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[thegrimrunner]

Towards winter 2016

A strange weekend following an invite to visit Dumfries House and have dinner with Prince Charles and twelve others at the behest of a mutual patron. Ann was truly dreading it, I thought it might be an adventure and we should judge it as a one-off experience. A new ‘Chinese’ bridge is opened on the estate in pouring rain; Ann and I retire to our plush estate accommodation and knock back a few gins that we sneaked in for Dutch courage. By early evening, we are plied with champagne while being given a tour of the grand house; by the time the formal dinner comes around and I am introduced to the Prince I am already steaming.

The next night I am back in my old stamping grounds of New Cross in south London watching Test Dept — the industrial band I played with from 1981-90 — kicking up a storm in a crowded Amersham Arms. Lots of faces I haven’t seen for decades leer into a crowded view but it is surprisingly good to hear original band members Paul and Gray scream out their anger at the current political landscape. With a few more concerts the set will build into a hefty and relevant cultural statement. I have to laugh at the brilliant contrast with the previous night of crushingly  posh Scottish revelry. I suspect I was born part Celt / part chameleon.

As summer turns to autumn and the strength returns to my legs, I invite Al to head up to the Torridon mountain range for a few days of running. Our weekly jaunts take on a more focussed meaning, as without some decent training we will crumble in the high hills. On a perfect day we head for Ben Lui, an elegantly shaped mountain situated just to the south west of Tyndrum. It contains a  grand central cirque flanked by two sharp ridgelines to the summit and the completion of a hefty climb in any conditions. Al’s partner Julie joins us and we set off on the five mile approach road past a gold mine to reach the base of the Ben.

Ben Lui looks benign from a distance, but as you get closer, foreshortening makes it loom quite suddenly overhead. It is a big beast of a hill, a genuine leg sapper with a good deal of steep pathwork to handle as you wind your way up the side of a tumbling burn to reach a roughly collapsed corrie at 2,000 feet. As we pick our way over streams and rockfalls Julie begins to tighten. One of the toughest and most committed amateur athletes I know — completing an Ironman in Spain — she finds it tricky going at height on uneven ground. But with encouragement all three of us reach a bealach at 3,000 feet with great views opening up to the north.

Al and Julie decide to hold it there as I plough up the increasingly vertical path to the top. Any vestiges of an earlier hangover are shaken off, and there is some fine scrambling sharpened by airy vistas looking back down the mountainside. I meet an excited couple from Nottingham who are joyfully taking in the panorama, incorporating Bidean nam Bean, the Aeonach Eigach ridge and Ben Nevis. Time for a quick descent to catch A and J up again and I feel a deal of pain in my thigh, jarred by jumping down too hard from rock to rock and tuft to tuft. It’s a solid twelve miles in total to back to the car park, with the team reunited to hobble out the last couple of miles on ever stiffening pegs. The next day I have difficulty even walking backwards downstairs. For 72 hours the muscle damage is as bad as any fast marathon.

A couple of weeks later and it’s time for Torridon. It has been a gloriously rain free October and with little frost at night, all of the trees are still holding onto their leaves and colour. The onset of winter feels bearable. The A9 offers its usual panoply of car smashes. It is a magnet for poor driving, but luckily we witness no deaths as the traffic slows and flows again past twisted wreckage. We stay on the side of Loch Kishorn in a 70’s bachelor pad replete with pine wood ceilings and pool table. The next morning we drive north flanked by steepening mountains to Torridon village and a craft fair in the village hall. We stock up on cake and pastries and fill a flask with tea. Here we get precise directions to find the stalkers’ path that threads between the huge flanks of Liathach and Beinn Eighe, leading to Coire Mhic Fhearchair, one of the finest corries in Scotland, revealing a classic view to a towering triple buttress above.  

We spot the ruined croft by the roadside marking the hidden entrance to the route and in the process fail to see the correct car park, which nestles behind a high verge to our left. As a result we drive on to a second car park, start at the wrong end of the walk and eventually find ourselves 2500 feet up the slopes of Beinn Eighe in shrouding mist, facing an ever steepening and leg-sapping scree run up to an invisible summit. This was meant to be a gentle ‘warm up’ day, protecting our legs, so we retreat discussing the worrying fact that it took us a good hour to figure out that we were approaching the  hill from the wrong end. This is becoming a habit.

Undaunted we set out early the next day with maps in hand, compasses primed on mobile phones and unbelievably find the correct start to reach the rising slopes of Slioch, following a gentle path for a few miles alongside a babbling river to the shores of Loch Maree.

The immense bulk of the mountain rises above us, imposing and daunting; so it’s heads down and a dogged drive to access an upper corrie via countless steps and erratic streambound paths. After a lung busting hour we break out onto a flatter section of ground circled by a higher line of peaks beyond. The vast flanks of surrounding rock are stripped and bare, with all visible routes to the summit looking near vertical to our untrained eyes. A quick chat with two returning climbers and we quickly change our direction of ascent. We seek out a high and isolated lochan, which marks entry to a hidden series of rough zig-zagging paths taking us up and up to prepare for a final nerve-tinglingly steep push to the top. Funnelling cloud forms are being sucked upwards on strengthening winds and by the time we find the summit cairn, visibility is down to 50 feet. We meet a couple who ask if Al and I are brothers, spurred no doubt by the arrival of our long noses and similarly inane and manic chat. Every few minutes the clouds blow open and we get a tantalising glimpse of the chosen route continuing round the ridge; we plough onwards into the mist.

