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Poet on the Run

Finding sense and making art – one run at a time

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AR Day 4.... Pros of morning runcommuting - great winter sunrises and pretty misty parks 🌄 Cons of morning runcommuting - slippy slidy frost and black ice ❄ Still worth it 👌 #adventrunning #runforsprouts

✨It's that time of year again! 🌟🎉🎄😁 . Advent Running Day 1 featured just shy of 18 miles bimbling about in the Malverns with @storminformin - following the full ridge line out, bagging both Beacons before adventuring out to the obelisk, and finding a surprise castle 🏰 before heading back to North Quarry. We got a countryside traffic jam courtesy of some very fluffy cows, some lovely sunshine, Jon had his first trail tumble (minimal muck luckily 😜) and got to explore some new trails. I think we kicked off the season in style! #adventrunning #runforsprouts

Reason no.281 for why us runners are terrible influences on each other comes with a story. Back in 2017 I was running the Loch Ness Marathon, and while cruising along got chatting to a lovely beard man wearing a bath towel. Yes, you read that correctly. He kept me company for about 15 miles, and in many ways helped me set what is still my marathon PB. But mostly, we just had a right jolly old time, and joked about how we like long trail days more than road. Cut to the start line of the 2018 Loch Ness Marathon and there was my beardy buddy again - sans bath towel this time - and after a brief chat we kept in touch. The upshot is that last year he ran a very silly event called Escape from Meriden, where runners are released at midnight from the stone cross at the centre of England, and then have 24 hours to get as far away as they can, as the crow flies. It's unsupported, you pick your own route, and wackiness ensues. Obviously, loving any excuse for an adventure (including this one 👆 where I was somehow convinced that running the SWCP was a good idea 🤦‍♀️) I couldn't get the idea of this thing out of my head. Which is how I now find myself in last minute preparations to stand at Meriden stone cross at midnight tonight, and negotiate my way slowly along some canals and roads towards Hereford. Yes, with all the flooding. No, the event is not cancelled. If anyone has a notion to track my little blue dot as I trudge my way across the country, the names and tracker numbers will be activated later today. Equally, if anyone would like to meet me around Worcester, Malvern or Hereford, preferably carrying hot food, that would be amazing. The crow (@beyond.marathon) is watching. T-12 hours til the adventure commences! https://racedrone.net/event/escape-from-meriden #EscapefromMeriden #terribleidea #trythisracetheysaid #itsanadventuretheysaid #stiffupperliptime

I wrote a thing about running, and racing, and how we define being enough, and having a good day, and the lovely folks at @trail_sisters were kind enough to let me share it. Link up in bio. Photo courtesy of @a.cameron2478 on a day in Sächsische Schweiz. Perspective courtesy of @banjosaurus and @claireweustenraed in July, and @claudi8s for always having the timely reminders to actually stop and smell the roses 💐 #redefinePB

"A series of unanswered letters to my father" . . Yesterday was probably the first time I have allowed myself to publicly acknowledge that rage can sit alongside love and grief in equal measures when dealing with a loss. . I spent years suppressing that side of my experience. The socially accepted version of grief when you lose a family member does not include it. You're supposed to miss them and be sad, and eventually move on. You're not supposed to speak ill of them. . To hell with that. Multiple things can be true at once. You can miss someone desperately, love them and hold to the good things about them while allowing space and permission to say that they weren't perfect. That they did irrevocable damage to you - even if it wasn't deliberate. You can have days when you would give anything to be able to speak to them for 5 minutes, and still have days when you're grateful that they are no longer exerting pressure and hurting you. . You can desperately want to make them proud and still acknowledge that constantly chasing that approval isn't healthy for you. . Whether the loss is via a death, or by removing someone from your life by choice, there is space for the "wrong" or "bad" kind of grief to exist, especially when a relationship is messy and complicated and holds harm as well as good. . I pieced this poem together over the summer as I was processing that fact, and it surprised me. It made me feel guilty, and ashamed, and like I was wrong. It has taken months to work through. . So for anyone who needs it. Here it is.

MULTIPLE THINGS CAN BE TRUE (2/2) How then to reconcile all that history? How to balance the fact that I am still dealing with the mental patterns scored on my mind, and yet - My dad gave me the gift of loving the outdoors. Taught me to run trails. How to dodge roots, hop rocks, how to navigate hill and weather front. I inherited his capacity to endure. To dig deep and fight like hell. . When he died, my world turned upside down. And when I returned to running after that - shamefully, accidentally - I wasn't sure of I was chasing his approval or trying to escape him. But I kept running anyway. . Years after those first steps back, I'm still not sure. But I know why I run now. . Now, I run because it's the only place my mind goes quiet, just for a while. Because digging deep in training or in a race proves to me that I'm not a quitter. Because taking on challenges and managing to complete them means I'm not a complete failure. Because I have incredible friends and a community who don't put conditions on their love. Who believe I'm good enough regardless of how fast or slow I am. Who remind me to rest rather than flog myself into the ground to keep up with what I feel like I "should" be doing. . I'm still not good at applying those lessons to my own life. I still spiral when I feel like I'm failing. . But I HAVE chosen to not continue the cycle. To be a friend who supports others as they support me. To choose community and collaboration over competition. . For me, now, choosing to run (or do anything) just for the joy of it, is a radical act. Choosing to rest when I need to, is a radical act. Choosing to treat myself with some level of kindness, even if I haven't "earned it". Choosing to help others instead of chasing arbitrary success. Choosing to take the moments of fun and friendship and beauty as my personal bests, is a radical act. . I have chosen to build a healthy relationship with a sport I love, in spite of it all. I have chosen to accept the grief, and the love alongside the anger. To find MY "why". . I am choosing to run towards the dawn, no matter how dark the night gets.

Recent Posts

Lessons from Barn Swallows
Trail Magic
Telling the Story
Tales from the Trail: Inconvenient Water
Tales from the Trail – Homecoming

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AR Day 4.... Pros of morning runcommuting - great winter sunrises and pretty misty parks 🌄 Cons of morning runcommuting - slippy slidy frost and black ice ❄ Still worth it 👌 #adventrunning #runforsprouts

Tag: Preparation

Adventures, Running, SWCP, Trail Running

Saddle Up

It’s go time. Eighteen months of preparation, of training, worrying, pushing myself to the limits of what I could handle, … Continue reading Saddle Up

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