Running Through Mountains of the Mind

Andy Ramsay and some of the Leg 3 pacers

It's been said that life is really just a series of wonderful opportunities disguised as impossible situations. And as with life, so it is with running. If there was one endevour that epitomised this above all others, it would be the Bob Graham Round.

A 72 mile circuit over the tops of Cumbria's highest fells, it conveniently has the same amount of ascent as that of Everest. The catch is to complete this in under 24 hours. It is impossible, and more so, inconceivable to most. To many, it becomes an obsession. And to a few, it becomes the wonderful opportunity in disguise.

To say that this insanely long run takes it out of you might be an understatement. On a run this long, such a sustained onslaught on your system, your physical ability becomes a mere background to the current of your own thought. The mind (and dare I say it, spirit) are put squarely on the line. Anyone who's read Richard Asquith's Feet in the Clouds will know how it goes.

Seventy six years to the day that Bob Graham first set out in his pyjamas, shouldering a big bag of hard boiled eggs, Eden Runner Andy Ramsay (pictured at right, above) set off to complete the round. Armed with sandwiches (not too posh..no sundried tomatoes round here) and a lot of energy drink, he was guided round the route by a host of Eden Runners with all their hopes pinned in one place. As each leg was completed, the pacers breathed a sigh of relief and handed over their cargo to the next. There was a sense of trepidation as the Leg 3 pacers saw Andy, Robin Gillespie and Dave Owens charging off the foothills of Helvellyn. So much so that some of us decided to start the leg early in case we held him up. It all went wonderfully well, though. Even clagged in summits could not halt the Ramsay machine as Penny's supercharged navigational skills kicked in ("now...at the thirteenth cairn, we need to bear 190 degrees")...

So next time you're in Keswick late at night, and you see someone staggering on their feet, throwing up with a bottle of champagne in their hand, it might not be all that it seems... they might just have seized a wonderful opportunity out of what looks like an impossible situation. They might have just completed a BG.

Fantastically well done, Andy.

Arran's Better Half

In hot and sultry conditions we spent a couple of days kayaking down the eastern half of Arran. Well known as Scotland in microcosm, Arran's landscape has a little bit of everything. Well, almost.

Perhaps the highlight of the trip was a visit to Holy Isle. Docked alongside Arran, this mountainous little drop in the ocean is home to the Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist retreat. It has recently been put in the (admittedly small) spotlight by sea kayakers, as some have been asked not to land by the monks. Happily, the 'no landing: retreat' signs have been removed from the lighthouse at the southern end of the island. While we were quietly enjoying the pervasive sense of peace at a discrete distance from the Buddhist centre, it seemed that the most disturbance was being caused by powerboaters driving up and down (as they do). A particularly loud powerboater dragging a sea biscuit could be heard shouting way out in the bay.
It was, though, a place of wonderful peace and tranquility, and I can't help thinking that sea kayaking is a most 'Buddhist' way of going about things. Quiet...no engines. Nothing but you and a bit of fibreglass...the mesmerising sea...a respect for everything around you...and the nothingness.

We squashed down a particularly un-Buddhist box of Viennese Whirls and went on our way. Leaving nothing but crumbs and taking nothing but peace.

It was a surprise to see a small Viking longship in a dock at Corrie. Turns out that it belongs to the Arran Viking Longship Society. It's called the Black Eagle, and it's smashing.

One thing that was sadly missing from Arran's little microcosm was the Arran Brewery. It started up on the crest of a wave which has since become a massive growth in Scottish brewing. Arran's pubs and ferries were plumply endowed with finely crafted beers- an oasis in a desert of ales, as it was a few years ago.




To cut a long story short, it turns out that Arran's bottled ales were doing quite nicely on the supermarket shelves until the price of hops went through the roof. Forced into selling to the 'big three' at a loss, they slowly but surely went under. The supermarkets don't care- they have many more where they came from. But to the Isle of Arran, it is a tragedy. It is desperate to see a line of Tennents and Guiness taps where the Arran brews should be. It's not even this that is the greatest worry. It's also what it means for the rest of the Scottish revivalists of the ancient art.

Leaving Inch Kenneth

As the road winds around the thick basalt flows of Loch Na Keal on Mull's western side, there's an isle out in the throat of the loch that is small, yet captivating.