You are up and beyond here, alien visitors; there is the vulnerability and re-sizing of ego that occurs on great mountains. You are but briefly passing through, privileged to experience a powerful natural setting, one that demands respect and knowledge of your strengths and limitations. As we scurry along the final narrowing ridgeline, my pulse begins to race. The wind is building in huge gusts and I wonder whether it would be better crawling over rocky sections with gaping drops down to god knows where on either side. With the added intensity of moving at speed and with lungs heaving, there is a deal of excitement as we battle onwards to reach the final cairn.

The descent is painfully long but enthralling, demanding total concentration. Al spots a feint line through seemingly endless rock mounds, which involves lots of jumping and large stepdowns until we reconnect with the corrie floor. We stop halfway to pose for photographs and eat scrumptious cheese and plum jam rolls. By the time we reach the river again, having completed a half marathon with 3800 feet of up and down, our legs are truly shot. It being Sunday in the highlands, all the shops have closed, so we have to stop off at a pub in Loch Carron in the hope of begging some ‘foodie’ provisions. It turns out the Essex born owner, who looks like a Motorhead roadie, is a gentleman and we retire to Kishorn to make a fine paella and down a good Rioja, dancing around our bachelor pad with punk classics playing in rotation on a BBC 4 nostalgia night.

The year ends with a final operation, a lump nestled between my ribs that has wedged in deeper than I or the surgeon had hoped. It has to come out,  but all that matters is the long term prognosis is good. 2016 has been a battle on many levels and I’m glad to see the back of it, but days like these in Torridon are such a blessing, perhaps because they can’t always be expected. My final thought on the year both personally and with the wider political malaise in mind, a quote from Raymond Williams: ‘To be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing'.   

[thegrimrunner]

Summer 2016

I wake on Friday 24th June and a quiet horror fills me on hearing that we have been voted out of Europe, the emptiness stays with me all day and I am unable to really function or work. I try to take in the depth of revolt in rural England and Wales. It is a kick in the face for Scotland’s idea of progressive political change. The divide in the UK is massive, whether through lack of access to money, education or chances in life. I can’t imagine how friends in England are feeling at the result. Many of the old say they want ‘their’ country back: there is also gut-level intolerance surfacing, fed by the language of manipulative politicians and newspapers. It has racial undertones. Others blame immigrants for the ills they see around them, even if the true causes lie with the inequalities compounded by free-market policies implemented by all governments over the last 30 years. Sturgeon, with poise, immediately puts forward the idea of a separate route to Scotland staying in Europe. It will be a long road but worth travelling.

None of us saw this, the rise of the disaffected right emboldened now and already lashing out. We are going to have to learn to talk to each other (in the UK) across major divides and the picture is dark and fractured. A different debate is needed, fears acknowledged and bridges built to bring people back from hating and blaming.

5 weeks after the operation I get the all clear; the consultant says I can walk, run, swim, drive, stretch and start to build my life again. All I will have is a few months of swelling, as my lymph system re-routes to different parts of my calf. I had begun to see life drifting by without me and withdrew into illness and pain. Gradually you lose touch with friends and family, pulling back into a protective self. They do not know this is happening. The psychological trauma of cancer is as big as the physical changes. It will take time to find my feet again. 5 weeks could easily be 5 months, such is the effect on the mind.

Impulsively our family book a break and head out to the coastline north of Barcelona, to a fresh world of medieval hill towns and small fishing villages set around deeply indented coves. It’s 32 degrees on average, so the only running option is to drag yourself out of bed early, down a cup of tea and a half banana and head out to explore. There is no flat here; you are either straight up or straight down. With 12 lbs recent weight gain I am heavy on my feet, knees grumble and leg muscles tighten quickly. But my spirits are good and the coast offers up some stunning paths weaving along jagged cliff edges with dizzying drops to sparkling water.

I have lost a bit of confidence, perhaps wanting to protect the freshly healed wound; but old habits die hard and soon I am scrambling up and down dusty steps jumping from rock to rock and sliding down gravelled slopes clinging to old tree branches. I am truly plodding; it will be a slow return to form. I end up after each run with a coffee on the beach of Sa Riva. There are old barques pulled up onto the sand; at least here some semblance of an earlier Catalan culture has survived the tourist influx.

I’m keeping out of the hot sun so the days take on an easy pattern with an early jaunt, breakfast, reading, cards and then writing and editing my contribution to a new book on St Peter’s with the architectural historian Diane Watters. Then a late afternoon swim on one of the many beaches within 30 minutes drive.

