A Jog Around The Water Towers (4)

 17.10.14

Old Leake - Sibsey - Cowbridge - Boston - Cut End - Freiston Shore - Leverton - Old Leake


After expressing a desire to listen to more music and less news a while back, Tammy bought me an mp3 player for my birthday in June. Put off by the vast black hole that 'synchronisation' means, however, it's sat, unused, in its little, white plastic box until I dug it out last Sunday night and faced my fear of the unknown head-on.

Two frustrating hours later, I'd not managed to add any songs, but I had succeeded in downloading a few free episodes of my favourite podcasts - The Dirtbag Diaries, Answer Me This and Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode's Film Reviews. (I don't tend to watch many films, but I do find their show most entertaining. Any 50-odd year old who can pull off a quiff and Buddy Holly glasses whilst professing a love of skiffle is someone worth listening to in my book.) I'd also stumbled across something new to me - Sodajerker On Songwriting - and added episodes dedicated to Paddy McAloon and Johnny Marr to spice up a couple of my daily 75 minute one-way cycle commutes during the week.

We live in a world where news is omnipresent. It's clear, though, that there's not nearly enough news worth knowing to flesh out 24 hour coverage. My default setting of listening to 5Live, with its rolling programme of repeated news stories, whilst on my bike had begun to do my head in recently. Adding in the fact that most modern news tends to be bad news (and generally not the type of bad news that excites me - stock markets free-falling, Tesco in crisis, a member of the Royal family being accidentally killed by a run-away Range Rover on the Sandringham Estate, etc.- that sort of stuff's fine), I'd begun to find that a constant 75 minute bombardment of it was spoiling the enjoyment of my cycling. An informative, irreverent or interesting podcast, in contrast - I figured - would surely have the opposite effect.

Which, unsurprisingly, it has.

So, what's all this got to do with running between two water towers in the backwaters of rural England? Not a great deal, to be honest, but a little bit.

I'll explain.

In the excellent Sodajerker episode on Paddy McAloon (It really is a superb listen. If you like music and are interested in the craft of creating a song, this podcast will, almost certainly, transform your dreary commute into something worthwhile), he talked, at length, of the prolific amount of work he'd recorded since the general public forgot about Prefab Sprout straight after they'd hot-dogged-jumping-frogged their way into the pop charts at the back end of the '80s. The idea that intrigued me the most was his explanation of the motivation for his songwriting. He worked best, and most creatively, he explained, when he'd an idea to hang a song or a set of songs upon. This might take the shape of a theme, around which he'd compose a series of songs, or, most simply, a title - a single word, a few words perhaps - which would stimulate the creation of three and a bit minutes of beauty.

On listening to this, it immediately struck a chord with me. I've always loved bands who have great song titles. I've always more than loved bands that have great song titles which seemingly have no relevance to the songs themselves. (New Order's 'Technique' LP is a fine example of this.) I've often found, also, that a lot of the time I'll just start with a title when thinking of writing a story or a blog post. 'Good title,' I'll think, 'Better write some old shit to go with it.'

It's a similar habit to my preferred method for creating a long run. To get motivated to do something slightly less monotonous that run the same old roads that I've shuffled down a thousand times before, I'll start with something physical to hang a run around. Usually this will lead me to pastures new. Sometimes it'll transform what could have been a slog into an adventure worth remembering. The 90 mile '50 Chuches' route I put together a couple of years ago for my running club's summer relay started off like this. Earlier this year, I spent a good few hours linking together the pillar trigs in East Lindsey by foot. A few months back, also, inspired by a fine water tower in Fulletby that I seemed to be passing regularly, I'd embarked on a mission to plan a series of runs linking all the existing water towers in Lincolnshire, each run visiting at least two different ones. This project had started promisingly, but once I'd eye-balled the most local ones and the continuation of the task involved more driving and a little more non-running effort, things had waned somewhat.

At the start of last week, having finally decided to shelve The Plogsland Round until longer days grace us again next summer, I was at a loss at what to do on my next Free Friday. Inspired by Paddy McAloon and heart lifted by a smattering of fine Prefab tunes on Wednesday, however, the long-redundant idea of water tower bagging re-emerged. I now had a plan of attack for my day-off that was more appealing than mowing the grass for the final time this year.




Parking by the church at just gone 9, my chosen route takes me out of Old Leake and into the heart of the best agricultural land in the UK. It's warm. Mid October, and still in shorts and T-shirt. 

The Old Leake water tower is a belter - a fine example of a classic design that can be seen for miles around. Having drove the A52 between Skegness and Boston any number of times, it's a tower I'm familiar with. Indeed, when I'd first thought of Lincolnshire water towers all those months ago, this was the one that immediately sprung to mind.

Moghal's Auto's now occupies a commercial unit that sits directly under the tower. I pull out the  phone that I left charging all night, to take a photo, but the display briefly reads 'Battery low', before the phone turns off. 'Never mind,' I console myself, 'There'll be plenty of pictures on the internet.' Without photographic evidence though, I ponder, there goes my proof that I've actually been here. Suffice to say that you'll just have to take my word for it. I'm fond of lying and tend to embellish most of the slightly interesting things I've ever done into something more, but who-on-Earth is going to be bothered whether I really visited a god-forsaken ancient water tower in a dead-end Lincolnshire village, for Christ's sake? 

It's all road till Boston. I'm in Sibsey before too long. A side-street that I've not been down for 21 years revives a lost memory. In the dank and dingy days of 1993, I'd visited a shop here with my Australian fiancee. It had been recommended by my mother's good pal, Janice Sutton - Skegness dancing school impresario - as somewhere we could buy a wedding dress for next to nothing. After walking one drizzly Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter to Sibsey (a trek of a couple of hours - neither of us had a UK driving license, or a car for that matter, we only had one bike between us, and buses didn't run that way at the weekend), we eventually located this tiny, run-down place that specialised in theatrical costumes and fancy dress. Amongst the rails of tat were a couple of passable wedding dresses. Lucky for me - each one was only £50. Not so lucky for my beau - both were a bit old-fashioned, the better of the two being at least a couple of sizes too big. We left the shop with that one. My powers of persuasion had been working a treat that particular afternoon. Mind you, I suppose she got her revenge a few months later. (I noticed that when she returned to Perth after deciding that she didn't want to marry me after all, she didn't take the dress with her.)

Passing the spectacular windmill on the other side of the village, I follow the Sibsey Trader to Boston Golf Club - Jaguars in the car park, bad slacks in the clubhouse - and onto the Horncastle Road at Cowbridge. It must be over 20 years ago too since I'd last run down this road - a staple training route in my Boston days.

The Horncastle Road water tower is slightly set back from the road and as impressive as its Old Leake counterpart, but in a different way. Lose concentration and you'd run straight past it without noticing. Reaching my destination, I take a mental picture - always the longest lasting - and head over the main road, down Windsor Bank and onto the Seabank.

Whilst the majority of my running colleagues hate the Seabank - it's rough underfoot, desolate, lonely and just goes on forever - I find myself constantly drawn to it. In planning this Free Friday run, I'd been keen to get on it. Indeed, the two big adventures I've got planned before Christmas both involve lengthy sections on the bank.

The Seabank had been a big thing when I was a kid. Although never accurately measured, the Seabank Marathon, run over around 26 miles, had captured my 14 year old kid's imagination at the start of the '80s. Roy Marshall - a moustachioed local long-distance legend who was a member of Holbeach AC - was my first big running hero. Regularly trouncing the opposition over the route, he'd become the first person to win the race three times. I often wonder what became of that Goliath of the Seabank.

My first marathon - aged 15 or so - was over the Seabank course. Traditionally, the race was run in different directions on alternate years (a tradition that, sadly, no longer holds true - the race always starting in Boston nowadays), and that particular year, a massive group of us from the Skegness Grammar School set off from the Clock Tower, Boston-bound, ready to do battle with a distance that was unimaginable back then. 5 hours later, Our Kid and I arrived as first back from the school, nearly 2 hours behind the race winner, starting off strongly, but having been reduced to a walk through the long grass of the last 10 miles.

Ending up in Boston at the start of the '90s after a couple of years of doing the global-traveller-thing, the Seabank still held me in its spell. As a club runner, however, participation was frowned upon. Never having possessed an official AAA race license, the threat bandied about was that taking part in the Seabank Marathon could result in severe disciplinary action, such as being banned from competing for your club.