It's bright green, and tilted slightly, but commanding in a way that is not related to size. This is Inch Kenneth. It is steeped in uncharacteristically peaceful history. Saint Cannoch made this patch of green his home, and it became a monastery. Clan Chieftains were said to be buried here when the crossing to Iona was too hazardous. We made the crossing in stunningly beautiful conditions- bright sunshine over azure blue water. We wandered through the 13th Century ruins, taking in the peace of the place.







These 500 year old engravings were once the gravestones of the mighty clan chiefs. Once again, landing in kayaks seemed to dislodge any sense of 21st Century time.

As it happens, one of Inch Kenneth's most infamous residents died almost exactly sixty years ago. The childlike, limping figure of Unity Mitford was a common sight along the shores of Inch Kenneth, and it is quite a blinding story. Always struggling to outdo her five sisters, she topped the lot of them by becoming a Nazi and entering Hitler's inner circle. At the outbreak of war, she took her pearl inlaid pistol and shot herself in the head. Having lost her faculties, she lived out ten years on Inch Kenneth before the bullet finally claimed her.

Set in Stone

If you take one of the myriad paths leading to the river Eden at Armathwaite, then squeeze between a few trees splaying their roots in the tiny gap between water and rock, you might find these unexpectedly whimsical carvings.


William Mounsey travelled the length of the Eden from its source in Mallerstang to its end, carving beautiful memories into stone as he went. One of them, I'm told, is a sonorous poem in Bardic Welsh. This one is an extract from the Compleat Angler by Isaac Walton.


The moon-like faces with impassioned stares probably pre-date William's time, and along with a large salmon carved at rest on a sandstone slab, are perhaps the work of an angler. An intriguing place to climb.

Ocean of Time

There are some places on this frenetic isle that have been frozen in time. Changeless landscapes where time’s endless chasm opens out into a breathtaking vista. Curiously, it is often easier to see this dimension when travelling by kayak. Don’t ask me why.


I’m also not sure why I was reminded of Jon Swain’s book, ‘River of Time’, when kayaking through Scottish islands. A hauntingly beautiful book centred on the lodestone of the River Mekong, it poignantly captures the thin line between Cambodia’s haunting beauty and its collapse into war-torn destruction. It seemed about as far from a trip to Mull as you could get.

On the north side of Ulva we sank into the landscape. Just two people in an ocean of time. The flat spot we just happened to camp on was the site of an old, abandoned croft. Very few people would have known about this place unless travelling by sea. Slowly, the croft grew out of the ruins. Here, the stone walls of the compact, black house…there, the shed next to the tumbling burn, everywhere the meticulous rig and furrow lazy beds once full of potatoes. Even beautiful paths carved on the steep slopes to the track above.

While a Force 5 wind blew itself out on the water, we explored inland. Time seemed endless as house after crumbling house rose defiantly out of the windswept bracken. On headlands, in bays, abandoned communities everywhere. The crofters had been here for a thousand years or more, and there was a strong sense of presence in this absence.

I later learned that the notorious F.W. Clark bought the island in the 1850s, and set about systematically ridding Ulva of its tenant crofters. Six hundred of them on this one island. Sixty people had lived and worked on the land that our feet were treading. I could touch a stone that they once grasped as they built these houses into the landscape. It was a world away, yet their presence was immediate.

The hearth inside a croft

Jon Swain’s story was immortalised in the film ‘The Killing Fields’, and in many ways, Ulva’s past played out much the same story. In fact, the parallel was eerily perfect. The same terror, destruction of a way of life, the same futility and the same timeless beauty.

Past lives, frozen into the landscape, and frozen in time.


"As I walk along these shores
I am the history within."
Runrig, Proterra

Above the Cloudbase

It's another world up here, where the cloudbase is down. In these conditions, with high winds and no visibility, we are taught the most. We have to become super-aware of our surroundings or we are lost. It's a lot to do with self-reliance, being comfortable in the hills, being part of them.

This is what it's all about. More than any of the small challenges we set ourselves, any race, any win, any loss. It's about a deep sense of belonging up here.

The Anniversary Waltz Fell Race

'Who's idea was this, then?' Runners piling up Catbells with Robinson and Hindsgarth distant memories behind. Photo courtesy of Bill aka Baggins.

