Running is one of the simplest, purest forms of activity we can engage in. At its most basic you just close the front door behind you and head out. No special kit, knowledge or training required. Just go out and have fun.
I did the traditional bit, running round a 440 yard cinder track in my earlier days, but then drifted off into less constrained pastimes like hill walking, climbing and later on cycling and ski-ing, more "do your own thing" activities. And I'm sure that's how it would have stayed but for two events, seemingly unconnected at the time.
In early 2004 I found myself living and working in Rotterdam, a long way from the hills and apart from a fairly regular 6 mile cycle commute not doing very much exercise. A colleague in the office said he had entered the local marathon in April so I thought why not and went along too. The 4th of April - "04.04.04" as it was billed in the publicity and on the teeshirt - was my first organised race for decades. I was approaching 56 years of age. With a really modest amount of training I got round the course in 3 hours and 37 minutes. "Well this is easy" I thought, "a bit of proper training and below 3.30 next time out". But I found that it didn't quite work like that. More like when you first start playing golf, and find that if you have reasonable co-ordination you can make the odd hole in par a few weeks after starting. Persistent amateurs will then spend the next 50 years trying to put 18 of them together (I didn't). It took me at least another six marathons to get below the (for me) magic 3.30, finally reaching my pb of 3.17 a few weeks before my 60th birthday, after which age started to catch up. But in the meantime I had discovered an activity that brought me a lot of pleasure and satisfaction. I still do the odd road marathon, I'm running York this coming October to get a "good for age" ticket to hopefully see me into my third London Marathon. Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris, New York, you can have a lot of nice weekends in interesting places in this game.
Then in the late summer of 2005, my wife Jan and I were sitting having dinner in the Brasserie Nationale in Chamonix, a town we'd visited many times over the years for climbing, ski-ing, and general family holidays. We were about to set off on the "Tour du Mont Blanc" walk, a trip recommended by our daughter who had done it with a school friend a couple of years earlier. We expected to take about 10 days. But as we were eating we were aware that some sort of event was taking place a bit further up the road. We wandered out after our meal to discover that it was the finishing area for a race, the "Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc". Runners were coming in, one every few minutes or so, after completing our planned 10 day trip in barely 24 hours. The race was in its infancy, certainly not taking over the town as it does these days, no CCC, TDS or any of the other accompanying circus, a fairly low key affair. But I was amazed that runners could keep going over such a distance, 100 miles without stopping. Jan and I went on to complete our tour, with a good meal and a bottle of wine every evening, but I felt I needed to know more about this "ultra running" we had witnessed.
Back home in England after my Dutch posting was done, it seemed that ways in to this strange but appealing sport were hard to find. The internet had got going of course but nothing in the way of what we would nowadays call "social media". I eventually stumbled on Ian Beattie's blog "West Highland Way Runner" and by the summer of 2007 I had completed my first two events, the embryonic "Highland Fling" and the long established (though I had never heard of it before the previous year) "West Highland Way Race". To start with I thought this might be something that I would do as a one-off challenge, and once having completed my hundred miles (or very nearly, for the West Highland Way is "only" 95), I would go back to my other pastimes. But the ultra running "community" at the time was very inclusive. There were not many folk in the game and those already hooked were happy to encourage the participation of newcomers. It became much easier to find out about where the events were, and what they were like. And they were a friendly lot, described by my daughter who was watching my progressive immersion from the sidelines as "a sociable bunch of attractively deranged characters who behave as though what they are doing is completely normal".
Ultra running became part of my life.
In 2012 I entered the monumental "Tor des Geants" race, which covers around 200 miles and 80,000 feet of ascent on the hills around the Aosta Valley in northern Italy. To train for such a monster I reasoned that I needed to spend a lot of time walking up hills. Not wanting to make 30 or 40 repeats of my nearest mountain, Snowdon, I decided that I would get to know the Lake District a bit better by climbing all the "Wainwrights" - the fells listed in Alfred Wainwrights classic series of walking guides. I had climbed in the Lakes on and off for years, but living in Chester our local climbing club's spiritual home will always be Snowdonia so the trips weren't frequent. I had also done one or two ultras in the Lakes, including the now classic Lakeland 100, but I didn't really know the area well.
I did my Wainwrights, 28 separate day trips from Chester, 470 miles run/walked, 150,000ft of ascent. It got me round the Tor des Geants, but also generated in me a real love of the Lake District. So much so that in late 2014 we bought a holiday lodge in a secluded park by the lakeshore in Keswick and, despite floods, heatwaves and being situated at the foot of the wettest valley in England, we have spent a lot of time there ever since.
Over the years I have completed numerous ultra events in the Lakes, including three Lakeland 100's and two 50's, five Lakes in a Days, the Lakeland Trails 100, the brutal Lakes 10 Peaks Long Course and the sadly now no longer Lakes 3 x 3000's. Also lots of shorter but still great days out like three Tour de Helvellyns, the Lakes Sky Ultra, the Grand Tour of Skiddaw, the Five Passes, St Begas Ultra and so on. I have enjoyed all these greatly, I treasure the days spent and the people met along the way. But, and this is in no way a criticism, simply a fact, these things require commitment and planning. To secure your place months or even a year ahead, to turn up on the day, suitably prepared and kitted out, to play the game by whatever rules the organiser sets, to follow the route he chooses. And in return you get looked after and the game is made safe.