In 1995, though, having just gone under 2.40 for the first (and only) time in the London, and feeling flush with a ton of training miles put in for an up-coming John O'Groats to Land's End run, I decided to throw caution to the wind. Jogging to the start, incognito in yellow T-shirt and Hawaiian shorts, I'd entered on the day, run the race, and jogged the 5 miles from Skegness to my mum's house in Ingoldmells after finishing. Running with Shaun North, who later became a local runner of some note (and still nowadays could whip my butt over most distances), I'd taken advantage of a dog attacking him as we passed the half-way point and put on a surge that lengthened to a gap of 14 minutes by the end. Coming in first at Skeggy's Clock Tower, my winning tme of 2.59 was the first under 3 hours since the heady days of the mid-'80s and my old hero, Roy Marshall. It's still one of my proudest moments.

Fifteen years later, returning to running after a few years of working too hard, raising a family and generally arsing about, I decided to have another go. In a stroke of luck which played straight to my strengths, the weather was bloody awful. Early June felt more like February. After only a handful of runners had finished, the race would later be abandoned over health and safety concerns, with runners and walkers removed from the Seabank and minibused to safety. I'd run the first 17 miles with Mark Sands and the previous year's winner - a gobby bloke from Sheffield who regaled us with constant stories of his distance-running prowess whilst he tucked in at the back as Mark and myself gallantly took it in turns to front up into a particularly vicious head-wind. Mark had eventually conked out at the RAF Wainfleet watch tower at Friskney, and I'd had to endure 6 more miles listening to Yorky telling me how good the winner's cup would look over his fireplace for the second year running. At Gibraltar Point, with 3 miles to go, my ears could take it no more and I took off, feeling both relieved and full of running, to open up a 6 minute gap by the finish. My time of 3.01 was the fastest on the 'new' route, adopted after the flooding of the marsh at Frieston Shore for wading bird habitats had forced the traditional route to be substantially diverted.

 Pleased again with my victory (I've had very, very few in 30 years of running), I was, nevertheless, aware that my finishing time was a soft one compared to the days of yore. The Garmin I wore that year confirmed my gut feelings. The new course was over a mile short of true marathon distance. (The old route had been up to a mile longer than 26.2 miles, depending on the position of the start or finish at the Boston end, which seemed to change every couple of years.) I was sure a decent runner could hammer home well under 3 hours. My suspicions were confirmed the very next year when Our Kid, off the back of his 'Trial of Miles' winter months of 200+ miles a week, clocked the Seabank Marathon's fastest ever time of 2.52 in a run that stands as one of the most impressive in its 30-odd year history. The bastard.

Last year, I was due to be in Scotland for a mate's Ramsey Round  over the Seabank weekend. It was unfortunate that an e-mail pinged through on Thursday lunch-time postponing the attempt, and leaving the forthcoming Sunday free. If I had migrated north, as planned, my unbeaten record in my favourite race would still have stood intact. But, hey-ho. With a sudden rush to the head, I'd told Tam that I'd have a third go at my own personal big-one. Becoming the first person to win the Seabank three times since the days of Roy Marshall was the clincher here. Once I'd done that, I could leave it alone.

Come the Sunday, I did my best to hold onto Mark Sands, who'd won the race the previous year, for a good 19 miles, before he broke me. Not by a lot. But enough. He crossed the line in 3.01 (a change in the start line in Boston had added over a mile to the 'new' course distance, making it a little longer than 26.2 miles again), whilst I arrived in 3.02, knackered but surprisingly upbeat in the knowledge that a better man than me had deservedly won the race that day. Mark added another victory to his belt this summer, to win 3 Seabanks on the bounce. He is now, undeniably, a Seabank legend.

That's the beauty of the Seabank. The wide-open landscape encourages a wide-open mindscape. Lost in reminiscence of past glories, I'm soon at Cut End - the point at which the River Haven joins the sea, and where the bank takes a sharp left in the direction of Skegness. I sit for 5 minutes, back resting against a pillar trig, and enjoy a drink and a sandwich. The wind makes patterns through the long grass. Out at sea, a container ship lurks, bound for King's Lynn perhaps, whilst a fishing boat chugs in the opposite direction closer to land. On the wide, muddy banks of the river, huge flocks of birds I don't know the name of settle and scatter in endless, swooping repeat. I think of my usual working-week lunch-break - sat at a desk, hurried, distracted, scrolling through shite on Facebook - take a final drink of water, and jog off slowly, buoyed by a feeling of freedom and the knowledge that, today, I've got all this to myself.

Pushed by a strong back-wind, the miles pass quickly. And with them, memories, stories and future plans - soaring kites tethered to terra-firma by ropes wove from the recognition of the beauty of Now. 

I drop off the bank at the Leverton pumping station and head inland in the general direction of Old Leake. Carrying no map, I figure I'll just keep running west on the muddy back lanes until the water tower appears and I've something to aim for. It's a section of my run that I'd not been looking forward to, but today I'm courting fortune's favours. Footpath signs keep appearing and I just keep following them. Drain-sides, dyke-edges, heavy tracks through plough - a rights-of-way jigsaw that leads me, by total fluke, straight  to the A52.

A arrive back at the car a couple of minutes later, almost done in, but not quite. At 4 and a half hours, it's my longest run for a while. I change my shoes, walk over to the village shop to buy some pop. Then, sitting on the church wall in the afternoon sun, sipping Irn Bru from a plastic bottle and humming Prefab Sprout's 'Faron Young', I reflect on a perfect and pointless way to spend a day.

More Of This

It's dark on The Terrace. I park up facing the sea, watch the blackness become grey on the horizon, finish the dregs of tea from the old travel flask that someone lent me years ago and I never gave back.

It's 5.50am and I'm alone up here. The fringe-dwellers, motorhome nomads and 'piss-takers' that have made this free beach-side car park home for many of the previous summers are conspicuous only by their absence. Relentless local council harassment, hastily-passed byelaws and draconian measures by the boys-in-blue seem to have achieved their aim. Park through the night now and you'll probably be rewarded with an 'overnight ASBO' and a court appearance.

I turn on the radio and wonder where all these people have gone. Vagrants. Bums. Drop-outs. People who have chosen to live on the edge of this bloated tyrant we call 'normal society'. People who own enough possessions to fill only a couple of cupboards, who have come to the conclusion through first-hand experience that Cameron's glorification of 'strivers' and 'workers' and the admirable folk that 'work all the hours God sends' is hollow, blinkered bullshit. People who have chosen to side-step a modern world where the weak are made weaker, the strong are handed concessions to make them stronger, and the principle of looking after the ones that need looking after is forgotten in favour of lessening the burden on those who have plenty and bombing the fuck out of the Middle East.

Perhaps they've been driven back to soulless bungalows on the outskirts of Leicester and Rotherham? To council tax? Sky TV? A zero-hours contract with B & Q? To the banal mundanity of the way everyone else lives; an annihilation of a life?

But maybe not. I hope so, anyway. As I look out onto the very beginnings of a perfect day, it's painfully obvious just who's got things sussed in this world.



It's nearly light enough now. I pour milk into a plastic tub of sugar puffs and eat them slowly. My spoon has half a handle. Stevie Nick's 'The Dealer' starts playing, and somehow it's so right. I picture the gorgeous girl on the front of the Buckingham Nick's LP - eyes betraying individuality, creativity, energy and a heart that just needs love - and feel lifted somehow. It's a new morning and I'm here to be with it.



It's two months since I stopped playing the role of 'ultra-runner' and started telling myself a different story. Whilst I've still run everyday, it's not the chase for longer, harder, faster that I've pandered to, but rather the pursuit of happiness. By taking off a self-imposed blindfold and opening myself to to new experience, I've come a fair way. By adopting Rory Bosio's mantra of 'fake it until you make it', I'm sure I'll go much further. In changing my internal monologue from negative to positive, I felt an imposter at first. But already things are changing. It's hard work, but tell yourself the same story for long enough and eventually it becomes real.

Which is why, I guess, I'm sitting here.



