useless for running on.
      I have almost convinced myself that it is for the best that the weather has prevented me running on such dangerous terrain.
      Actually, I have never injured myself running on the hills. In the Lake District it isn’t compulsory to run up the toughest mountains. There are many magnificent ridges to run along, if I can but get up there, and some parts, such as the Dodds and the back of Skiddaw, are relatively smooth. There are also plenty of fine valleys. To appreciate a mountain it is often better to be beside it than on top of it.
      It isn’t essential to run over the millstone grit boulders either. There are a growing number of tracks, for the grouse-shooters, which provide easy access to the higher points, now that it is all open access land.
      And the best thing about limestone regions is that, because the water runs through the limestone, the paths are much drier than elsewhere. There are a great many ancient tracks and pathways that criss-cross the moors, even if they don’t go to the very tops.
      So I will continue to hope that I can get back onto these natural running surfaces but in the meantime I am savouring the recently re-acquired fitness that is enabling me to make the most of my local runs. Unlike most of the past two years, I am no longer in trepidation that some part of my body is on the verge of collapse. It makes a world of difference to be able to run for an hour, with comfort, not worrying about the running, and therefore to be able to enjoy the surroundings.
      In Week 11 I described my surprise at being able, despite feeling tired, to run around the windmills in 65 minutes. This week I ran around them, without raising much of a sweat, in under 60 minutes. And I knew in advance that I would be able to.
      I could therefore concentrate on the excellent views, on a breezy day, with occasional rain clouds sweeping in front of the sun and then moving on to reveal the autumn colours of the hills. As I ran up Caton Moor, I could see far along the Lune valley beyond Sedbergh to the Howgills, with patches of sunlight playing on its rounded hills. Most unusually on Caton Moor, I came across a single walker, sheltering by a wall having a drink from a flask.
      As I ran over the crest of Caton Moor, a wide panorama opened out over Roeburndale. The hills of the Yorkshire Dales, including, beyond Ingleton, the three peaks of Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent, were arrayed before me.
three peaks

Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-Ghent from the Caton Moor bridleway.

      Swinging south, I could see the old salt road track that goes over the Bowland hills and then the Ward’s Stone ridge (photos in Week 36). Morecambe Bay then came into view, with Blackpool Tower just about visible. To the right the hills of the Lake District (photo in week 2) were on this occasion obscured by the dark rain clouds scudding across them.
      Far ahead of me, over the fields, swirled large flocks of what I presume to be starlings. They eddied and billowed like smoke, limbering up (because it was mid-day and still autumn) for the remarkable winter displays when enormous clouds of starlings gather at nightfall to roost.
      It is a lucky person who has a better 60-minute run from his own door-step. Perhaps it is not so essential to go out-running after all.
41/1045/78%

45.  Running a Risk
November 12th 2011

My pining for the mountain-tops - precipitated by an unaccustomed fitness that has encouraged a so far unconsummated desire to tackle the bold out-running of fondly remembered days of yesteryear - has overlooked the fact that I had resolved a few years ago to no longer risk life and limb by running on craggy mountains. I had concluded in 2005, after a tumble on Bowfell, that it would be unwise for my out-running to be quite so adventurous as in the past.
      Near the summit of Bowfell I tripped myself up and, with that instantaneous slow-motion that characterises accidents, somersaulted gracefully over a few rocks. My hip hit the rocks with sufficient force to cut my belt in half. The rocks didn’t stop there: they cut a gash in my hip too.
      I was alone, on a walk, not a run, at the time. Naturally, I was prompted to think of the possible consequences if a similar accident had befallen me while I had been running.
      It is not possible to control a fall. I could as easily have gashed my head as my hip. Or broken an ankle. If I were running I would have had few clothes on, no food, no water. I could have been miles from anyone and anywhere. The prospect didn’t bear thinking about, but I was obliged to think about it now that I knew how easily accidents can happen. I took it as a warning and resolved not to take risks.
      Fell-running becomes difficult with age not because of the loss of speed and stamina but because of the loss of agility, coordination and reaction time. It doesn’t matter that running is less fast and less far. It does matter if you trip over rocks. The days of gambolling like a chamois over mountain rocks are gone. I can no longer run downhill with carefree abandon; I have to pick my way carefully through the rocks.
      At the time of my tumble I was in the middle of another of those self-imposed, age-defying challenges, an attempt to complete ‘60 in 60 by 60’. The idea was to get to the top of the highest 60 peaks in the Lake District in the 60 days before my 60th birthday. I didn’t specify how I would get to the tops. I pictured running up some and walking the rest, and I could be accompanied on the walks by others if they wished to join my extended birthday celebration.
      Before Bowness, I had completed 24 peaks, 16 by running up (in six separate runs, up High Street, Coniston Old Man, Pillar, Caudale Moor, High Raise and Skiddaw). Even before the tumble, I was finding that running the Lake District paths was less enjoyable than I had envisaged. I was softer and the paths were harder. There was little smooth running, much less than I remembered from twenty years ago. Many paths had become badly eroded. Some of the runs - for example, the one over Haycock, Scoat Fell, Steeple, Pillar and Red Pike, in the rain, seeing nobody else at all - were, on reflection, somewhat foolhardy.
      I still wanted to feel that I was able to run on the fells. It’s pleasing, in a way, to sweep past heavily cagouled walkers, hearing comments such as “Oh, that’s not fair”, as I did on Kidsty Pike from a woman struggling up. But, as they say, all good things must come to an end.
      My final high Lake District run was a tip-out-run, when Ruth and a friend wanted to see the ospreys at Bassenthwaite. I was deposited near the lake and left to run up Ullock Pike to Skiddaw and Little Man, over Mungrisdale Common to Blencathra, and then down to High Row near Threlkeld, where, 165 minutes later, I was gathered up, rather exhausted.
      This terrain is, at least, not a rough scramble like most Lake District peaks. It was a good run to finish on. After a week’s recovery from my Bowfell wounds, I duly completed the other 36 peaks by walking up them.
      This week, after a couple of bright days with frosty mornings - which I made good use of with long runs in Littledale and Quernmore - the dull, damp, drab, dreary days returned again to end any thought of running on the high tops.

