Monday 15 September 2008

Fell-o-philia


A random rant about Askham Fell

It's been months since I've been up here. It's funny, because it's not like I haven't been fell-running for a long time or anything. But I just haven't made it to Askham Fell. And in a very strange way, the absence made me realise what an irrational attachment I had to the place.

There have been runs in the dark. Runs basked in February heat, and retreats from battering August hail. Runs with friends, and solitary runs. Many of those. Where I practised navigating, pacing out bearings through bracken to piles of stones carefully arranged by those living thousands of years ago. Where the first baby steps of fell runs began through heaving lung gasps. Even though it is flat.

Last week, I shoo-ed off the gangly wild ponies sucking experimentally at the car and sniffed the wind, heavy with the smell of peat.

It was good to be back.

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