Maybe I'm just antisocial, but my most vivid memories of these last years however have not been the events, but of the hundreds of days alone out on the fells, when the route was not decided until the night before, or until stepping out of the door, and even then often modified as the day went on and opportunities arose or disappeared. Grisedale Pike, the view from our living room window, before breakfast on a clear summer morning. The Coledale horseshoe late in the day when all the crowds have gone. Back of Skiddaw on a Tuesday in November, when you might as well be on the moon for all the people you'll meet. The long spring days when the daylight increases but the snow lingers on the high cornices for a warm up jog along the old railway to Threlkeld then Clough Head and the whole spine of the Eastern Fells to Ambleside, a well-earned beer then back on the 555. An occasional trip to the "deep south" for a round of the Coniston fells or the Langdale skyline.The map normally stays deep in the bottom of the pack when I go out these days, I know these places.
To travel competently and at a good enough pace in the fells is all the reward one needs. But therein is the rub. Time is catching up.
To travel safely you need to be concentrating on the job in hand, not just wondering how much each step will hurt. I've tripped and fallen a few times in recent years and ours can be an unforgiving sport. One summer day three years ago I was near the top of Skiddaw in the late evening, wearing just a teeshirt and shorts, carrying nothing. I missed a foot and crashed in a pile of rocks. I descended painfully and sheepishly, skirting the back of the town to avoid being seen with so much blood all over my legs and nursing what turned out to be an upper shoulder joint dislocation. Since then I've never gone out without at least an extra layer, an emergency bivi bag and a phone. But not a good omen.
I recognised as early as 2017 when I had to pull out of the Dragon's Back that I could manage a day or two of hard mountain travel but no more. The cumulative effect on my knees was just too much.
A ski touring crash thirty years ago left me with no ACL in my right knee. The ankle in the same leg has very limited movement following a skateboarding misadventure of a similar vintage. Scans first showed the onset of arthritis in both knees about fifteen years ago. I've had a fair bit of cartilege cleaned out, what's left isn't doing much of a job these days. Through asking in the right places I was fortunate enough to find a knee surgeon and a couple of physios who I believe to be about the best in the business. I've done the rehab exercises diligently over the years. But no one can expect miracles. I've always been quite interested in keeping records, and a look back over my running logs shows that in the ten years since I first completed the Wainwrights, got round the Tor de Geants and committed a lot of my future to the Lake District, I have averaged 43 miles and 5200ft of ascent per week year in year out. And 64 has turned into 74 next month.
I have gradually adapted my speed and gait to cope. But in doing so one starts to lose the essential freedom of movement, the being in the moment, even in the second, that made the game so attractive in the first place. Then one day back in the middle of May this year I ran the Howgills trail marathon. It was a beautiful sunny day and I took the first couple of climbs, which make up the majority of ascent for the whole route, conservatively. Then coming down from the Calf, a long gradually descending singletrack leads out to Bowderdale. At the top I was with a group of runners going at my normal conservative pace, when the thought came quite powerfully into my head, you can do better than this you know. I skittered off to the rough ground at the side then accelerated back onto the track at the head of the group. Then I just took off pretty well as fast as I could go, catching and passing runners as if they were standing still. Two or three miles of pure joy. I knew I would pay later but just for once it was worth it, to remember what it felt like. Since then most descents have hurt just a little more than they did before and I know which way this is going.
I finally decided after a short but typical Lake District outing on the slopes of the western arm of the Fairfield horseshoe last night, that I can't do this any more. When you're judging each footfall not on it's efficacy but on how much it will hurt, it's just no fun. I'm afraid my days as a hill runner are done. While the thought was fresh in my mind I put a post on Facebook and was touched by the support and kind thoughts of so many friends in response. All were wonderful, and typified by the short but completely uplifting comment from Richard Lendon - "Tough call Andy - but, hey, what a trip you've had."
So, time to take stock.
I'll continue to enjoy the high fells of the Lake District but strictly as a walker. A bit slower on the ups, a country mile slower on the downs. The views and the satisfaction on the summits will still be there whatever the pace.
As far as ultras go, I can't see myself ever again completing a Sky Race, a Lakes 10 Peaks, a Lakes in a Day, or unfortunately any of the wonderful UTS series now firmly established in Snowdonia. Reality has to start overcoming the dreams. But I'll keep jogging along at whatever pace I can manage on the less rugged events for as long as I can. I'm hoping for another West Highland Way race, I've missed for far too long the way that stunning journey unfolds as you travel north, and I still have a couple of Hardmoors appointments to keep. I'm sure I'll be back on the Pennine Way at some point and I'm intending to collect Lakeland 50's for as long as I can still put one foot in front of the other. My ambitions will go no further than getting to the end in relatively good shape and in the allotted time, no matter how long it takes. In trying to describe the difference earlier today, between what is possible and what not, the best I could do was to say that if I can choose where to put my feet then I can manage things comfortably enough, but if the hill tells me where I have to put my feet then I'm in trouble. If you do these things, you'll know what I mean.
A realisation, an acceptance, but in the end a plan
When one door closes...