lune valley Left: The Lune valley, looking towards Leck Fell and Gragareth.

      I have complained recently about the weather but I should say that this is only from the point of view of out-running. It has, in fact, been remarkably mild for October and November. This, however, is because we have been mainly blanketed in cloud, bringing grey, damp days. As a result, we have had few frosts and even fewer autumn mists.
      The weather has behaved oddly all year. The real winter came in December and early January. After that, there was virtually no snow or frost. April had a hot spell. The real summer hardly seemed to happen at all. Then, in late September, we had a relative heat-wave which led to record October temperatures. And so far there is little sign of the hard winter that some forecasters have predicted.
      On Tuesday, which is my traditional day for out-running, I accepted the restrictions imposed by the weather and went for a run around the Thurnham peninsula, never reaching 20m above sea level.
      I set off from Conder Green intending to run first along the Glasson branch of the Lancaster Canal, but the towpath was closed for dredging the canal. This inauspicious start was in keeping with the atmosphere. It was so murky that the Bowland hills, barely five miles away, could not be seen.
      I retreated to run instead along the lanes and tracks across Thurnham Moss. This former huge bog has been drained into innumerable ditches to create rich farming land but, for the visitor, there is little to see but miles of flat fields. It was so dull that I was entranced by a farm vehicle with the registration number of A1 MOO.
      I eventually reached the long flood protection bank at Bank End with grey views across the expanse of salt marshes. Fleetwood was just about visible across the bay but Blackpool Tower was lost in the murk. I ran past hundreds of deserted caravans. I cannot imagine what holidaymakers do here, even when the sun is shining. There is no beach, only mud. They could watch the birds, of which there are a great many, but I doubt that there are enough ornithologists in the whole of England to fill all these caravans.
      Some buildings here are of Permian red sandstone, the youngest (at 250m years old) of local rocks. So was the 12th century Cockersand Abbey, the few remains of which forlornly overlook Morecambe Bay. The Lake District hills were not visible, although Heysham Power Station could be seen looming ahead. And so on through Glasson Dock back to Conder Green.
      It was a gloomy outing but one entirely appropriate to the weather and the situation. Thurnham Moss is in its natural element on such a day. The monks of Cockersand Abbey came to seek solitude and to escape from the attractions of ‘normal life’. There are few attractions, or distractions, on Thurnham Moss.
28/1073/73%

