What a glorious bright clear morning it was today. I narcissistically deferred my Friday run into work until today so I could run it on an empty stomach, sweat off a kilogram and then weigh myself at home afterwards. (Yes, I may have become a little caught up in weight loss and management in the past year.) Next June Im going to have to face the Parliament Street ascent again in the Liverpool marathon and thought Id throw in a hill or two today to acknowledge that. A hill like Arthurs Seat, say. It has a three-mile road going round it with some steep and gentle gradients. I run circuits when Im not chasing aggressive pace targets. Ive been dipping in to Richard Askwiths personal fell-running documentary memoir, Feet In The Clouds and this prompted me to throw any idea of a target pace away today and see if I could make it to the summit. To my slight shame, I realise I havent gone all the way up since I lived in the shadow of the peak, in St Leonards until 2003. I couldnt quite run all the way from the road to the summit, but managed a creditable run/walk ratio, which felt as hard as speed intervals usually do, albeit going glacially slowly by comparison. It was worth it. Even though the summit was crowded by 10 am, there were a handful of us in running rather than walking gear, and on this clear day the view was breathtaking. How much better I know my adopted home city now than when I last saw it from this vantage. Askwith writes of champion fell-runners descending at breathtaking speeds, sometimes rolling head-over-heel. I managed a more moderate descent, not aided by my choice of shoes and insoles, ensuring a momentum-sapping heel-strike all the way down. Getting back on to tarmac felt blissful afterwards, but not as blissful as the view of the summit when I got down to the lowest point, St Margarets Loch. Had I really elevated myself 655 feet and mostly by running? Yes, I had. This hilly experience is a reminder that Im usually a practitioner of the easy kind of running. Tarmac is flat, smooth, and predictable, a place to chase mathematically-precise paces and times. Hills are vicious and surprising. Thats whats good about it. It takes you out of your dreamy state and demands that you check where each footstep will fall and that you plan ahead for the least dangerous or most achievable route. I may treat myself to a pair of trail shoes for Christmas.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 15:24:50 +0000
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