As the busy summer season draws to a close and work hours return to a more manageable four days a week, I'd vaguely considered plans on this first free Friday for a leisurely jaunt round The Plogsland Round - a 47 mile long-distance route around Lincoln. However, as Thursday had gone on, this particular day-out had seemed less and less appealing, the main downer being the two hour round trip by car to the start and finish point. Talk on the weather forecasts through the day had been of the impending end of the Indian summer. Friday would mark the end of the long spell of unreasonably warm late-season weather with Saturday signalling  a return to the low pressure, strong winds and changeable weather usually associated with autumn. It didn't take me long to make up my mind. If Friday was to be the last day of summer, there could be no better place to spend it.



There's only the sound of the waves lapping the shore as I pull the kayak out the back of the van and carry it the few yards to the beach. After changing into winter wet-suit and neoprene boots, I grab my paddle and start the drag to the sea's edge. In that in-between time between night and morning, the water looks, at once, tantalising and inviting, foreboding and more than a little scary. I hesitate for a moment. But only a moment. Then I push the boat out into the white-water, jump into the seat and make my way into the gloom.



As the seasons change and the nights shorten, the last couple of weeks have seen a return to running in the dark. In much the same way as I hanker for the emergence of light mornings and evenings in March after months of running in darkness, I find myself looking forward during September to morning runs where the sun's not yet risen or evening runs that are impossible to complete before the sun sets. With the use of a decent head-torch, the onset of winter no longer means months of sticking to the roads like it did in my younger days. Instead, the farm-tracks, field-paths and off-road rights-of-way are just as accessible as they are in the lighter summer months. The added bonus is that, in the dark, they take on a new life. They feel different. Indeed, running itself feels different. Senses are heightened, concentration more focused, internal monologues more meaningful. Running through the countryside in the dark, by yourself, I would suggest is an ultimate exercise in meditation.

After reading Alastair Humphrey's account of a walk under a harvest moon a little while back, as the days have shortened this year, I've felt an increasing desire to get rid of any artificial light at all. On the most familiar of my off-road routes, I've simply left the head-torch turned off. Granted, forward progress is often much slower, but is that necessarily a bad thing? The rewards more than compensate. In no time at all, you discover your night-vision is more developed than you would imagine. Feedback loops that are hardly used in the daytime are switched on full. Proprioceptive systems are fully engaged. It's as if even if you can't see your way clearly, you can feel your way. From the start of the run till its end, you're in it, totally absorbed. You're part of everything around you - interconnected - equals. Turn the head-torch on and all that changes. Running's easier, that's for sure, but now something's missing. You're back in the bubble, enclosed, cut off, wrapped in a sphere of lumens against the blackness that makes up out there.



The splish of paddles in the water accompanies me towards the horizon. I hadn't dare go in while total darkness remained. Now, as I head ever-further east, at least I'm able to distinguish where the sea ends and the sky starts. And that feeling's here again. The feeling that I sensed in those recent runs into the night, the one that pulled me, against common sense perhaps, into the sea at this time of day.

I continue paddling, my heart racing, deep breaths to calm myself, until I've reached as far as I want to go. I spin the kayak round and look towards a shore that I can no longer see. Adrift, a quarter-mile from land, invisible, there but not there, I let everything in.

Petrified. Exhilarated.

It all becomes clear.

I need more of this. Not gadgets, gear, three consecutive nights of fucking X-Factor. Not Facebook, Snapchat, sound-bites from self-serving royals, magazines full of the useless, ignorant tossers we label 'celebrities'. No, I need more of this. Times when my senses are alive, my heart's beating up a drum solo and my head's crammed full of Now. Times when I'm unsure if what I'm doing is the worst experience or the best experience of my life. Times spent on the edges of lost maps. Times when I'm tiny, insignificant, a minute cog in the way the natural world turns - not a Master of the Universe, merely a speck within it.

This is where I need to go.



After who-knows-how-much time, it's light enough to make out the shore. At the limit of my distance vision, the white van sits alone on the car terrace. The wind's got up. I spin the kayak round, heading south, into it, against the current. Beginning with a brew, a bit of Stevie and a paddle into the darkness, I'd planned a full day of just being. A trip down the coast to Chapel Point and back. Hot coffee from a Jetboil on the beach, a couple of hours in the sun, finishing my book, snoozing. A short drive to the North End and a long run through the dunes in the direction of Paradise. Maybe finish off with an evening paddle to watch the sun set. All this passes through my mind as I start moving through the water. Then the sun rises and the future just disappears.

More of this.

I turn my kayak to the horizon once more. Watch the orange globe start its daily journey. I take a couple of hasty photographs on a hopelessly-out-of-date phone. I hear the wind, the slap of the sea against my boat, the barking of dogs on an early-morning walk.

Above me - the sky blue, reds, yellow, softened by cloud - a pair of seagulls swoop. The words from the end of Lightning's latest English assignment enter my head. The musings of a man unjustly imprisoned in the last century for a crime he did not commit:

'As I peer between the bars in my window, I see birds flying, gliding and dancing in the sky. They are free. They were me.'



I'd been a bit concerned but more-than-a-bit amused when Tammy had mentioned to my mum earlier in the year, albeit in a light-hearted way, that she thought 'Chris was having a mid-life crisis'. I'd remembered the words of Our Kid when he'd given everything up to go and live in a touring caravan a couple of years ago.

'They call it a mid-life crisis, don't they?' he'd said. 'But it's really a waking up. You spend the first half of your life doing what it is you're supposed to do. Then, when you're old enough to know the score, you can't help but see through it. Everything you've been taught or told since the day you were born is just total bollocks. If you're lucky, you've got the second half of your life to gradually unlearn all that shit.'



It's 8am. A gorgeous September day on the east coast. At this time on any given Friday ten years ago, I'd be two hours into the fifth straight 16 hour day of the working week. Arriving home just before 11pm, I'd kiss the sleeping superheroes goodnight. Lightning under his Liverpool bedspread. Whirlwind - our baby girl who I'd hardly gotten to know - asleep in her cot. I'd fall, exhausted, into bed. After a bad-tempered Saturday, hung-over with tiredness, I'd leave the house at 5am on Sunday to stand all day on Cleethorpes' indoor market. Come Monday, I'd start again.

Work hard. Be successful. Get a good job. Earn good money. Buy a house. Buy a car, an i-phone 6. That's what they say. And that's what we do. But it's wrong. And even if you're doing it now, you still know deep-down that it's wrong. Because you can feel it in your gut. Feel it in that desperate longing for two weeks of freedom on a yearly foreign holiday. Feel it in that Sunday night  sinking feeling, in that brief moment of perfect clarity when the alarm clock goes off ('What the fuck am I doing this for?, before you realise, with a heavy heart, that you do it because it's just what you do.)  Feel it in that constant dissatisfaction with your lot, the gnawing feeling that any amount of spending can't get shut of. Feel it when you fill out another repeat prescription for the tablets that help you cope. Feel it in your hankering for overtime you'd rather not do, but will come in handy to pay off the credit card, of course.

You know the feeling. I did too and still do, but less so now. Slowly, the prison bars are disappearing. And if this is what a mid-life crisis does, then let me have it all. And more.



The sun shines on the water. It's 8am. Friday morning. The last 'work' day of the week. Anderby Creek's skyline in the distance, salt water on my face, shoulder muscles pleasantly burning. With time on my hands, I paddle south. And I keep paddling.

Away from the things that imprisoned me for so long, the life I just got used to living. Away from the 'societal norms', the expectations, the accumulation of stuff we're led to believe we must have to make our lives worthwhile. Away from the way that they tell us we all should be.

Away from all that crap.

And into more of this.

  

A Step Forward Or A Kiss?

It had just started raining when the text came through. We were somewhere on the A1, bound for Whitehaven, the starting point of the next day's inaugral Coast 2 Coast Ultra - a 140 mile foot race across the UK.

I'd been quiet on the journey. I'd invested a lot of miles in this race, and although I was looking forward to it, the event had taken on an extra significance. It had become a signpost for change. Having become increasingly disillusioned with the long-distance racing scene (and competition in general), I'd identified the C2C as the date that everything would change. Today I was 'Chris Rainbow, Ultra Runner'. After the weekend was done, I'd be becoming just 'Chris Rainbow'.