46.  Run Your Eyes Over These
November 19th 2011

It had to happen. My left knee (last mentioned in Week 36) hurts, particularly when running uphill. The kneecap needs oiling. Or a rest. Generally, I feel like I’m approaching the end of a long-haul flight, with little fuel left, one engine mal-functioning, but with the runway in sight. I hope to glide smoothly down.
      While resting the knee I’ve looked at some films about running [1]. To see a thing clearly it sometimes helps to look at it from a different angle. I’m investigating how running is portrayed in our culture, in feature films for the general population (not in documentaries for runners). I’m interested in their answers to three general questions about running. Firstly:
            Why does a person start running?
      The story-line of a film usually requires some crisis to cause someone to take up running. Often it is a midlife crisis. In Second Wind (1976, US) a successful businessman gets tired of life and runs to test himself. In Marathon (1980, US), a man who has everything begins running in order to be with a beautiful young female runner (well, he has almost everything). A similar young female attracts a retired judge to begin jogging in Joggers Park (2003, India). In An Autumn Marathon (1979, USSR) a professor begins jogging to escape from students and a nagging wife. What about women? They start running in order to lose weight, of course (She How She Runs (1978, US)).
      In other films a person may lead a life of such woe and despair that running becomes their only means of escape. In Kicking Bird (2004, US) the lead character is always getting beaten up, so the “only thing left to do” is to run. In The Jericho Mile (1979, US) a long-term prisoner takes up running to free himself of the tensions of his hopeless life. In The Long Run (2000, SA) an illegal refugee considers that the only way to avoid deportation is to win a 54-mile marathon. In The Runner (1984, Iran) a boy finds that he just has to run far and fast to survive his life of poverty, eventually running for the blissful relief of it.
      Sometimes there is a specific reason that someone starts to run. In Saint Ralph (2004, Canada) a boy hears that only a miracle can save his ill mother and that it would be a miracle for a boy to win the Boston Marathon. So he sets out to. Run Fatboy Run (2007, UK) has the lead character aiming to run in the London Marathon after 3 weeks training in order to regain the love of a woman he had previously deserted at the altar.
      In some films the characters spend most of the time running but not explicitly as runners. In Dangan Runner (1996, Japan) three men chase each other around Tokyo all day for reasons that become unimportant. In Run Lola Run (1998, Germany) Lola runs around frenetically in order to get money to save her fiancé.
      The most implausible, but apparently based on a true story, reason to run is that in The Loneliest Runner (1984, US). A bed-wetting boy runs home from school in order to remove the sheets that his mother has hung out to dry before his schoolmates can see them.
      In most of the films, once a person starts running, he or she discovers a special gift for running that enables them to win fame and fortune - or to lose weight. The story of the runner’s development is not usually the focus of the film, although it is in Challenge the Wind (1990, US).
      Once we have a runner - and some films, such as Marathon Man (1976, US), begin with the running character already a runner - the film may then address my second question:
            What are the characteristics of running?
      In Marathon Man, the most well-known of the films mentioned here, the fact that our hero runs marathons is not crucial to the convoluted plot although it comes in handy in several chase scenes. Perhaps it’s to establish context: the notorious dental torture is mere child’s play compared to the agonies of marathon running.
      Often, the running is to define the runner as a rebellious outsider. Or insider in the case of The Jericho Mile. Here, his running is part of an attempt to deny himself all the comforts of civilization and to punish himself for his crime.
      The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1962, UK) begins with “Running has always been a big thing in our family, especially running away from the police”. As in The Jericho Mile, the lead character runs whilst in prison for release from his troubles. Running is a metaphor for both his alienation and his freedom. But it is alliteration rather than narrative that links long-distance running with loneliness.
      Dangan Runner also sees running as a metaphor, as a search for meaning in life. The three runners, all losers heretofore, run so far that they forget their dreary lives and the false values of society and then run to exhaustion for the sheer pleasure of doing so.
      Not many films focus on the joys, if any, of running. See How She Runs takes us through the exhilarating yet painful experiences of training for a marathon. On the Edge (1985, US) tries to depict the adventure of trail running, as contrasted with track or road running, as well as something of the spiritual side of running.
      Saint Ralph, in which the boy is coached by a priest, also flirts with the relationship between running and religion. The boy eventually comes to face what might be thought of as a paradox of faith.
      Other films relate running to more general problems. Running, as we saw (Week 39), considers the conflict between an obsessive activity (running) and career and family, as does Second Wind. Go for Gold (1984, US) has a champion runner agonising over the choice between fame (running) and happiness (not running).
      Some films stray so far from the normal that they become fantasies. For example, The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973, US) extracts a Tarzan-like super-runner from the wilds of Africa (shades of the Tarahumaras). He even brings a pet tiger with him (even more fantastical, as there are no tigers in Africa).
      I am inclined not to consider all those films in which the runner seems to be a clichéd caricature of an actual runner. The Games (1970, UK) has four of them, including a barefoot aborigine who chased kangaroos in the bush (a pastiche of Abele Bikila perhaps).
      Now for the last question:
            What are the benefits from running?
      A great many films have a character ‘on the run’. Some of our films take this literally - our runners run to escape. For example, in Raw Courage (1985, US) three runners on a 72-mile desert charity run are chased by a group of survivalist militia (in vehicles!). Perhaps this is meant to be a parody of ultra-running. Similarly, in The Ice Runner (1992, US) the hero escapes from Russia by running 39 miles across ice to the USA.
      Perhaps reflecting a recurrent nightmare, some of these escaping runners run naked. Atanarjuat: the Fast Runner (2001, Canada) is based upon an Inuit legend in which the fast runner of the title escapes death by running naked across ice.
      In The Naked Prey (1966, US) a hunter on an African safari is stripped by angry tribesmen, given a start and chased down for four days. On the surface, it is a tale of a civilized intelligent white man overcoming a herd of black savages, despite their superior knowledge of the terrain. Underneath perhaps it is an allegory of the mental battle all humans fight. Anyway, it all ends in a mutual salute.
      More general themes are explored in some films. In Challenge the Wind the trainer, who is the runner’s grandfather, gives lessons about the nature of competition in life. In Joggers Park the relationship between the retired judge and his young female running friend provides a context to look at issues of social reputation and family honour.
      Of course, many of the films are concerned directly with the ‘success’ or otherwise of the runner as a runner. Sometimes, however, it is someone else (often a coach, who is usually a dubious character) who is more bothered about success. In the two prison-based films, The Jericho Mile and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, the prison authorities think that a successful runner would reflect well on the prison itself. Of course, our rebellious runners have no such motivation. In the latter film, the runner defiantly and contemptuously refuses to win the race.
      Usually the runner achieves ‘success’, however implausible it might seem - for example, the loser-cum-winner of Running. This success often overcomes even greater barriers than normal. In The Jericho Mile the prisoner is not allowed to run in the Olympics because he refuses to express redemption for his crime - so he beats the Olympic winner’s time within the prison yard. In On the Edge the runner, who is racing despite being unfairly banned some twenty years earlier, has to avoid being dragged from the course by irate officials.
      What conclusions can be drawn from all this? Perhaps that, since films are made not about the ordinary and mundane but about the unusual and dramatic, I can safely eliminate all the above factors from my consideration of my own ordinary running.