A favourite run takes in a 1,700 ft dry woodland path from sea level up to the ruins of Castell de Begur with panoramic views up and down the Costa Brava. On the final day, I circle the town a few times and repeat the odd section of shaded path to build up to 10 miles. When I get back to the local shop, after a couple of hours on my feet, I come close to passing out in the morning heat. The staff know me by now and are a bit worried; I sit in the gutter and pour cold water on my head and drink a Gatorade. After a couple of minutes I’m able to speak again, buy a baguette for Ann and the girls and limp home. The body is still a jumble of old aches and new pains and I know I’ve pushed myself as far as I can at this point. The Grim Runner is back.

A week off the fags and I’m back out with Al. He’s been researching some good new possibilities while I have been out of play, so we head out to the Fintry Hills for the first time. I am nearly sick, battling to stay with him up a hard and winding ascent to an un-named summit…changed days. We follow rough paths out onto open boggy moorland with not a soul in sight. It is ours for the day, we startle a hare, finding, losing and then re-finding small sheep trails. The weather closes in and Al wants to continue on a 4 mile extension skirting a steep escarpment, but I refuse. I’m not back to full strength and the thought of  an undulating unmarked route in closing mist is still too daunting. We cut back along a fence line to find a break in a long cliff line and winkle out a safe descent. Cold rain sweeps in and we are happy to get back for tea and rolls after a couple of magical hours.  

[thegrimrunner]

September 2016

Until I properly give up smoking my running recovery will be curtailed, I keep stopping and starting again lacking the will power to finally kick it just now. The hole on the back of my calf looks brutal but I am fully recovered and cancer free, so there are no excuses for not getting back up to scratch again. Early morning along the canal and recent Olympic heroes come to mind, I run a fast mile from a gas holder back to home, sprinting as if my life depended on it. Mo Farah and Galen Rupp are alongside; there are desperate looks back to see if we will be caught, the open road and finish line are looming. Afterwards I ponder how I really lost it one day at the end of the summer holidays. Blind anger coursed through me, nothing set it off, someone just asking me to move places at a shared table when I was settled and in a conversation. It doesn’t happen often but when anger does rise, it is like a storm raging through me. Was it a reaction to the stress of illness? Is it residual damage from endless violent battles with mum during my teenage years? I took it out on Ann in the dark aftermath. This has to stop; I mustn't be scared to admit I need psychological support.

To understand and be able to rationalise the presence of anger. I have to find the self awareness to make choices before it bursts out of me. I need to learn some control and remember its impact on those around me. Now in my mid 50’s I need to do some growing…even to grow up a bit.

[thegrimrunner]

Spring 2016

Two things saved me. I run to work in shorts in good weather and last autumn, Jo Cook our finance director caught sight of the floriated dark mark on the back of my leg and said, ‘You should get that checked out.’ A few weeks later she said the same thing again. She had lost her brother to skin cancer. I listened but it was still a full five months later that I acted on her advice. Running outside over the years may have compounded the mutation but also led to it being spotted.

I will have to have more of my calf excavated and removed soon, but the word is that they don’t go down to muscle level, so it shouldn’t affect my long term prospects of continuing my dogged life as a runner. Positivity is not a permanent imprint, reality dawned and left me overwhelmed. I painfully pulled my stitches again doing a valedictory last half marathon along the Allander water from Milngavie and felt the emptiness that comes with not being able to move around at will. I know it was a bad move but I had the notion that I might not be able to run for months to come.

It was the 29th Beltane Fire Festival in Edinburgh, on the eve of May Day. I hobbled along to meet some of the performers, talking to them about its roots and the power of the ritual they had committed to, the beauty of how it lifts you out of individual reflection to a collective expression of soul and common intent. I had been invited to drum again. I couldn’t carry an instrument with my damaged leg. Nevertheless I limped up and down the hill with the twins and some old friends. Beltane recharged me as it always does. A benign crowd of 10,000 on Calton Hill; the quiet focus of the procession, the joyful abandon of lithe red men and women cavorting around, the intense focus of the May Queen channelling all the energy around her before lighting a massive fire that sent sparks spiralling upwards into a clear night. My leg is not healing, but when I can get going again I will relish every footstep. No complaining.

A month on and I’m staring down at a big compression bandage on my lower leg, three days ago I had the operation to fully remove the melanoma and a skin graft from my thigh onto the calf.  It’s time to stop, keep everything elevated and accept what has to be done. The first biopsy incision never quite recovered, knowing the area was going to be cut out anyway I had kept running when I could. This was not clever as it destabilised the area around the wound, so now I am on a huge dose of antibiotics to ensure the wound area doesn’t get re-infected.

Yet I have to admit those last stolen runs were wonderful. Al and I head out towards Fintry and the western flanks of the Campsies. We have a map but get lost immediately and drive into the grounds of Ballikinrain Castle, a Victorian pile on the scale of Balmoral, now a residential school for troubled kids. We set off along the side of a trickling burn, through dense woodland and soon lose any path, ending up out on open muir. After some high stepping we spot a rough track that weaves miraculously up onto the Ballagan tops, zigzagging up the steepest slopes to the high ground. A left turn takes us to the vast curve of ‘Little Corrie’, which is in fact massive, and a fine continuation round to Jock’s Cairn, a natural outcrop with views out to northerly mountains. At one point I slip my shorts and t-shirt off so it appears from a distance that Al is chasing a naked figure along the ridge…he really can’t take it and screams at me repeatedly to redress.