Whilst undoubtedly exciting, leaving behind a scene I knew so well - indeed a scene that almost defined me - was a little unnerving. Lost in thought, I knew that what I needed most was a chat with Our Kid. We worked on the same wavelength. He'd know what to say.

He must have known..



As Tam's phone vibrated and played its annoying little jingle, I reached over and grabbed it.

'Text message received. Dennis,' the display read.

I opened it and read it aloud to Tam as she carried on driving...


 I spent an easy day yesterday , amongst other things, reading about travel and adventure. Things like Ali Humphreys microadventures, Sean whateverhisnameis run across Britain etc, etc. I like that Seans attitude about lack of planning. That's always been my way. I think to Australia when the only plan was to make it to Sydney. We could of planned to dive on the barrier reef etc, etc, and probably missed out on the classic things to 'do' in Oz, but the adventure was none the less. The adventures we had there were ones we just stumbled on, like you say in your blog, just because we were in the right place at the right time and because of the circumstances at the time - the van always breaking out, the World surfing your in MR and Burleigh Heads, the weather in Townsville, the roads being cut off. When I went to Mexico the amount of travel preparation I had was non existent compared to some mainly because of the attitude that ' what was the worst that could happen?' I had money and access to money which would get me out of most situations. I remember you saying about my training for the canyons - no structure - but, I guess, that sums me up. Gran Canaria with just a tourist map, until a lad gave me a travel guide when he was going home.
Anyway, all these things got me thinking. Adventure is everywhere. Walk a mile from your house and camp is an adventure ( why don't we organise something like that on a weekend before the kids start back?). Anyway, I know that you know all these things anyway - long running in the country is an adventure etc.


I had a dream last night where I was abroad. It was the bottom of Portugal in my mind, but scenery wise, was Morrocco / Africa. I was walking and was being tagged along by this blonde girl from Germany / Scandinavia. She was the typical type in batik pants, bit disheveled, but totally beautiful, to me at least. We'd heard about this chap who was walking and attracted a bit of a following ( Forrest Gump from earlier in the day?). The press had given a name to these walking people - 'The Nike Hike.' We joined the end of the line. We didn't know where we were going or how long we'd do it for. Nobody did. I laughed as I told the girl that nobody was wearing Nikes and that Nike would probably sue and forbid use of a name which no one at the time cared about, but would do if the mega company told them not too. Anyway, as is the stuff of dreams, I fell in love with her, she fell in love with me and I woke up just after our first kiss.

The upshot of this is that I've just spent a couple of hundred quid on a decent bike trailer, which packs down to nothing. Carrying the SUP to Mabo? Little tours round the Wolds? Few weeks looking for 'The Nike Hike' in Morrocco? Who knows?

You are on an adventure this weekend. Timmy Olsen showed at Hard Rock that the best adventures have nothing to do with results. Keep the ego at bay and the ' I'm having a great adventure,' at the front of your mind and the weekend will be memorable whatever.

Me? I'm having a walk over the fields to your house. Haha!

Love you,
Den xx



Rushed with emotion, I felt like crying. I looked over at Tam and she smiled back at me. 'He's a daft sod, isn't he?' she said.

I stared out the window for a good while and then read it again.

I couldn't help but think of the rambling letters that he used to send me when people wrote letters. Letters that I'd look forward to and cherish when I was thousands of miles away from him.

Picking out points, I started to talk about some of the things he'd mentioned:

- Alastair Humphreys' everyday mini-adventures;

- Sean Conway, who'd swam the length of Britain last year, and had just set out on a Land's End to John O'Groats run sporting a huge beard, red shorts, yellow tee-shirt and a 'Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.' truckers hat;

- the scrapes we got in together in Australia all those years back;

- Timothy Olsen's performance at the Hardrock 100 the previous weekend, where going in as a pre-race favourite, he'd stolen the limelight from eventual winner, Killian Journet, by enduring such a nightmare of suffering that to finish, broken but still moving forwards, had become the stuff of US ultra-running legend.

On and on.

By the time I stopped talking, we'd reached Keswick.

Just then, another text arrived, also from Dennis.

I read it out.

'Oh- I forgot to say. The leader of The Nike Hike was you!!'





As I lined up on the start line on the drizzly Saturday morning, about to undertake one of the longest runs of my life, it was odd how calm I felt. That phrase, 'The Nike Hike', kept meandering into my mind. Somehow Our Kid's text from the day before had transformed this brutal 'race' into something to be enjoyed, savoured and eventually remembered for the experiences it provided, rather than for my position on the results page after the event was over.

At 7am, the horn sounded, and this most strange creation - a race that was no longer a race - began.

Early miles went smoothly. I fell into step with Jason Lewis and ran, slightly too quickly, with him for 10 miles or so. Meeting Tam for the first time at Kirkland, I took a couple of minutes to change my drinks flasks while Jason pushed on. I ran the next 20 miles by myself, enjoying the hills, the Lake District lanes I was discovering for the first time, and the soothing chill of the steadily increasing rainfall.

Just before Portinscale, Jason came back into view, and we ran into the Keswick swimming pool car park together, where Tam had sorted out the first of my four 'big stops'. My plan had been to break the route into 30 mile segments (corresponding to the sections on the Sustrans C2C map we'd been provided with), and take a BG approach, stopping for 10 minutes at the end of each one of these segments, having a sit down, slugging a coffee and getting in a bowl or two of the bean, pepper and cheese stew I'd concocted and used successfully in training over previous months.

Whilst I sat down and chatted with a few good friends who had kindly popped along to offer support, Jason made it clear he was going to keep going (obviously the stew didn't look that good!), and left on the railway path with the words, 'You'll probably catch me up in a bit!' As it turned out, unfortunately, that was the last I'd see of him.

An enjoyable, wet and windy hike over the Old Coach Road followed, after which the weather brightened and the charming rural lanes led me out of the Lake District, through Penrith and beyond to my second 'big stop' on Langwathby village green.

The stew took a bit more getting down this time, but, physically, things were still in pretty good shape. With 60 miles covered, it was at this point in 2012's Viking Way Ultra that things had started to unravel. This time, everything seemed better. The super-cushioned shoes I'd chosen to wear appeared to be keeping my feet in decent nick, even though they'd got over 1000 miles on them and had needed bolstering with the liberal use of superglue and ShoeGoo in recent weeks. My stomach, too, seemed happier. Cutting out all meat and fish from my diet (entirely for ethical reasons rather than health or performance-related ones) seemed to have had no detrimental impact on my running, and my decision to stay off junk and sugar until after 100 miles appeared to be paying dividends. Instead of the jelly sweets, cake, flap jack and gels I'd downed in the early stages of the VW (and which had led to an inability to keep any substantial food down after 81 miles), here I'd grazed on bean tortillas, flat bread with almond butter and mixed fruit and raisins. My strategy seemed to be doing the trick.

Knocking back a coffee, Tam informed me that Jason had been through 10 minutes earlier, but was struggling to eat anything solid and felt rough. Behind me, according to the tracker, she said, Martin Terry seemed to be moving well and was probably 10 or 15 minutes back.

I set off back into the oppressively warm early evening knowing that this stretch, Langwathby to Allenheads, was the crux of this Coast 2 Coast route. I'd ran this section on fresh legs a few months back, and knew it was both the most beautiful and most taxing stretch. After a wildly undulating first 60 miles, now we were to tackle real hills. The next 30 miles would cross the four biggest climbs of the route, including a steep drag up Hartside and a slog over Black Hill, at 609 metres, the highest point of the journey.

I chipped off the miles to the bottom of Hartside, passing through Renwick feeling hot, dehydrated and weary. Dressed in just vest and shorts, the warm weather was taking its toll. By the time I reached the summit cafe, however, things had changed dramatically.

The violent storm hit with full effect on the hairpin, half-way to the top. By the time I'd reached the main road a mile or so from the top, the tarmac was an inch deep in water. Half a mile from the top, I was met by Tam driving down from the cafe car park. Perplexed, I waited till she wound down the window. 'Mark's sent me down too see if you're ok,' she said, 'He doesn't want anyone getting hypothermia.'

'Fuck me,' I thought,'If Mark Cockbain, race organiser and legendary hard man, is worried, things must be bad!'