[1].  To be precise, I’ve looked at the reviews of some films about running. I don’t have the time to watch them or indeed the will-power, for judging by the reviews most are not classics of cinematography.
7/1080/67%

47.  Don't Run Away With the Idea
November 26th 2011

On Sunday, on a recuperative run easing my knee back into action, I was rewarded with another sight of a kingfisher. Kingfishers are not more numerous in late autumn but they are more visible. The low sun illuminates its startling turquoise as it skims across the Lune, and, with the trees almost bare, it remains conspicuous as it perches on the other side.

lune Right: The River Lune, where the kingfisher flew across.

      We particularly appreciate those few birds, such as the kingfisher and dipper, that stay with us over the winter, struggling to survive from the sometimes frozen river. We are similarly fond of winter garden birds, such as the robin and wren - although sometimes there is a price to pay.
      Last week we watched for fifteen minutes whilst a sparrowhawk used as a dinner table the stump of a holly tree that was sawn down in the summer. From ten yards away we studied at our leisure this fine bird, after coming to terms with it doing what nature intended.
      I have accepted that sights such as the kingfisher are the most that will enliven my runs for the rest of the year. There is not time to develop sufficient trust in my knee to venture far afield. Still, I am more than content with the running that I have managed this year. Thanks partly to avoiding the autumn colds and coughs that usually plague me, I eventually got fit enough to be able to go out-running (as hoped in Week 29) but the cloudy weather largely prevented it. At least I can begin next year confident that I am capable of it.
      The attraction of out-running is partly the degree of adventure that is added to the running. Henderson (Week 38) is right to the extent that there is a limit to the excitement that I can add to my ‘everyday runs’. Of course, out-running does not have the exhilaration of some adrenalin-fuelled activities, especially now that I am sworn to limit risks (Week 45), but nonetheless the unexpected tends to happen on out-runs.
      When I am planning to run in unknown territory I rely on the map to judge its run-ability. It is, however, not always possible to judge even from the best map what the conditions will be like on the ground. On Hutton Roof I became entangled in gorse bushes; in Gisburn Forest I spent ages battling through the brash of felled trees; on Hoddlesden Moss near Blackburn I sank; at Eel Tarn in Eskdale I ran too far into the water and got stuck (I know: I was tired).
      The trouble with these escapades is that they can be time-consuming and exhausting, and that can compound problems. Several of my recorded out-runs have a ‘very tired’ comment, almost always because the terrain has been hard work. For example, on an evening run on Wild Boar Fell I decided to leave the standard ridge path to investigate the western slopes around Tarn Mire. A mire it was. The sun was setting by the time I extricated myself.
      I also notice in my records many ‘saw nobody’ comments. Often I would be on the tops of hills before any walkers, even for popular promenades such as Ingleborough and Fairfield. Usually I saw nobody because I was running where nobody went. This has its benefits but if I did have a problem then I might be unable to share it for a very long time.
      In serious fell-races you are not allowed to compete unless you have a proper survival kit. I ran, and still run, with only a map (sometimes). Fell-racers compete whatever the conditions: I only out-run in reasonable weather. I never run in cloud, for example. I see no point in it. I would see nothing, and I run to see.
      I cannot, however, predict the weather. Sometimes when I arrive somewhere it has different weather to what I left at home. I always have a low-level alternative in mind in case a hill is in unexpected cloud. Even so, I am often caught out by weather changes. I have sheltered from hail-storms behind cairns; I have met unanticipated snow-drifts; I have been chilled by gales; I have (many times) been drenched.
      I have been delayed - if not endangered - by a motley set of incidents. At least I am no longer liable to be shot by grouse-shooters. Now that the Open Access law is in force they close the moor when they shoot, which they can do for 30 days a year (which I don’t begrudge, as I can now go legally on the moor for the other 335 days). Before, when I was trespassing, they could have shot me ‘by mistake’. Even so, it can be frustrating to arrive and find the moor closed.
      I have been stopped by the police, but I couldn’t help them in their enquiries. I have acted as an emergency service myself, by running to ask the neighbours of a woman walker who had fallen and bloodied her face to go and collect her. I have locked myself out of my car, by somehow closing the car boot with the key inside before I’d tucked it into an inner pocket of my shorts. I had to run to the nearest garage to beg for help.
      There is one rather delicate complication to my out-running. I am not alone in seeking out-of-the-way places. Couples do so too. I once almost ran over one pair. The young man leapt up, startled, and dashed off like a snipe, leaving the young lady on the grass. I could only say ‘sorry’ and move quickly on. Whenever I see a car parked ahead where cars would not normally be, I run past with my eyes closed.
      I have been stopped many times on my runs by walkers needing help to know where they are. This always seems strange, as they are the ones with the map (they can’t see mine, if I have one, tucked inside my shorts). I suppose they assume I’m local.
      I was, in fact, local when once stopped on Caton Moor by two men puzzled by their guide book. I knew exactly where to direct them but I was intrigued by how they had become lost on such a simple moor. I too was puzzled by their booklet, until I noticed the page numbers indicated a gap of four pages. The middle sheet had not been stapled in. The description that they were following merged in neatly with that of a different walk that should have been four pages on. Greatly relieved that they were not as incompetent as it seemed, they strode off for the Fenwick Arms.
      I have never got lost myself while out-running, although I did once go the wrong way on purpose. I had run up Ingleborough from Horton and completed the celebratory circuit of the summit plateau, before setting off on the downward path. Within five yards I’d realised that I’d taken the wrong path, heading towards Ingleton instead of Gaping Gill. It was just a lapse of concentration, for I knew the summit well enough. However, pride or embarrassment prevented me from returning back up past walkers I’d just pranced by. I thought, in that instant, that I might as well detour along the Old Road, through Clapham and over Thieves Moss to Sulber Nick. A big mistake!
      This was in November 2002, when I was still relishing the new freedom of retirement. However, I had not yet convinced myself that this out-running would last and I was still using kit that had lain unused in the garage for ten years. By Crina Bottom the sole of one of my shoes began flapping loose. I ran along like those circus clowns, always tripping over their own feet. After about ten miles of this, I reached Sulber Nick, where the mud finally sucked the whole sole off. By now it was getting cold and dark. I should have taken the other shoe off and run barefoot, but I was too exhausted to care. I walked the last two miles.
      But I wouldn’t want you to run away with the idea that I am totally irresponsible in my out-running. I leave a map on my desk indicating where I might run, as a hint to the search party.
17/1097/63%