We retrace our steps (with me now clothed again) past Snottiesneal to pick up the main path to Earl’s Seat and the highest point in the Campsies. A fast descent past a parade of perfectly preserved stone grouse butts, and a final mile taking us through bluebell woods untouched by footfall, following the line of a stream with small cascades and pools glinting in sunlight below oaks, birches and beeches.

The whole run is punctuated by Al complaining that I hadn’t managed to get any rolls to make our end of run treat. On arriving at our house he had seen only 2 crispy rolls that I said had to be left for Ann. We even discussed the tragedy with three girls at one of the summits, disturbing their peace with our inane banter. Arriving back at the van, I opened my sports bag to show Al that to my horror I had even forgotten to put replacement flapjacks in. Disconsolately he came to join me sitting on the verge, munching an old apple he had found. Distracting him saying I had seen a strange movement in the window of an abandoned house opposite, I slip the cheese and jam rolls out onto the grass from under my towel. A skilfully crafted series of hiding places under the van, meant he had no way of knowing that I had them. It has taken many months of trying for this move to finally work.

I have rested my leg for a week, keeping it raised at all times. I am not a good patient, it is a prison sentence; one day feels like a month. Sitting at my window smoking roll-ups, looking out onto beautiful weather and a world I cannot interact with brings dark thoughts crowding in…everything is slipping away, there is a terrible isolation, a feeling of being lost inside yourself; reduced to a shell. I try to keep some perspective and accept what I can’t change. The big bandage is off and the graft is healing well. I have a big hole in my calf, like someone has shot a perfect circle through it. I want to run forever, to relish the freedom of movement through space again. I can just about hop round the house for necessities and slowly over the weeks I get my mind back into shape, fragile but at least thinking about the future again.

A month since the operation and for the first time I walk down the street and back to the house. It’s good to complete that. Unfortunately a secondary infection means things haven’t healed as they should but I am getting closer. The ‘inner runner’ is nagging me to do more and quicker. Gradually time is speeding up again and I can see beyond the prison of my home. I begin to re-engage with outside life. A three hour meeting with the Heritage Lottery Fund to discuss the capital funding and programme for St Peter’s; a 40 point agenda, which suffocates the artist  inside me. The team are overwhelmed by practical and legal process, but that is the price of a small independent charity having the temerity to save such a ‘problem’ building. After five weeks I can walk for quarter of a mile but no more. I must stay patient.

[thegrimrunner]

March 2016

Hinterland is the first large-scale NVA intervention at St Peter’s Seminary. The brilliant creative team do three all-nighters to set the lighting, projection and sound in perfect train to deliver a subtle but captivating animation of the complex. Over winter we had had to deliver an emergency budget of a quarter of a million in one month; stopping 80 vaults falling in after huge volumes of rain had taken its toll. As a result we have to create a sinuous new walk from gorge level, rising through the crypt and up the processional ramp to a brutally smashed altar. The route then recrosses the lower sacristy and up a spiral staircase to the cantilevered glory of the teaching block; from which you can look out over the canopy of the woods back down to the gorge you arrived from half an hour previously.

Once outside every former seminarian’s bedroom cells in the outer frame of the main block shimmer in individually pulsating blocks of colour; it is reminiscent of a vast dematerialised Piet Mondrian painting. Finally a bridged entry to the complete vaulted refectory to witness layering of projected image and moving light, interspersed with industrial arc light and giant swinging thuribles spreading smoke over water gathered in a sunken pool below.

The public response is overwhelming. We receive the best reviews of any of our work over the last 20 years; my favourite was a tweet stating it was “like being in a Kubrick film…only better!” The Culture Minister, Fiona Hyslop, described it as a “moment in art history”. Opening up the building to people for the first time in a quarter of a century allowed each viewer an intimate understanding and discovery of the building’s strange combination of immense weight and contradictory structural lightness. Choral music gave hints of previous lives; encompassing a reflective atmosphere, which was then periodically penetrated by volleys of echoing trumpet fanfares that bled out through the open roof across the surrounding countryside. On remarkably still and dry nights many stood mesmerised as past ghosts were exorcised and the building passed gently into its new life. It bodes well for the future.

My running hits a brick wall, the odd small hill and slomping to the office and back, but work preoccupations reduce some weeks to a hollow minimum. How lucky to come out of Hinterland with an escape already planned; our annual family getaway to Lanzarote. Niggles fade away in the warmth of the sun and the good company of Peter McCaughey, Lizzie O’Brien and Fionntain. There is space to decompress and find a stiller mind. I manage 65 miles in two weeks, with four strong hill runs in solid heat and billowing wind. After a year my stomach issues have started to fade almost as mysteriously as they arrived. Looking back it had to be stress-related, compounded by the emotional enormity of Mum’s death; ten months on a restrictive ‘alkaline’ diet has paid off and 80% of the symptoms have passed. I still eat and drink with some care, but meat, caffeine, garlic, passata, red wine and wheat bread have all been back on the menu with no adverse reaction. What I thought might be a chronic and lifelong condition has receded and allowed me to relax again.