Arriving at the summit, the storm was still raging. Mark greeted me. 'I've changed the rule about being disqualified if you enter your support vehicle,' he said. 'If you want to get in for a few minutes and warm up, that'll be fine.' He seemed genuinely concerned. He even offered me a cup of coffee.

I didn't fancy the idea of taking cover. Once inside that warm car, I knew it would be hard to get out. Instead, I changed by the tail-door, shed my drenched clothes, replaced them with dry ones and a waterproof coat, and set off again. But the weather had got me, My running action had become jerky and stiff, my upper body had been seized by the shivers. I'd been here before, and knew I needed to take action sooner rather than later. As Tam drove past 5 minutes later, I flagged her down and told her I needed more clothes - loads more clothes. And so it was, as darkness fell on a warm August evening, that I ended up running down to Leadgate clad in full-on winter mountaineering garb - waterproof pants, thick thermal base layer, Buffalo Special Six, Lowe Alpine mountain cap and winter mitts. But a wobble had been averted. By the time I met Tam in the valley near Garrigill, the shakes had subsided and it was time to take all the stuff off again.

In a long journey, the onset of darkness always brings doubt. I actually enjoy running in the dark, but that time when day is being replaced by night is always a dodgy one for me.

The climb out of Garrigill is tough and steep. By the time I'd reached the top, I'd had enough. For many weeks I'd worked hard on running mindfully - emptying my head and existing only in the present moment - now this footstep, now the next. I'd purposefully avoided running this race with any gadgets - no Garmin, music device, radio or earphones - in order to encourage this meditative state. And so far, things had gone perfectly. But now, things were falling apart. '80 miles in,' I kept thinking, '60 miles to go.' Unlike the Viking Way, my collapse wasn't physical - I was tired, for sure, but still felt ok. This time it was a mental one.

Questions appeared out of the shadows. 'What's the point?' 'What have you got to prove?' 'Just who are you doing it for?'

Tammy would be at Nenthead. I'd just get in the car. 'That's it,' I'd tell her. 'Let's go home.'

I jogged on, seemingly happy with my decision. It was then that another phrase appeared. One that I'd not thought of since the start. 'The Nike Hike'. I thought of Our Kid's text and recalled a couple of important sentences:

' You are on an adventure this weekend. Timmy Olsen showed at Hardrock that the best adventures have nothing to do with results. Keep the ego at bay and 'I'm having a great adventure' at the front of your mind and the weekend will be memorable whatever.'

I jogged on. Answers from the darkness. 'There is no point, but does that mean it's not worth doing?' 'I've nothing to prove - I'm just doing this because I want to.' 'I'm doing it for myself, I guess. I need to. To try and make things clearer.'

In the space of ten minutes, I'd gone from running in the C2C Ultra to simply travelling in an easterly direction on The Nike Hike.

My next 'big stop' came at the Northumberland border, a mile or so out of Allenheads. Tam let me know that Jason's tracker had been still for ages. She guessed he might have called it a day. After some grub and a drink, I got ready to leave as Martin's headtorch came into view. I'd no doubt that he'd pass me soon, but for now, as I left the lay-by heading for Rookthorpe, I was - just as Our Kid had seen in his dream - the leader of The Nike Hike.

In the following miles, the darkness allowed me to inhabit my imaginary world.

There were other people with me - I wasn't alone on this trip; a crazy tribe of folks who probably didn't know why they were doing this, but were going from here to there anyway, just following in some bearded guy's tracks.

I didn't look round, but I could hear footsteps, could see the torch light behind me. And uncomfortable, unworthy as I felt to lead these people, to take them with me, I knew that they were on this journey because they wanted to be. We hiked as one.

As the next couple of hours passed, I lived in this world - a world no more real or unreal than the one I usually dwelt in. I led my people and they followed. Lost souls on The Nike Hike. Clueless, hopeful, enlightened. Looking for something (or nothing?) Hoping we could find it in movement from one place to another.

By the time Martin eventually passed me at 103 miles on The Waskerly Way, the daylight had returned and my nocturnal dreamworld began to melt away. I bade farewell to my fellow travellers. Little did I know that they would reappear later, creeping into the fuzzy, warm, hazy bubble that physical exhaustion and sleep deprivation enable you to linger in during such long, continuous journeys. This time they would bring answers that I'd been looking for for ages:





114 miles. The Derwent Walk footpath.

One foot in front of the other. A breath. A heartbeat.

As I pass a pub car park, Tam appears. She puts a thumb up. I reply with the same gesture as I move on. Neither of us says a word.

I'm tired now. It's an effort to carry on. I've that trippy sensation of being slightly detached from my physical body, existing purely as energy. It's wonderful.

Martin Terry must be miles in front now. But that's ok. Because I'm the one leading The Nike Hike. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. Why didn't I tell Tam how much I love her back there?

I can't help but think, distractedly, of Peter Bakwin, one of my personal heroes. How did he describe that moment - that moment of clarity - that moment of transcendence - during his successful Double Hardrock journey in 2006?


“Walking through the wide meadows above Pole Creek [183 miles into the run] I notice something gnawing at my chest. What is this? There is a softness here, tenderness. Sensing deeper, it is like an ocean of sweetness in my chest. Love. So many people came out to selflessly help me in my quest for the Double Hardrock. No one ever complained, they just did exactly what needed to be done. And, all these volunteers are here to help the runners achieve their dreams, no questions asked. No one says ‘Why?’ No one says these dreams are not worth it. The RD puts in hundreds of hours a year so we can be here in communion with the mountains, so we can challenge our limits and test ourselves to the core.”

“This feeling has grown deeper. There is a universal support, a loving, unconditional support for each and every one of us. I see that the true nature of the universe is tender and compassionate. All we have to do to experience this is open our hearts. There is no need to struggle and fuss. There is no need for fear. We are all one, and that oneness is beauty and love. As we talk, Stephanie feels it too.”

“We are at the Cunningham Gulch aid station [195 miles] before dark! I am astonished by our progress. I have surrendered completely to the loving support that is all around me, all around everyone and everything; it is the true nature of everything. And it’s time to do the last climb.”



I'd read the article so many times, and it always seemed so far-fetched. 

But not any more. Now I feel it. Now I understand it.

It's then that I feel his presence. Not an hallucination, a product of my imagination, a figment of a desperately tired mind. No, an actual physical presence.

Peter Bakwin taps me on the shoulder, and I stop. For the first time since the start of this journey at Whitehaven, I stand dead still. I turn, and together we look back upon the trail. To the people that are following me. A rag-tag line of youthful exhuberance, weathered faces, beards and tangled pony-tails. A winding snake of barefoot dreamers, long-haired chancers and kind faces in worn-out shoes. The people who I choose to surround myself with. These people who always follow me to the finish line. These people who, like me, have no answers. These people who are the answer.

As I stop and stare, I realise that Peter is no longer there. Perhaps he's hiked on. Maybe he's realised he doesn't really belong here. I stand for a while, smiling. And the people traveling with me stop hiking too and do the same. At the back of the line, I spot Our Kid. He stands hand-in-hand with a beautiful, disheveled blonde girl. I suppose he thinks he may as well take advantage of this pause in proceedings. While everyone else is looking in my direction, he turns to the girl and leans in for their first kiss.





I got to the end of the C2C Ultra in 32 hours and 12 minutes. Martin Terry had reached the finish line 14 minutes earlier for a well-deserved victory. If he'd not got lost a couple of times in the last 25 miles, his winning margin would have undoubtedly been much more impressive. Jon Steele finished third to achieve an amazing first-ever Cockbain Events 'Grand Slam'. Three other hardy chaps also finished inside the 38 hour cut-off, and another crazy guy carried on for over 50 miles with a knackered IT band to complete the route just outside of the cut-off time.

You can find the results here.

On the way home, Tam told me of how much she'd enjoyed chatting to the race organisers, Mark and Alex, both over the weekend and at the finish whilst waiting for us to arrive. Tam had commented on how, in spite of racing so infrequently, I found certain Cockbain Events races difficult to resist. That the no-nonsense, low-key style perfectly suited my preferences for running long distances. She then told me of something Mark had said about his vision for what he was doing. Of how he wanted to avoid the crass commercialism of the majority of ultra races, to put on no-frills events where there was little guarantee of everyone, or indeed anyone, finishing - to host races that were so hard that to finish would entail testing your limits, maybe even finding out something about yourself that you'd not stumble across in any less-challenging scenarios.