48.  Running Wild
December 3rd 2011

Implicit in the previous pages is an aspect of my running that perhaps should be made explicit, as in this aspect at least I seem to differ from other runners: I have tried to capitalise on the fact that running is a part of life where I can decide for myself what to do entirely independently of the opinions of others.
      It might seem that academic research, which I was paid to do, comes close to this: just decide on a topic and get researching. It is, however, rarely so simple. You need to persuade decision-makers to provide finance for equipment and staff, and to convince employers that the project fits in with their objectives and doesn’t carry any unreasonable costs. Often, you have partners (academics at other universities or industrial collaborators) and you have to take account of their, probably conflicting, agendas. If the proposal is approved, you need to cooperate with colleagues who, again, have their own objectives and goals.
      That is how it should be and no doubt it is much the same with most employment. Research is improved if it is carried out within a cooperative team, with ideas knocked into shape and differing talents coordinated. I enjoyed it, on the whole.
      Similarly with family life. You cannot reasonably decide where the family will go on holiday or how to decorate the kitchen without discussion and agreement. Even deciding what to do on a day-to-day basis involves a certain amount of negotiation. And, of course, it is all more enjoyable that way.
      Running, especially my so-called out-running, is different. It is entirely up to me where and how fast I run. Nobody else minds where I run. Often nobody knows that I am running. And while I’m running it is up to me if I should choose to change the planned route. I have particularly come to value the opportunity that running provides of an hour or two of independent decision-making.
      Running during the university lunch-hours did not have this character. It was usually a social event, with a group of us deciding, after an informal negotiation, that we’d, say, run along the canal to Conder Green. While I enjoyed the runs, I was not entirely comfortable with them. The basic problem was that not all members of the group wanted to run at the same speed, which meant that you hung about waiting for slower runners or struggled to keep up with faster ones.
      Also, it was hard to reconcile a serious training run with a social event. Once, I remember, I only had time for a 15-minute run, so I had decided upon a relative sprint. A friend asked to join me, although I warned him that I was in a hurry. As I sprinted away, he soon dropped off: that wasn’t the kind of run he had in mind. It is a sad state of affairs when a commitment to train overcomes the courtesies of friendship. So, over the years, I came to prefer running alone, even to the extent of going to the gym at odd times of the day.
      Most runners will say that they are by nature a loner. I am not convinced. There are many activities - such as composing music, doing sudokus, making an omelette - which are best done alone but I doubt that their practitioners necessarily consider themselves loners. I suspect that some runners come, like me, to prefer running alone mainly because of the extra freedom and independence that it provides.
      I prefer to run alone, but not because I naturally prefer to be alone. It has been argued [1] that a degree of solitude is essential to promote thought and imagination. Nonetheless, a loner is, almost by definition, something of a social outcast. Runners are not, on the whole, considered the most sociable of humans. I’m not, anyway, at least when I’m running.
      I appreciate that many runners run to escape the stresses of ‘everyday life’. The last thing they seem to want is to have to make yet more decisions about where and how fast to run: they just jog a standard route around the park, say. My ‘independent decision-making’, while valued by me, has no impact on anyone else. It is casual and stress-free. The statistics in this document might imply that I would carry out some detailed analysis to decide what to do. Actually, I am quite sloppy by current standards of technology-based running blogs, where mileages, times, even calories, are recorded to two decimal places. No, I just decide on the fly, as I feel.
      Road-races and fell-races are on specified routes. You must, like sheep, follow the others. I did (once) try orienteering, where you work out your own route between specified points but it was in a way worse because at those points you must then stop and hunt for the thimble that someone has hidden there. I prefer to just run. I don’t like my running being dictated by others.
      The adaptable nature of out-running is perhaps best conveyed by an example. Let’s take an old run at random: one up Baugh Fell. Baugh Fell was at that time unknown to me, although the guide-books warned that it was a rather rough, boggy hill.