[thegrimrunner]

Lanzarote April 2016

Atalaya de Femes is 2,450 feet up and down; it’s exposed and grindingly steep in places, but offers an airiness that sparkles the senses and keeps the focus sharp. I’m reminded of how isolated I feel running through this volcanic landscape; there is rarely another human being in sight and I’m never more than one trip away from disaster. I negotiate carefully over the sharpness of loose rocks that abound in this ancient geological setting. Recovery is a shorter run to Papagayo beach in the far south-east of the island and a cold beer looking out to Wolf Island and Fuerte Ventura from a perfectly placed little café perched on the edge of the cliffs. 

I spot some ridge paths from the summit of Atalaya de Femes and borrowing a trail map spend a couple of lively mornings exploring the Valle del Pozo. Steep narrow trails are cut into rocky escarpments high on the hills of the Ajaches. Pico Redondo gives a nerve-tingling traverse looking out across arid lunar desert. I cover timeless miles over Morro de la Loma del Pozo, small peaks interlinked by a testing line with plenty of loose scree and shale on twisting trails, faint in places, making the running among the most technical I have undertaken. You can’t take your eyes off the ground. I find a good descent  down a long valley floor, again compounding the sense of being far from everything and everyone. I’ve noted on a borrowed map that there is a roughly marked track curving up to a final hill, Pico Ovejas, and then a traverse along a high ridge back to my starting point.

The morning heat is picking up as I turn up a small track that winds up and up towards stony outcrops above. Even though the ascent is little over 2000 feet it is challenging as hell; much harder than the map contours indicate; the faint path soon runs out and I face a serious near vertical scramble to get to the top. It’s so exposed - with dislodged rock scattered across solid strata below - that there is no safe retreat once I commit to climbing the final 150 metres. My heart is thumping, I try to think rationally and ignore the bitter taste of fear in my mouth. With a final wistful look back down to valley floor I turn in to the slope and start clambering crab-like upwards. Hunched forward for balance, I keep my focus squarely on the surface in front of me, cutting out all other distractions. Then with a burst of adrenaline, I’m up and over, released to enjoy stunning views along the final sinuous ridge with Femes village glimpsed far below.

I lope along this section to a rough goat farm and the delights of a café con leche and donut in a small café back in the village. I’ve fallen in love with running again, no words can do justice to the highs and lows of exploring a hostile environment on your feet; enlivened by windblown cloud shadows changing the colours of rock from muted greys to bursts of red, yellow and ochre caught momentarily in shifting dappling sunlight.

Back to scraping ice off the car windscreen in Prestwick airport due to a 24 degree celsius drop in temperature. Ten miles to work and back the next day establishes new intent. Then it’s off to hospital for a check-up on a birthmark on the back of my calf. Within 30 minutes I’m lying on my front having it cut out for a biopsy. I’m told by a sympathetic but direct consultant that there is a strong likelihood it’s a melanoma, but I will have to wait and see how aggressive the skin cancer is and how far it has penetrated into the dermis layer.

Headfuck.

I walk back out into cool spring sunshine and realise how much I would like to call Mum. She knew what to think and say at these times; she handled two serious cancers and kidney failure with aplomb during her life. She’s not here, but I can hear her voice, reassuringly saying, “Darling you’ll be fine. Don’t worry these things happen all the time and the care is excellent.” It helps to hear the same words echoed by my sisters Clare and Louise. There is backbone running through this family.

I walk and bike too much over the next week and stretch the stitches. I go to seed, smoking roll-ups till my lungs ache and drinking too much wine. I try to function normally and remain supportive at NVA. Ellen my co-director is off work struggling to recover from a horrible fall which has broken three of her ribs. We really are in the wars! A week after the biopsy, I get the call; I have a superficial spreading melanoma that has penetrated to 1.1mm. It is not the thinnest but it is not a bad prognosis. After a bigger operation I will be on a five year review to check secondary metastasis in my lymph system and elsewhere, but there is a good chance it has been caught in time.

[thegrimrunner]

January 2016

I try to understand the hinterlands of Glasgow from the ground I pass over;  how moor, woods and scrag land stitch together the outskirts of the city, before the highlands rise up in the west. I still can’t figure out how Dumbarton, Drumchapel, Bearsden, Milngavie, Mugdock, Carbeth and Stockiemuir  link together. Maybe I could leave home and run off-road all the way to Loch Lomond- skirting golf courses, threading narrow bands of abandoned woodland, scampering over farmers’ fields and high knee stepping over unnamed bogs to get there.  I find an old map of the Kilpatrick hills from 60 years ago and see that many places have lost their original names on  recent OS ‘updates’. So now I can see that Al and I have recently run up the ‘Slacks’ and skirted Auchenreoch Muir past Darnycaip, on fruitless searches for Doughnut Hill. I’m gradually getting to understand the lie of the land under my feet; reading the flow of features as if I was bird looking down from above; trading the banality of road and tarmac for the responsive changes of rock to gravel and tussock to trail. 