It's a while now since I completed the C2C Ultra, and the reason for my silence has been due to one question: 'Just what did I find out about myself during that race?'

I look back on The Nike Hike interludes with a certain disbelief, but with the certainty that, however strange, what happened in those moments of absolute clarity contain the answer to what I've been trying to grasp for many, many months.

Now, four weeks after the race, I know what that answer is.





For most of my life, I've been a serious runner. For much of that time, I've pushed myself to achieving results and challenges. There's always been something else. And when I've worked hard to achieve that something else, there's something else still.

To do anything at a high level requires time, effort, sacrifice and selfishness. The time - well that I've stolen from my wife, my children, my family, my friends. Whilst the effort to achieve these things has been mine, the sacrifice involved has been, to the greater degree, just theirs. I've lived my life for myself. In spite of this, the people I love have followed me. For The Nike Hike isn't just a dream or imaginary wanderings conjured from exhaustion, but also a metaphor. The Nike Hike is Life.

Since the start, I've trod my own path. I've gone my own way, unsure of direction, content in the knowledge that I'll come to the finish sometime. And some people, in spite of my selfishness, my perfectionism, my tiredness, moods and all the other baggage that doing the things I've done has entailed, have followed me. There's only one reason why they've done that, and this is it: They love me.

I'm giving up the chase. It's easy to do now, because it's only now that I truely see that whatever it is I'm chasing will never bring me what I want. No, that will only be achieved by cherishing the company of those people who hike with me.

A PB isn't going to make you happy for long. A promotion at work isn't going to make you a better person. A podium finish in an ultra-race is never going to change you, really. Spending time with the people you've gathered around you, however, almost certainly will.

So, for me, there'll be no more big races. My projects will be small, off-the-cuff, spontaneous and inclusive. My fulfillment will come from helping rather than expecting help. By exploring the magical, overlooked adventures of the everyday.

It's going to be difficult - after all, it's hard to change the habits of a lifetime. But I hope I can grow to be as good at returning love as I have at feeding on it for all these years.

And when The Kid starts to whisper his Keep On Burning monologues - as I'm sure he will - and plans for a fast marathon, an all-encompassing challenge or a long ultra begin to occupy my mind, I hope I can return to that moment on The Nike Hike and, looking towards that couple together at the back of the line, ask myself what is most important:

A step forward or a kiss?

 
  

Two Moths

We're with the superheroes at the swimming pool. It's the first time we've been in ages.

In the water are the same assortment that you'd get anywhere on a summer Sunday afternoon. Mums and Dads splash around with little ones in the shallow end, whilst teenagers with buzz cuts and quiffs preen themselves and dive off the side, playing up to a group of girls giggling in the seating area behind the glass wall. A sixth-form couple wrap themselves around each other by the rope separating the general swimming area from the lap lane. On the far side, a lifeguard in yellow tee-shirt and baggy shorts barks commands to a group of kids dressed in wet clothes. He throws things in the water and gets one of them at a time to dive in and retrieve them.

In the deep end, I hang onto the side, under strict instructions from my daughter.

'Daddy,' yells Whirlwind. 'Daddy, watch me!'

She pushes off and swims five or six strokes front crawl before disappearing from sight. After an age, she reappears, surfacing like a performing dolphin at a seaside show. Eyes hidden by mirrored goggles, her smile's huge.

I give her the thumbs up. 'That was ace!' I tell her.

'Much better, Ellie,' her mum says. 'Well done!'

Whirlwind smiles even wider, before turning and splashing towards the other end of the pool in search of her big brother.

I rest my back against the edge of the pool and, elbows bent in front of me, grab hold of the rim that runs round its perimetre. Legs straight, but still a way from the bottom, and chin resting in the water, I close my eyes.

I'm unsure of the cause of the tickling sensation against my right ear - there, gone, in an instant - but when I open my eyes, it all becomes clear.

'Can you reach it?' an old lady in a one piece swimsuit asks me.

Looking forward, I see it. A moth on the surface of the water. I watch as it backstrokes crazily, spinning in a wide arc, just out of reach. Its limbs move in staccato, panic-stricken bursts while its wings remain useless, weighted down with moisture.

By some miracle its course of movement brings it straight back to the old lady beside me. She reaches out with a spread palm and scoops the moth up.

And then it flies. Just like that.

We're both as surprised as one another. The old lady laughs in delight. 'Oh my,' she says, her voice a song. 'Fly away, little one, fly away!'

I rest my head back against the rim of the pool as the moth soars in glorious spirals towards the leisure centre roof.


                 *                *                *                *                *                *                *


It's not even dark when I decide to go to bed. But I'm tired and an early night will do me good.

The bathroom light's been left on. Attracted by the brightness, a couple of flying insects have got in through the not-quite-closed window and are flying laps round the bare bulb.

As I brush my teeth, I can't help but notice the merest flicker of movement somewhere else. There, resting on the inside of the toilet bowl, of all places, is a tiny moth. I watch it for a while, but decide to leave it where it is.

Back in the bedroom. I lay for a while, finishing Scott Jurek's book, until my eyelids are heavy.

When I return to the bathroom for a good-night piss, I'm surprised to see the moth again. Drowning in the water inside the toilet bowl, it's awkward, hurried movements betray its fear. Try as it will, it just can't get out.

There was a time when I'd just pull the chain, flush this little life away, but not tonight. I think of this afternoon, of that beautiful creature heading for the swimming pool roof, flying free.

There's an unopened box of toothpaste on the window ledge. I tear off one of the ends and use it to gently lift the moth from the water. Then, opening the bathroom window a little wider, I place it on the outside window sill.

I hear that old lady's laugh of delight. I hear her sing-song voice.

'Fly away, little one, fly away!' I whisper.

I watch as the moth tries to flutter its wings. Tries to escape.

I watch as the once-vigorous movements grow slower and more laboured.

How much of this movement is just instinct? I wonder, Does this little creature know it's dying?

I watch until it's dark outside, the moth mustering just the occasional half-hearted flurry of its wings and legs, until, eventually, it's quite still.

The Cloud Wall

There's been several times in my life that a novel has changed me, just a bit.

 Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road'. William Wharton's 'Birdy'. David Guterson's 'Snow Falling On Cedars'. Donna Tartt's 'The Goldfinch'. All of these, masterpieces that have taken me to places from which, on reading the final page, I've returned a slightly different person.

None of these, however, have transformed me in quite the same way as Mark Helprin's 'Winter's Tale'.

What do I mean by that?

In her blog post on 'The Sheila Variations', Sheila O'Malley states,

'One of the best parts of 'Winter's Tale' is that it gave me 'scenes' unlike anything I have ever seen in any book, in life, in theatre, movies. So specific, so fantastical, that they could only have come from the expansive imagination of one man...

I am forever grateful to Mark Helprin for showing me these things from his beautiful dreamscape, because now they are mine. Forever.

They are not nothing. Nothing goes away. Even things of the mind, the imagination, the dream, are important information to have as we try to navigate our way through the world.'

What do I mean by that? That's what I mean by that.

Of all the wonderful images the book brings alive, the one that intrigued me the most was that of the cloud wall - the mysterious, whirling barrier of cloud that surrounds the mythical New York City. Sheila O'Malley writes,

'Nobody knows what the cloud wall is. It sometimes picks up the sun, glinting with gold, and the wall reaches into the atmosphere. Sometimes it sweeps over New York City, and when that happens, chaos breaks loose. But for the most part, the cloud wall surrounds the city, a barricade, and people forget its existence. In the 20th Century section of the book, people have become so accustomed to the cloud wall that they don't 'believe' in it any more. Nobody even sees it. But maybe the cloud wall is a clue.'

But to what?

'...and although the whirling white cloud wall may not be mentioned for pages at a time, you always feel its smothering presence. You never stop wondering about it. What is it? And what might be out there, in the world, that is working on me, without me even realising it? Don't we all have a whirling cloud wall, to some degree?'

I lay in the bath one Saturday afternoon, deliciously exhausted after a long morning run, with the cloud wall in my head. And in that half-world between sleep and wakefulness, my own cloud wall became clear. The brooding, whirling barrier that surrounded my life was fear.