lune Left: Baugh Fell is the hill on the right. Rawthey Bridge is at the bottom middle. I ran on the right slope of the valley ahead (Uldale), where the waterfalls and limestone gorge are tucked in, and then up the ridge that eventually becomes the horizon. The return route was, eventually, more or less down the right edge of the photo.

      I set off from Rawthey Bridge along Uldale. To see the waterfalls promised on the map I had to scramble away from the path, which was, of course, allowed. Along the limestone gorge of Dockholmes and up Rawthey Gill the path gradually disappeared and, as it became difficult to run comfortably there, I cut up on to the ridge of northern Baugh Fell. There were still a few snow drifts on top to be avoided.
      My notes say that the top provided an excellent view of the Howgills and was completely silent, apart from skylarks and low-flying jets. On the way down I remembered reading that Taythes Gill had some impressive exposed rock formations where the Dent Fault cuts across the moor so I swung west from West Baugh Fell Tarn to have a look at them.
      In general, then, I study the map and do some preparatory reading, so that I have an idea of what there is to see. I have a provisional route in mind, but I adapt it on the run, as needs be. In my prime, I’d expect to be out for a couple of hours or so, and I’d shorten or lengthen the route as necessary.
      My decision-making at the moment is not on so epic a scale. Locally, my runs have something of this provisional, adaptive character in that I usually set off with a vague intention in mind which then evolves in response to the situation, that is, to how I feel or what I see.
      Right now, my main decision concerns whether to run at all, what with a sore knee, a bit of a sniffle, the decreasing temperatures, and an evaporating motivation. At least, if I decide not to run then I know that it is 100% my own decision.

[1].  Storr, Anthony (1989), Solitude: A Return to the Self, New York: HarperCollins.
14/1111/59%

49.  Running a Book On
December 10th 2011

hawthorn snow Right: Hawthorn trees in the Lune valley. The first snow of winter has fallen - another reason not to run. Actually, I like running on snow, provided the snow is not on ice or frozen ruts (as it usually is).