Two lipomas removed from my scalp and neck in mid-January. The male nurse chats away to me while a slightly grumpy surgeon prods and scrapes away above my face and behind my head. The distraction of the conversation is enough to keep you dissociated from what is happening. I run 5 miles the next day and 9 miles on the following, only to find that delayed bruising is coming through with a build-up of lymph fluid around my right eye. I’m due to run the ‘Feel the Burns’ hill race near Selkirk but cancel, and have fun sledging in fresh fallen snow on Windyhill golf course with the girls instead.

I finally accept resting for a while reading the autobiography of the ultra runner Lizzie Hawker. There is something beguiling about her endless search to combine mind and body in harmony. She employs the ‘power of attention’ to run hundreds of miles of trails and scale countless mountains in Nepal. She seeks that place in the ‘endless present’ where nothing matters except the absorption into a greater flow of life. These are hard things to explain without falling prey to platitudes and just occasionally her writing matches the fluid grace of her footfall through some of the world’s highest places.

[thegrimrunner]

February 2016

A weekend in the realm of the senses with Ann culminating in a run up to Doughnut Hill. This hill has become almost mythical to me, mostly because Al and I have failed to find it on our last few attempts. The running conditions are near perfect, with a layer of frost forming a hard crust on what would normally be a profoundly boggy route. It is officially the first day of spring after the wettest winter since records began in 1910. Even the good conditions don’t stop me having a bit of an internal grumble on the way up, I have no idea who or what was preoccupying me, but at about 500ft I raise my head to see the full range of the south western Highlands and immediately hear the words ‘Lift thine eyes’. How easy is it to keep looking down and fail to see the beauty right in front of you. Remembering instructions to find a small reservoir with one straight edged bank in the plantation beyond Humphrey water, I find Doughnut Hill after an easy bog-hopping ascent. This was no religious epiphany, just a reminder of what you have and where you are.

A crisp Saturday morning and I head out to Ben Venue with Al; starting at Loch Ard we climb into Ledard Glen, it’s pocked with post clearance plantation, ugly as hell. The path steepens as we work our way up to the summit ridge coming out into perfect sunshine on glistening snow seracs. It is a day among days, winter running at its best, at times our legs sink in two feet deep snow drifts and gaining the summit we have views over the whole southern Highlands.

Feeling suitably buoyed up we decide to extend the ridge run and attempt a descent via two other summits, Beinn Bhreac and Beinn Chochan. Things get exciting, there are no paths and we have to negotiate deep semi-frozen tarns, unstable surfaces and windblown rolling ascents that are little more than verglas on the way up. I am reduced to moving like a spider on all fours, trying not to slide backwards as we slowly make our way along.  Eventually we hit a wider path and jog along in the sunshine trying to work out a descent line back to the glen floor. Inevitably we choose badly and have to clamber through acres of brash, muddy pools and loose rock, but it still stands as one of our greatest runs. Free, high and full of adventure.

[thegrimrunner]

Late Winter 2016

Grim just got grimmer, the surgery on the front of my scalp cleared perfectly, but the neck operation damaged the main occipital nerve that stems out of the spinal cord and spreads over the skull; I have continuing pain on the back of my head. It has left me a bit scared so I’ve started some mindfulness techniques to build a better relationship to the feeling, I know I can cope and find a way to accommodate an uncomfortable challenge. Running has taken a kicking. I am still limping out 20 miles a week as a baseline that I won’t drop below, but there is little pleasure or release. I run to work and back in driving rain and wind a few times a week. The pressure from St Peter’s is massive, we might get our final huge HLF application lodged in early February, but it will be a huge effort to plug the funding gaps. Colleagues Ellen, Clare and Jo have battled to make the 10 year figures work, responding to countless queries. If we don’t get a yes by March, we will run out of money. That is the reality of a small arts company taking on such a complex building. Only a month into 2016 and everybody has 1,000 yard stares. It can only get better.

I leave for a week in the Alps with the twins more stressed than usual, the vaults are not going to be fixed in time for Hinterland, the launch of the Festival of Architecture in March. We have sold over 5,000 tickets already. I go back to the seminary with the lead designer James Johnson to completely re-route the show we have worked on for 6 months. I have to let go of everything and consider a different performance that winds its way through new sections, while not visiting the main part of the chapel. My chest wracked by a vicious cough, I hobble round, disconsolate at first, but gradually realising that this can work.

We fly to Paris, such a strange mixture of bohemian originality, grandiose institutions and bleak high-rise suburbs. It is still a tale of two cities. The informal monument to the Bataclan massacre at Place de la République, with thousands of candles and defiant scrawled messages is profoundly moving. The high point of the visit is when 500 rollerskaters bring the city centre to a standstill racing through the streets on a Sunday afternoon, reclaiming the streets from the banality of endless traffic.

Time spent in the snow clad peaks of the Alps is good for the soul. After 3 days my skis are stolen. I get a chit to prove what I had hired from the local shop, don some non-slip spiders onto my trainers and run down the mountain to find the local gendarmerie and get a report for an insurance claim. I trot down steep sided hairpin bends on a road flanked by 1-2 metres of snow. The views out to Mont Blanc are worth the run alone. Cars come thundering by and with no verge in it’s a nervy experience. By luck I spot a husky pack roped up for sled pulling and find a hidden track running through woods that brings me out at the village below. It’s a relief to get off the road and though at times my feet sink 3 or 5 inches into the snow, bouncing along the wide trail is intoxicating.