Although my wife, my children (and my running?) keep me sane, I'd fallen into a default life that I never wanted. I'd become immersed in the same old shit as everyone else. Working too hard in a job that bored me, manufacturing a product that I couldn't give a toss about, saying one thing but doing another, sacrificing precious time to earn money to spend on stuff we'd all be better off without.

In a moment of insight, I realised that the reason I was doing this was down to the cloud wall. In that instant, the cloud wall became a barrier for me between what is and what might be. A creeping fog of fear that is at once immensely comforting and cloyingly suffocating.

Surely I owed it, both to myself and the people around me, to walk into the cloud wall. To confront its challenges in the hope that things will work out, but with the knowledge that it might make things worse?

But how would I do this?

The steps I would take into the cloud barrier would have to be small at first. I couldn't afford to leave any of the people I love behind. And gradually, over weeks, months or years, I might see what lies beyond.

When you're a coward at heart, it's always easier to stick to the familiar first. (If you're an idiot too, then why not choose the very area of your life that might (or might not) be part of the problem you're trying to crack?) For much of the next few days, therefore, the cloud wall became inexplicably bound in my mind with running. It would be in the field of running that my bid to charge the cloud barrier would start. Get it right, and then - but only then - could I push deeper.

I came up with this idea of just running one weekend to destruction. Keeping going until I could no longer, mentally or physically, move forward any further. I'd mark out a 5 mile flat route from my front door and after starting off, just keep running, stopping only to eat or drink when I arrived back home. I googled the longest distance ever run continuously to give me a ball-park figure of how long I could possibly go.

The more I thought about it, however, the more this idea seemed dumb. I'd run 140-odd miles continuously in the past, but paid for it with months of injury and knackeredness. Maybe there was a difference between not doing something because you're scared to and not doing something because it's just bloody stupid. (But maybe not - I guess this dilemma also lies behind the everyday inertia most of us live our lives with.) Whatever - I knocked this idea on the head, confident that something better would turn up.

I've made a resolution in recent times to read less shit on the internet. To be fair, though, I do struggle. And although I'll continue to persevere in my mission to rid my days of modern technology, I have to admit that amongst the mass of sows' arses, you do sometimes come across a silk purse.

I chanced across a blog post by US ultra-runner, Dominic Grossman, entitled 'The Merits of the Full Blarney'. It was to change my life for the next three weeks. The start of Grossman's blog is great:

' I have to admit, I have a problem:

I can't take anyone's word for it; "it" being defined as any truth about life, running, work, relationships, etc. I have to empirically prove it to myself multiple times to thoroughly know the truth inside and out.

My training is an especially true testament to this; I can never accept truths that I haven't dramatically proven to myself. I have to put stress on my body in every possible way until I understand what's really going on. So, when I read that former pupils of Jim O'Brien had done blocks of ten 100 mile weeks, I had to try it for myself.'

Now, I'd come across Grossman before in my overexhuberant following of the US ultra scene, but I'd never heard of Jim O'Brien, his 80's disciples (Larry Gasson , Bruce Hoff - amongst others) and his fondness for prescribing a block of ten consecutive 100 mile weeks in his training programmes.  A couple of hours later, however,  I knew a fair bit about them all.

Jim O'Brien's athletic career was shaped by several standout performances, but  defined by one unbelievable record that still stands as a benchmark to this day. His 17.35.48 Angeles Crest 100 record of 1989 has never been threatened since it was set. Remarkable in itself, what makes it even more special is that the course was almost two miles longer in those days than it is now.

O'Brien's preparation for this race was extreme.

'I really prepared for Angeles Crest in 1989. I sacrificed for six months before the race. I had meticulous planning; crew, pacers and nutrition, all dialled in. I had three plans. Plan 'C' was to run close to the record. Plan 'B' was to run conservatively and break the existing record. The secret plan 'A' was to go under 18 hours. The training began a year before the race. My mileage for the six peak weeks, nine weeks prior to race day, was 150 to 200 miles in a continuous build. I then tapered downward from 200-100-75-50 per week.'

Although O'Brien's athletic achievements are something else, there's scope to suggest that he left an even bigger impression in the world of coaching. Starting at the University of San Diego from 1982 to 1984, onto Cal Tech through to the mid '90's, and then at Arcadia High School till 2013 (whereby he was sacked as victim of an internal politics bullshit battle), O'Brien became one of the most successful and charismatic coaches in the US education system, credited with always getting the most out of his athletes.

It was during the '90's that O'Brien also took on coaching private clients. In time, this became 'Team Blarney' - a name synonymous with running achievement in Southern California. At Team Blarney, O'Brien coached a spectrum of runners from 10k speedsters to those wanting to run a trail 100 miler, and included runners from their late teens to mid 60's.

O'Brien's coaching philosophy was pretty simple. He pinpointed the biggest mistakes long-distance runners made:

'Not taking the distances seriously, not treating the training seriously, and being self-coached with no serious direction. Also, a blind willingness to replicate mistakes, and a resistance to positive ideas.'

Suffice to say, I probably wouldn't have made Team Blarney.

'In order to get the most out of your ability, you have to run at a higher level of seriousness. Why? To maximise your ability to finish the distance in the shortest possible time. The runner must be willing to train at a higher intensity, and to properly prepare for the rigours of the distance. This is unavoidable.

'Running 20 miles a week isn't going to cut it. Distance runs aren't enough either. Most ultra-runners run their training runs slower than their race pace. This isn't good. This is where speed work comes in. But speed work must be understood as an efficiency-building exercise. Nobody does speed work at 12-15 minute miles; it's too slow. Speed work is designed to reinforce efficient running habits.'

Bearing the above in mind, central to his athletes' preparation before a long race was the 'Full Blarney' - a ten-week block of consistent back-to-back 100 mile weeks wherein speed was focused on as much as distance run.

An example month block can be seen from the training diary pages of Bruce Hoff - one of O'Brien's most successful athletes.

I have to admit, I always feel a strange excitement at the prospect of running myself into the ground, and the discovery of the Full Blarney got me properly buzzing. Through this trial of miles, I would take my first steps into the cloud wall.

I've done big weeks in the past. Plenty of 100 mile weeks, the very occasional 200 mile week, but never 10 100+ mile weeks in a row. The reason? It scared me. It scared me in its prospect of the time commitment necessary and the mental discipline needed. It scared me because it was so removed from typical modern-day  running coach advice (ask anyone - run 100 miles for 10 weeks and you're just asking for trouble - 'your body just won't cope!) and, moreover, it scared me because whenever I'd tried in the past to run back-to-back 100 mile weeks, my body hadn't coped. I'd succumbed to tiredness and injury, and reverted - retreated, tail between legs - back to my normal 'sweet spot' of 60 -70 miles.

The Full Blarney was taunting me. In a short time, it began to take on a symbolic significance that perhaps it shouldn't. Fine - a Blarney might set me up for this summer's race. Fine - a Blarney would determine if I was physically anywhere as near as good as I hoped I could be. But more, more than this, the Blarney began to mean something else. If I was to change my life in the way I desired in the future, if I was to tackle my fears of doing something radically different (not in my running, per se, but in the whole way I go about living) I needed, first, to finish this stupid challenge.




On June 28th - the day after my 47th birthday - I arrived back at the step at the end of a 13 mile evening run (and a 29 mile day). I was tired, but not done in. And my Full Blarney was complete.

For ten weeks, I'd averaged between 103 and 116 miles without missing a day (my streak, started on February 22nd, is still intact - 149 days and counting). It had been hard, but not impossible. Admittedly, I'd foregone O'Brien's emphasis on speed work - the only time I ever run fast in training is by accident - but I'd done my ten weeks nevertheless.

And what had the Blarney taught me? A few running-related things probably:

- as long as you're flexible, you can always find the time to run 100 miles in a typical week;

- sometimes, the runs where the first miles are the most frustratingly painful end up as the ones where the last miles are delightfully effortless;

- consistency hardens you. Run every day and niggles rarely become injuries. Refuse to rest and, after a day or two, they magically go away;

- it's possible to run 100 miles in the week after a gruelling 60 mile trail race;

- running a lot of miles makes it easier to run a lot of miles (I completed the afore-mentioned 60 mile race at the end of week 9 of my Blarney in a time 1 hour and 45 minutes quicker than last year.)