Time to return to the question I started with (Why?). I have come across a book by Robin Harvie entitled Why We Run [1] that will surely answer my question.
      As we did with Murakami and McDougall all those weeks ago, we should first consider what sort of runner Harvie is that qualifies him to speak for we runners. He ran his first marathon in 2000 at 23 and then ran many more. Finding it difficult to improve on his then best time (3:30, about the same as Murakami and McDougall), he began to wonder if he could run further instead. In due course he entered the 2009 Spartathlon, a 152-mile race from Athens to Sparta.
      So, like Murakami and McDougall, with their 100 km and 50 mile races, he became an ordinary runner who runs extra-ordinary distances. In training for the Spartathlon, he ran an average of 120 miles a week for a year. He had to determine his priorities carefully because, as he says (p66), “I was newly married. There were other distractions”.
      The first chapter concludes (p38) that “To become a true long-distance runner, our first duty to ourselves is to negate that longing [for home] absolutely”. The second chapter places ultra-running in the footsteps of the explorer Scott and the mountaineer Mallory, who died as a result of their self-imposed challenges.
      As with Murakami and McDougall, the narrative climax of Why We Run is a long description of a very long race. In brief: after 15 hours running, he began to feel that he “was living at the absolute extremity of [his] own being”; after 16 hours, he was starting to meander as he began to hallucinate; after 17 hours, he “could not breathe, could not move, was too weak to talk or think”. He vomited and collapsed. He had completed 85 miles, just over half-way.
      It did not end there. It took months to recover and then, because he had quit, he felt obliged to tackle the Spartathlon again: he “would have to take it on, silently, simply for the sake of running itself”.
      So, what has Harvie learned that enables him to entitle his book “Why We Run”? He concludes (p278) “As you may have guessed, there is no neat answer. There is no point at which we stop. We just keep returning, giving ourselves over to these huge distances, because this is what we do”.
      No, this is what Harvie does: it is not what I do (or most other runners, in my experience). I can understand the desire to rectify a failure (I felt it after my first London Marathon) but I have never had the slightest wish to attempt to run the Spartathlon. If it is a choice between ultra-running and “the longing for home” then I prefer the latter.
      It would be foolishly pretentious of me to compare my running with the endeavours of Scott and Mallory but Harvie wants to explore the limits to his tolerance of hardship and pain. He writes (p72) “nothing can compensate for the terrible burning that creeps through your skin and into your bones when you reach the limits of your capacity. Wherever the pain originates, eventually it occupies every muscle and sinew. And every runner knows the feeling”.
      Well, I don’t know the feeling. I guess that makes me not a runner. What have I been up to for the last 50 years? I thought the idea was to train to try to extend my capacities and then to run close to but within them, to avoid pain and collapse.
      There is a pattern here. Some ordinary runners like to feel special (“I wanted to see whether I could take on something that no one I knew had ever done” (p66)); so they run extra-ordinary distances; they consider themselves extra-ordinary runners; they feel a need to explain their extra-ordinariness; but their explanations do not apply to the ordinary runner.
      What did Harvie hope to achieve, mentally rather than physically, by running the Spartathlon? He writes (p272): “I thought that I could ... finally [be] at peace with myself, that I could calmly return to my sedentary existence a wiser, better person - for ever” and (p269) that “once I had achieved that state of self-obliteration, it would remain with me permanently, lifting me above the grubby banalities of everyday life”. Unfortunately, a few months after the run, “the silt of everyday life returned” and “this was how I had perceived the world before the race, and I did not like what I saw”.
      Harvie is not alone in hoping that running will provide an escape from the problems of everyday life. For example, Jimmy Carter (former US President) said “Everyone who has run knows that its most important value is in removing tension and allowing a release from whatever other cares the day may bring”.
      Unlike Harvie and Carter, I don’t speak for everyone. I have from time to time commented upon why I run but I haven’t (I think) generalised to a ‘we’. Myself, I have never run in order to gain release from my cares. Thankfully, my cares have never been so serious that I need to run away from them.
      If anything, the opposite is the case. My running is an expression of my joie de vivre, such as it is. The more joie I have, the more I like to run. I don’t run to become at peace with myself: I am at peace with myself already (or as nearly so as anyone can reasonably hope). I don’t see everyday life as consisting of “grubby banalities”, as Harvie seems to.
      Now that I reflect on books such as those of Murakami and McDougall and now Harvie, I realise that it is only the self-justificatory tomes of such obsessive runners that made me raise the ‘Why do I run?’ question in the first place. It was not something that concerned me much before.
      In that respect, my running is no different to Ruth’s music-playing. She spends more hours on rehearsals, practice, and concerts than I do running. She doesn’t agonise over why she plays music. If, however, she decided to practise for 3 hours a day in order to play Paganini’s Caprice No 24 nonstop for a whole day then perhaps she would ask why (I know I would).
      Clearly, there are many reasons that I run. Some of them, I suspect, are the same reasons that Ruth plays music, but analogies are risky so I won’t pursue them. Moreover, the reasons to run change, year by year. The main reasons why I ran in 1960 are not those why I ran in 1980 or those why I run now.
      None of them leads inexorably to the ultra-running that Harvie, Murakami and McDougall describe. Some people will find such books inspirational; others will despair at the thought that their running must inevitably evolve towards races of 50 miles or more.
      The common theme of the books is pain: avoiding it, suffering it, seeking it. There is little sense of the aesthetic pleasure to be gained from the natural process of running, even short distances, within the natural world. If the focus is on the naturalness of running, it needs no explanation.
      The essence of ultra-running is its attempt to drive the body to its limits, to achieve a state of “self-obliteration”, in the hope that the obliterated person may be restored as a better one. This state can be achieved in many ways other than by running.
      It is a commonplace comment nowadays that anyone can run a marathon if they want to. It is not essential to do so to benefit from running but it is, I suppose, one of life’s experiences to enjoy, if possible. When I realised that I had reached my peak as a marathon runner the thought never occurred to me to race yet further. I have only twice in my life run for more than three hours (that stormy night on Helvellyn and that day my shoe fell apart on Ingleborough). I have never hallucinated, vomited or collapsed as a result of running. Even without these exquisite pleasures, I have managed somehow to derive decades of enjoyment and achievement from my running.