[thegrimrunner]

Winter 2015

Two wonderful runs in the Kilpatrick hills.  Al pushed us to seek out a new route round Jaw reservoir and over towards the Whangie by Queen’s View. We found some scarcely marked trails through dense plantation and came upon new boggy Land Rover tracks that brought us out to the back of Duncolm, a ‘Marilyn’ and the highest point in this range of hills. What a joy to be running over new ground, fresh vistas create a natural drive to push tired legs on in soft conditions.

A few weeks later on the first day of snow in the year we do a 10 miler taking the steep road from the gas works at Old Kilpatrick up to Loch Humphrey.  We push west past lochans and mature pines to find a breath-taking ridge tracing the edge of a sharp escarpment above Overtoun house. Plenty of wrong turns to get home, but it didn’t matter, the sense of running into an unknown future enough to give us sure footing and the energy to plough on.

A misty day in the Ochils heading up a steep grassy trail to see what we would find behind Menstrie. Fine views back down to the Forth valley with mist swirling in above 1,000 feet. We follow a wall line until we land deep in a bog fest and after an hour of wading decide to turn back. Al spots a deep cleft far off to our right and tries to convince me that this will lead back to our starting point. He has even less of sense of direction than me, so this started an epic argument about how to get home safely in low visibility. I believe we should trace back keeping the wall line on our right. Al thinks that the path is ‘Veering to the LEFT and away from home’…repeating this observation over and over again. If, as I knew, we were returning as we came out, all we had to do was to stay on line, whatever the reduction in view. We begin to harangue each other, screaming to convince the other, until a £20 bet is mooted. We briefly cross a fence line with a hop over a gate TO THE RIGHT and exactly onto the track we had first ascended. Al swears  that this is a new descent that we had never passed before and I knew then that the money was in the bag. I could see he was angling to cancel the bet, but I keep on at him like a terrier until he parts with a tenner over the tea and rolls back in the van. An epic and exciting argument, deranged and at full volume for 40 minutes.

Out to the West Highland Way post Storm Desmond and a refreshing but bitterly cold day with shards of low sunlight just occasionally penetrating the birch woods at Mugdock. I try to dance round numerous puddles till hitting the drove road to Craigallian Loch, which has a long flooded section. I plunge into one foot deep ice cold water. Once properly wet, the splashing becomes intoxicating. I lose a bit of feeling in my fingers over the last few miles, but the ritual pleasure of tea and rolls at the end soon revive them.

I’m finishing 2015 strongly with mileage back up to 25 miles a week. It’s been raining on most days since the start of November, but the lack of frost make perfect conditions to keep going up to the end of the year. I’ll top 1,350 miles for the last 12 months, a shade up from 2014 and proof that whatever life throws at you, you can keep going if you want it enough. If  the stomach illness had wiped out my running I don’t know how I would have coped. I have lost a stone and a half - which  leaves me looking a bit gaunt - but  is a  boost in terms of being light on my feet for the first time in ages.

[thegrimrunner]

November 2015

Last year I noticed that the small stupa carved into the retaining wall by the side of Garrioch mill on the river Kelvin had been intentionally smashed by some damaged soul. For years I have used it as a point to place my forehead and think about how I behave on that day, to wish for peace in myself and the wider world. NVA commissioned an old friend Lindsay John to reconstruct the tiny bas-relief.  Lindsay, a rare flower from St Lucia and someone who is capable of turning his hand to work in any material, spent months researching the right amalgam to reconstruct the aged sandstone so that over the years the additional element would blend back into the original form. He heard from a lady walking by that a local sculptor had made the original a good 20 or 30 years ago. He also found out that it was a touchstone and talisman for quite a few passers-by who had noticed it over the years. It is my gift back to them (and to myself too.) 

I’m running home from work during the day doing the longer canal route through Cowcaddens when I get a call from my old friend Gus. We go back to the start of the Beltane Fire Festival, my old band Test Dept and soundtracks he made for numerous NVA productions, including ‘the Path' in Glen Lyon to mark the millennium.  At that point he became very close friends with Santa and Shree, Tibetan Singing Bowl players I had brought over from Nepal who performed high in the hills of Perthshire, on a stage set constructed into a rock fall.  

Years later, battling to overcome various demons Gus became a Buddhist monk, moving  to the Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan monastery in Dumfriesshire and then on to Holy Isle off the coast of Arran. He eventually de-robed and emigrated to Kathmandu, starting a music school for orphans with the help of the nun Ani Choying Drolma, who also sang as part of’ the Path'. By now he had married a local woman, Meena, and they had been caught in the recent earthquake while she was 8 months pregnant.

An international campaign started to get them both into Britain for their child’s birth. They win after a tough battle and Max is born in London. Cue this moment and Gus is trying to get a passport for him in Glasgow for them to go back home and re-establish life in Nepal. His application has been rejected, as his co-signatory is a ‘lowly’ joiner.  He desperately needs someone else to second him. When he calls, by pure chance,  I am 500 metres away, in 2 minutes I am outside the passport office signing new papers and half an hour later he has his son’s new passport in hand.