With ten minutes to go before the start of the epic Anniversary Waltz, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It belonged to Wendy Dodds, one of the greatest fell-runners of her generation. She just whispered "Now, this is a real race...." before disappearing into the crowd.

She wasn't wrong. Compared to the piddling winter fell races, this was on an altogether bigger scale. No fewer than 5 summits, 3600 feet of ascent over 12 miles, this was different. Keeping what I amusingly call race pace up over this distance and terrain would take me into very different territory.

A fierce wind shot us up and onto the first, most gruelling peak, and I was two minutes ahead of last year's time. As the route circled back on itself to Hindsgarth, the wind was against us though, and this kept up most of the rest of the way, making it a tough battle of the mental over physical.

Over a welcome blob of mince and tatties after the race (food of champions), it struck me again what a nice bunch of people fell runners generally are. There's also a touching tendency to completely inarticulate understatement amongst those, generally, who are superhuman in what they do..."aye..grand..." might be the long version of what is said at the end of a tough day out on the hills...

But, I have to agree. That was a real race.

Of Men, Stones and the Feeding of Rats

When Al Alvarez eloquently summed the need to climb as 'Feeding the Rat', he probably didn't quite envisage the way it would set the paradigm for describing the compulsion to climb to the outside world. Whilst the insatiable gnawing from the inside that he describes is undoubtedly a good analogy, there's always the personal question as individuals as to why we climb. A Russian doll of enigmas that is never quite resolved.

Sometimes the rat is more bloated than hungry, and it all seems like a bit of an effort. At other times, there it is.. a circular feeding frenzy of risk and reward.

Our latest pilgrimage of the hungry rodents took us to another great swathe of European limestone: Provence. The seductive combination of hot, dry rock, wonderful food and wine was quite enough to feed any number of rats.



Of Stones and Men

Of course, the weather turned wet, and in contrast to the highly planned nature of climbing days, we followed our noses into old, medieval walled cities and let fate decide what we should see. It has not let us down so far. In the back-streets of one city, we found the remnants of a wonderful exhibition, 'De L'homme et des Pierres'. The natural masters of the trompe d'oeil, this purely French exhibition was stunning in its subtle interplay of black and white and warm limestone. Quite something.

The Shipping Forecast

As a lone seagull pipes a single, repeated note in the distance, the rain putters heavily onto a rucked and velvet sea. The cracked bones of trees on Eilean Munde shelter the jet black graves of those massacred at Glencoe.

It's been a wild few days.

There are warnings of gales in Viking North Utsire South Utsire Forties Cromarty Forth Tyne Dogger Irish Sea Shannon Rockall Malin Hebrides Bailey Fair Isle Faeroes and Southeast Iceland.

From bright blue seas casting sun-ripples on the sea bed, to sheltering behind gun-metal grey islets from downdraughts. Four seasons in a matter of days.


Rockall Malin:
Southerly veering westerly 6 to gale 8, occasionally severe gale 9. rough becoming very rough or high. Rain or showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor.


For the first time, we sighted otters. Not one, but two. The first traced a graceful arc around the seaweed shorelines of Loch Moidart, lying on his back in the water to pick at a small fish with his paws, then coming up to land a larger catch. The second was close enough to come up snorting from the water to peer at us.


As Scotland enjoys a renaissance of spacious seafood restaurant developments with panoramic, lochside views, Castle Tioram is at the centre of a very modern form of battle. Sold for a song by a Californian descendent of the clan Macdonald to an Ayrshire businessman (ironically named Lex, for all those fans of the film 'Local Hero'), the Scottish parliament are wrangling over its use as great chunks of it slide down into the loch.

The Snow Waltz

It was the day after Causey Pike, and there'd been a huge dump of snow overnight. I got wind that a friend wanted to recce the Anniversary Waltz fell race today, but had decided that I was too tired from the previous day's race.

Trouble was, the sun was shining, and the hills were covered in snow...a snap decision saw me grabbing two chocolate bars out of an Easter egg, excavating the car from a snowball and driving off for an extraordinary run.


Gill and Mark on the snowy descent off Robinson

The Anniversary Waltz race has a kind of cult following. It's the first real medium-length fell race of the year at nearly 12 miles, and the route it takes is so logical, following a ridge line of breathtaking beauty. Robinson, Hindsgarth, Dalehead, Maiden Moor, Catbells, and cake. Lots of cake. It's not just a fell race either. Somehow, all 400 of the runners also take part in the wedding anniversary celebrations of the organisers, Wynn and Steve Cliff.