[1].  Harvie, Robin (2011), Why We Run: A Story of Obsession, London: John Murray.
10/1121/54%

50.  Running Out of Time
December 17th 2011

It is a little galling to find, after a year of trying to elucidate whether there is more - or is it less? - to running than Murakami and McDougall describe, that the definitive analysis of Harvie’s Why We Run agrees with them, only more so. The purpose, apparently, is to run to exhaustion in events like the Spartathlon.
      Harvie concludes that the profound meaning of the running experience is “beyond language itself. The truly creative act often starts where language ends” (p239). Truly creative act? Running? After 17 hours toil towards collapse, Harvie may need to believe running to be a “truly creative act” but I wouldn’t use the phrase to describe my own running.
      It seems to be beyond Harvie’s language, at least, to unravel the meaning of running because he includes over a hundred quotations from renowned running philosophers from Aristotle to Sir Francis Younghusband via Camus, Goethe, Homer, Jung, Marx, Russell, Wilde, Wordsworth and many others. Perhaps the reason that he finds it difficult to articulate this profundity is that running is, in fact, not profound.
      I am inclined instead to accept his conclusion that running speaks for itself. In that case, perhaps you’d like to join me on a run: not too far, as I’m not as fit as I was, but far enough - the Belhill loop, about an hour or so. I have only recently devised this run, which I have become fond of because there are changes of view and running surface every few hundred yards.
      We are basically running up the hill but we begin by running downhill. My body finds it hard to set off immediately uphill, so I run a short distance downhill, to loosen up. Then we can tackle the steep gradient of Littledale Road.
      As we pass Sarney’s Wood on the left the Ward’s Stone ridge far ahead comes into view. Now it is a more gentle rise along the road, as we try to relax into a rhythm of running.
      After about 12 minutes running we leave the road to run on the old track that was the way to Crossgill. An ancient cross used to stand at the top but it disappeared a couple of centuries ago. Its base can still be seen by a gate. As we reach the top of the track the panoramic wilderness of the Ward’s Stone ridge is ahead of us, with the sun barely above its skyline.
      We rejoin the road to drop down to the bridge over Artle Beck. Here, we could take the steep road up the Cragg to enjoy the view over Morecambe Bay but today let’s take the more direct route, along the track above Sweet Beck. This is normally a peaceful meadow but today telephone engineers are at work, repairing masts damaged in the recent gales. We cross two cattle grids and run up towards Belhill Farm, where work continues on converting barns into cottages. It is almost a hamlet now, in splendid isolation.
      We turn left taking the track to Field Head. Here there’s a fine view across to the Caton Moor windmills, silhouetted on the dark moor against magnificent winter clouds.
      And in the opposite direction, there’s an equally fine view to Ward’s Stone, although we may be disappointed to see that all the recent snow has melted away. With the eye-watering cold winds bringing dark clouds scudding over, it may soon be re-whitened.
local1    local2    local3
      Field Head is as far as the track goes but we don’t run to the farm - instead we cut left across the field to an inconspicuous step stile over a wall. We drop down through a wood, where it is always boggy with slippery tree roots (take care), across a footbridge over Foxdale Beck in a delightful, dark dell.
      We emerge at Littledale Hall, now a haven for recovering drug-addicts. It was built in the 1840s after a split between the church and government. We pass the chapel (now a barn) associated with the hall as we run west above the hall. We continue along a pleasant path below a conifer plantation.
      At the end of the path we reach a road where, as we have been running now for about 40 minutes, we may feel tired enough to want to take the direct route home through Crossgill. But, no, we have all of the Christmas holiday to recover, so we gird our tired loins to continue on the steep lane up to Hawes House.
      Here we may pause to admire, behind us, the sunlight playing on the green fields where we were running 15 minutes ago.
      As we crest the top of the hill we can relax in the thought that it’s (nearly) all downhill from here. We can see over Lancaster and Morecambe to Morecambe Bay above which great winter storm clouds can be seen heading for the Lake District (not us, I hope).
local4    local5    local6
      As we turn to run down Roeburndale Road, the bay and the Lake District peaks lie directly ahead of us. A few of the snowy tops are picked out by the sun’s searchlight but today it is hard to identify them as their neighbours are in or below cloud.
      As we approach Bluebell Wood (as we call it), we turn right across the field, with a final glance up to our old friends, the windmills, dropping down to a ford (wet feet, sorry) through Tarn Brook in a fine wood where deer may be seen. Across another field we reach the bridleway and Blackberry Lane (as we call it), down which we coast home.
      So, we have made it to the end, weary but content.
      Thank you for your company.
      And now it is time for Christmas ...
15/1136/55%

    © John Self, Drakkar Press