Langdale Horseshoe Fell Race 2018

So it rained. Needles of it lashed across Martcrag moor, on Crinkle Crags it came hard and heavy from above, thrown down with intent and malice. Sheltered behind Esk Pike, it drifted like sea fret, warm and slow through the silence behind the wind. It never stopped. As sure as the Thames, it came and came again. The fells were dark and muscular, racehorses, bad dreams. White veins had burst out everywhere, marbling Bowfell, fizzing and tumbling all-over like packs of terriers.

On the start line, a self-satisfied roar went up as it was announced that only half of the five-hundred people registered to race had turned up, making us the ‘hardy few’. I suppose there’s an element of personal heroism in choosing to run in conditions like this, a reinforcement of that familiar old narrative runners slip into: I do this, I don’t quit and am therefore valid. Of course there’s something in that, the satisfaction of completing something is deeply appealing, especially when it’s difficult, but there’s something to avoid there too - needing to punish yourself to feel OK. Is that what we’re up to? I hope not, but a friend once said to me that he’s never seen a runner looking happy in the act and for whatever reason that really stuck with me. I dwelt on it whilst jiggling around to keep warm on the start line, wondering why, questioning the motives. As we left though, clattering along the lane towards the first climb, something shifted in me, and once the steps to Stickle Tarn took hold of my legs and lungs all those half-baked, anxious thoughts slipped away behind, unresolved, returned to chaos.

I listened out for ravens under Pavey Ark. They’d been croaking and diving all over during my recce, but today it was just that familiar old shuffling and snorting sound - a pack of runners slowly catching me - rowdy bullocks, the hardy few. Reminded I was in a race, I pushed on. Soon enough another climb came and I felt sick and then hungry, then sick again. Later on I fell in a stream, cutting my knee and taking a bang to the shin. There was a low level of discomfort all the way around, but I never snagged again on those barbed, twisted thoughts, those forever why’s that pull and drag like the black dog and its tattered toy. Even walking along Wrynose bottom with all hope of competing gone and no energy left to run, even then I felt rested and sure. In motion there’s peace and what wouldn’t you trade for that?

I’d clearly I got a bit too peaceful up on Crinkle Crags, after running the little trod around Bad Step, I felt good. My mind was settled, my legs were springy and I’d found myself positioned well in a race that I’d been excited about all week. In this state of quietness I switched off completely and where I should have been descending to skirt around the last lump on the ridge, I ascended. The climbing felt good so I carried on, totally absent from the situation, completely adrift. Unwittingly, two other runners followed my absent mind into the mist and all of a sudden we found ourselves stood still, I’d woken up from whatever dream I was having to see two very concerned faces. I had to admit to them I was lost, my hands were too cold to unfold my map properly and it felt like minutes until I managed. I stared at it with aimless eyes, knowing it had no answers. I span the dial on my compass to a bearing I thought might do the job, I guess there was a 1 in 360 chance of it being right. In the end we agreed to follow a bearing of 55 and set-off down some steep fell, at some point we tried a bearing of 80 too, then 90. Tiring, and becoming cold we stumbled across a fence that followed a stream down to our right, sensibly one of the guys suggested we just follow that wherever it goes in order to get off the tops and down to safety. We dropped down beside the stream through rotten bracken and eventually out of the clag to see a shining Wrynose valley, full with streams, rivers and that familiar winding road up the pass to Three Shires. 

It was a long way back, and after a final bit of drama crossing the torrents, we were plodding nicely along the roads back to Langdale. Once we reached Blea Tarn I let the other two run ahead and I walked slowly up the gravel path beside the water. Recceing the Three Shires race back in summer, I swam here, disturbing a heron as I splashed into the water. It was warm and a family were picnicking on the other bank, skylarks were singing tall in the blue skies. Now, as the rain hardens, and the trees sway, I think about how memories are layering up in the Lakes once more, building on one another, holding me upright. Then, with a dull thud, it dawns that looking backwards isn’t always to look at Ali now, there’s a bit of road in the way and it’s stretching. Loss, if anything, is another dimension, it’s everywhere; it’s the light behind the poplars, casting those long, beautiful shadows into the distance, all afternoon.

It rained all the way home, cars were stranded in floods and traffic was backed-up for miles out of Ambleside. In-between the wiper blades were glimpses of shadowy fells and low clag, nothing flew or moved, crows, like deer, were sheltering in the woods. Whatever it is we brought down from up there is still burning away inside me now, I’m not sure what it is, but it feels something like gratitude.