The descent from Maiden Moor

Taking more than four hours in heavy snow, the run was breathtaking. From the start, we had entered a monochrome world of the snows. Rarely do the Lakes look more stunning. Moving through this landscape over such a stunning array of peaks was a privilege.

Subtleties of route choice were largely lost on us, knee deep in snow. The route off Dalehead? Still a mystery. The line off Catbells? Uh uh...But the scenery more than made up for the obscuring of race routes.

An incredible day.

Causey Pike Fell Race

Causey Pike the day after the race

With some trepidation, a small band of Eden Runners let themselves in for a brute of a fell race in weather that promised to be somewhat brisk, to say the least. Causey Pike is a steep little rib that points directly into the head of any storm. But there it was, in the calendar, so we did it.

The hail storm didn't hit us until the first saddle, and it was soft, blown in on drifts. It lent a quality to the race that couldn't have been found in any less brutish conditions.

Elterwater Common Fell Race

So that, as they say, is that. The last of the point-scoring races of the Kendal Winter League came and went on Sunday. It's hard not to feel a sense of nostalgia that this small, but perfectly formed series is over for another year.

Over the two years that I have run them, they've somehow provided a reassuring consistency at an otherwise indifferent time of year. Something to aim for when the couch is a far more enticing bet than layering up and lacing on some soggy fell shoes. But it's also way more than this. It's having a nod and a laugh with other fell runners that you know will be back next week for more, just like you.

From where I stand (generally somewhere near the back of the pack), the cameraderie is in a league of its own. There's a bond that just 'is'...and it's robust and layered with a wadge of humour borne out of the weirdness of doing this nutty sport. Some friends I'll meet at other fell races in the coming season. But it won't be quite the same. Some I won't see again until next year. In any case, with luck and a following wind, we'll pick it up just where we left off last time...

Running over Wobbleboards

As spring makes its appearance in fits and starts, the Kendal Winter League will fade and the fell racing season proper will take over. In the meantime, the League went to Austwick in the Dales for a spot of boulder hopping. This might not have been the best debut for a pair of new orthotics that I'm learning to clamber about on at the moment, but even though the terrain was much like running over miles of wobbleboards, things all seemed to run their course...

It's often a salutory lesson to watch the end of the Junior races at these events, and this one was typical. A lad staggered in, in something like third place. He crumpled into a gangly heap next to me and tried to throw up. He then tried to stand up but failed twice before finally succeeding...nobody around him batted an eyelid. This was, after all, Yorkshire..."You'll be right, lad..."

A Haweswater Blast

The Lead Runners at the Haweswater Half Marathon

One of the peculiar querks of my career to date has been the experience of organising a p***-up in a brewery. In fact, I did it twice to prove that it wasn’t just a fluke. However, playing a bit-part in organizing the Haweswater Half Marathon over the last few months has taught me that there's a lot more to such things than finding a lot of beer, and people who might be willing to drink it...

The level of detail, meticulous planning and time that this has taken has been a bit of a surprise. But the really strange thing is, on the day, it just seemed to happen of its own accord… It was as if each volunteer was acting on the call of a dog whistle inaudible to the human ear, because it just seemed to happen without hint of a fuss.

But of course, the effortlessness was an illusory artifact of the long hours spent poring over digestives and green tea, discussing the feng shui of the portaloos, polishing of trophies and the vagaries of parking a lot of cars in a muddy field. I could go on. The landslide on the course, tractors to pull cars out of mud, bags of grit in case the entire 13.2 miles were frozen to sheet ice. You name it, we thought about it.

There have been honourable mentions elsewhere, but the race felt like a real success. Ian Crampton (Durham City Harriers) seen in the photo above won the race in 1:13;17, and first lady was ultra-running megastar Lizzy Hawker in 1:20:52.

Wind Over Water

In the calm before the storm of the race, we took off to the dramatic scooped skyline at the back of Haweswater. Watching the squalls move over the water was a strangely captivating sight.



Another striking aspect of this area is the presence of wild, torrential streams that tumble into glacial lakes and on into the flooded valley now occupied by Haweswater. These relentless watercourses are fascinating, and abstracts like these, looking like frozen sinusoidal waves, were everywhere.