There's a few others, I guess, but rather than reading about them, it'll certainly be less boring - and infinitely more rewarding for you - if you go out and have a crack at a Blarney yourself.

These running-related things, however, mean bugger all in the grand scheme of things. The most important thing the Blarney taught me was that earlier throw-away sentence: It was hard, but not impossible.

It is this, over everything else, that I need to remember.

To break through the cloud wall, it will be hard, but not impossible.





David Cain writes so insightfully on the subject of fear - the very grey matter that makes up the cloud wall:

'When you decide you’ll walk into your moments of truth — your project launches, race days and blind dates — with an unconditional willingness to see what happens, fear doesn’t have much to do.

For some reason we interpret the presence of fear as a trustworthy reason to be tentative, to delay our arrival at a result. This gives fear time to make the unhappiest possibilities bigger in our minds, seemingly more worthy of respect. Yet fear is your mind at its dumbest and least articulate. All it knows how to do is shout “Get away!”


It designs endless disaster scenarios, not just of failure or setback but of complete ruin. It understands your options only in terms of how they could bring on your annihilation, and therefore is blind to everything else that your experiences can do for you: wisdom gained, doors opened, and particularly the possibility of success. It just doesn’t see it.

So it always bets on death and irreversible consequences without even reading the odds sheet. But like any idiot conspiracy theorist, when it guesses right its confidence explodes, and you can’t shut it up. (“See! They didn’t like your poem! How stupid that you tried!”)

When you point out any of the million instances in which fear was wrong, it changes the subject to its most recent victory, or it makes a brand new prediction. If you’re not thinking for yourself, you’ll start to parrot its paranoid convictions — “It doesn’t matter what I do, things never work out for me! Nobody can love me!” and other beliefs so asinine they would require a global conspiracy to be true. You might even find yourself actively looking for evidence to support fear’s claims, not for any logical reason, but because you wish you were as confident as it is.

And once you’re confident fear is usually right, you’ll be right so often that you’ll never want to bet against it. That’s the great irony of fear: give it too much respect and it becomes the paralysis and annihilation from which it ostensibly protects you.

We are smarter than fear. Walk into the thing it tells you to cower from — or “Feel the fear and do it anyway” as Susan Jeffers would say it — and fear dies, because you ignored its only wish, which is to keep you from going certain places to see what’s actually there.

Unless you have a rational expectation of grievous bodily harm or financial ruin, respond to fears with curiosity about what life actually looks like beyond the moment of truth. Pass through the door and see what’s there. You can take it. The sky has fallen a thousand times already.

Even if you do find what fear warned you about, you’ll notice it had none of the details right. It doesn’t look like, feel like or require of you what you thought. That’s because fear doesn’t know anything about the future. Fear only ever has old material to work with; it makes its predictions out of the past. It’s desperate to prevent you from getting to the future to see what’s really there, because then it will quickly lose your respect.'




As I've gotten older, I've matured a long way from the shy, introverted, lost kid that I once was. I'm more confident, have less inhibitions, take less notice of what others think or say. But, interestingly, when it comes to the way I live my day-to-day life, my fear has increased.

I'll give you just one example.

During the winter of 1989, I flew with my sister to Perth, Australia, to meet Our Kid who'd gone out to Oz six months previously. After bumming around on the fringes of the Pro Surf Tour in Margaret River for a few days, we returned to the northern suburbs of the city and slept in a car-park near Scarborough Beach for a while until we secured a cockroach-infested flat a couple of hundred yards from the Indian Ocean. Two or three dead-end jobs and a month's grape-picking later, with barely enough spare cash to finance a daily food spend of 10 dollars a day between the three of us, we drove across the Nullabor Plain to Port Augusta, before heading to Alice Springs and the remote heart of the continent. From there, we drove to North Queensland, sat out a tropical cyclone for a week and followed the coast south to arrive in Sydney two days before Our Kid's flight home, totally skint.

With zero knowledge of basic mechanics, it had been a concern when the van failed to start at a roadhouse a hundred miles or so short of Ayer's Rock. Fortunately, a drunken trucker, taking a shine to my sister's English accent and blue eyes, had showed us how to bang a starter motor back into life with a hammer, and we'd used that new found skill on more occasions than I care to remember for the rest of the trip. It seems strange to me nowadays, looking back, how strong our belief in everything turning out alright had been. Somehow, we always knew - or convinced our young selves that it was so - that wherever we were - middle of nowhere, holding up traffic after stalling at traffic lights on Sydney Harbour Bridge - we'd manage to get that old bus started again. And we always did. For that year, we acted first and feared later.

I'd not yet learnt to drive during those long-gone months of adventure. As the Kombi putt-putted into the Outback, I'd either be sleeping in the back or sprawled in the passenger seat reading 'Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance' or 'The Fountainhead', listening to one of our collection of three cassettes we'd bought from Target before departure - The Sundays' 'Reading, Writing and Arithmetic', The Smiths' 'Louder Than Bombs' and James Taylor's 'Greatest Hits'.

When I arrived back in the UK in 1992, it took me a few more years to get round to taking my driving test. Spurred on by the memories of that Australia road-trip, I eventually passed in 1996 and bought my first vehicle - a split-screen yellow VW bus - for £1800 from a bloke in Boston. On its last legs since Day One, I drove that bus everyday for the next two years, knowing that I'd break down more often than just now and again, but not really giving a toss. Although the Sound Of Fire was never far away, in the area of just getting on with it, the cloud wall was almost non-existent. If it had been, I guess I would have never given up everything in 1998 and fucked off to Africa.

In recent weeks, it's a VW bus that has become the mascot of my own cloud wall - the benign symbol of everything that's wrong.

After my original bus rotted away, I chopped her in as part-payment on a 1967 Splitty - the same age as me. But when, after a lengthy restoration, I eventually drove her home, things had changed. My circumstances had changed. I had changed.

I was now thirtysomething. Married. Two small children. Mortgage. Most of the stuff I'd always wanted. Some of the stuff I'd never wanted but had got anyway. And without me noticing, the cloud wall had crept in, insidiously encroaching waves, surrounding my life, keeping me 'safe'.

The bus was a totem of how things had changed. For the last 8 years, this amazing piece of iconic styling and minimalist engineering has done less than 1000 kms each year - less than I'd do in a month in my old wagon. And when I sit back and ponder the reasons why, the answer is simple - fear. Fear that on a long journey, I'll break down (all that waiting around and inconvenience, you know, when I've things to do!) Fear that using this bus on a day-to-day basis will only encourage rust and cause so much wear and tear that its extortionate value will decrease (but what of it's real value? It's value to me, not it's nominal monetary value. Protectively cocooned, but hardly used, it's real value to me is a tiny fraction of what it could be.) Fear that if I leave it parked on the roadside, some knob will nick it or scratch the paintwork.

So, it sits in the garage, loved but hardly enjoyed, like an expensive ornament or a wedding dress. That's just not on.




I've been reading through old Bumfuzzle posts recently. Check out the site - they're cool folks. People like this have no cloud wall surrounding them. But it never just disappears of its own accord. Rather, by making brave and bold and life-changing decisions, by living more consciously, more mindfully, not just going through the motions, some folks are able to burst through the hazy barrier that encloses most of our lives and experience living for how it really should be.

I'll be the first to admit that my life's pretty good. I've people who love me, I've people I love, I can do many of the things I want to do. But, still, there's something limiting me. There's a direction in which I must travel if ever I'm to find whatever it is I'm looking for. It's the cloud wall that stops me.

I'm no fool. I know it's rarely true that the grass is greener on the other side. I know running away is not the answer. And I've no misconceptions that what lies on the other side is a life that's just -well- better. I know that.

In my imagination, beyond the cloud wall is light. A bright, bright light that, at the moment, is being obscured.

Break through the clouds - make the changes I need to make, travel in the direction I need to go, face the fears that prevent me from really living - and the light will come through, sunstreaming in glowing shafts through stormy clouds.

 

And maybe, just maybe, under this light, what I have here, right now, will be illuminated so brilliantly that I'll be staggered by its beauty.