My stomach seems to finally be settling, I am getting less pain and any discomfort is mostly in my throat. After 8 months, there is a ray of light at the end of this particular digestive tunnel.  I can’t get drunk, indulge or overeat but it is a small price to pay for re-finding some equilibrium.  My only vice now is roll-ups, I know I should give up and have gone from the odd social fag to a daily habit, the nicotine controlling me.  As a runner it is madness. I am cutting down to under 5 a day and need to kick it, but haven’t quite found the strength yet.  A scorched throat and lungs will eventually help.

[thegrimrunner]

Autumn 2015

There’s no way round it, the first part of the year has been pretty full on. I was wound up trying to win the St Peter’s asbestos war over Christmas raising £220K privately in two weeks. I marathon trained through shit weather and then there was the huge moment of mum dying and the settling of grief and memory which wiped me out in early Spring.  There were manic final Test Dept edits, followed by the book launch and national tour of the Miners film, the marathon itself and an intense and relentless workload around NVA. Ellen, my co-director, said I might think myself invincible and that I can say yes to everything, but my body has spoken and it is time to listen.

I head out from the over population of the Edinburgh festival to Hillend dry ski slope and the start of the Pentlands. I have in mind to set off and just keep going seeing how much of the skyline route I can take in. Once up the steep slope of Caerketton to Allermuir and Capelaw hill, you are on a ridge line that affords open views from far up the Firth of Forth beyond the rail and road bridge, the high points over in Fife and a panoramic sweep down the sea line to Berwick Law and the Bass Rock. With soft peaty paths underfoot it feels like a dream to up and out of the humdrum buzz of the city. Onwards over Harbour hill, Bell’s hill and onto the south ridge of Black hill. I decide to miss out Hare hill, West kip and East kip and cut across via the edge of Loganlea reservoir to hit the bealach between Scald Law and Carnethy hill. Going across rather than with the path line puts my descent to Loganlea reservoir into trickily deep  heather and bracken; I have to dance my feet high not to trip, which becomes a tad draining. I throw myself at the water, kneeling to scoop it up in handfuls.

Two lads are fishing nearby in a boat and one cheerily offers me a can of cider, ‘When I’m finished!’ I reply. The ascent to Carnethy is steep and long and then it’s a drop down to Turnhouse hill to bring me to the start of Glencorse reservoir and the haul past a neatly laid army rifle range back up to Castlelaw hill and a re-joining of the original route over Capelaw. 4 hours in and my legs are like mud, but I have a strong outlook and finish my third longest run (by time spent on feet) since 1998.  I wolf down a jam and goat’s cheese spelt bread sandwich at the ski slope as an array of tots party hard ,sliding past me on inflated lorry tyre tubes.

Round the Lomonds hill loop in Fife above Newton of Strathenry where later that day I celebrate Dr Graham’s birthday, he who built many wonderful inventions and sculptures  for NVA’s work in the nineties.  His set design for the production of ‘Pain’ that I directed with Gray from Test Dept, exploring his life with rheumatoid arthritis from birth, utilised ship masts and sails forming an expanding rhomboid which surrounded cannibalised medical monitoring equipment. It still stands as a classic of creative re-appropriation.  Weight loss is giving me lightness on my feet and I run up steep sections where I used to huff, puff and fast walk. On leaving west Lomond hitting the high drove road to east Lomond,  autumn sun is on my back and in one perfect moment, the speed of the wind blowing through wavy dry grass at either side exactly matches my speed and I feel as if I am floating along the track. It lasts for a few minutes and is as close to perfection as I have ever felt as a runner in 17 years; it is that rare.

I have bought a bottle of Edinburgh Gin rhubarb and ginger liqueur. After 2 glasses I am done for and leave the easy conversations around a big wooden kitchen table to nestle down with the girls and watch Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki’s film ‘Spirited Away’. It rates as one of the classics of world animation.  A day of superlatives, sore stomach or not.

Out to Inversnaid from Rowardennan and back gives another fulfilling 14 miler on mixed trails with Al,  following the West Highland Way along the side of Loch Lomond. It’s blissful in late summer sunshine. Old men potter by in wooden boats looking for shy trout nestling near the banks. The sinuous path is tight and boggy in places ( it being the weekend we sneak onto the low section that is being upgraded). Great erratics tumble down from the upper slopes and the deep green of the trees and vegetation ceaselessly dances in dappled light. Returning on a higher trail and ironically Al gets indigestion from eating a chemical laden energy bar that Julie his partner gave him. It’s a gem of a day and we end up in the loch wading out to our waists before feckin’ midges drive us back to his white van for the ritual dispatch of rolls and hot tea.

Local support for walkers on the WHW

Some good hill runs over the last month, the only advantage of the restrictions on eating most indulgent food items is that I’ve dropped to below 11 and a half stone, the same weight I was 30 years ago. Maybe I’m finally going to banish the late Bobby Paterson’s dismissive words to me 10 years ago that, ‘You don’t look like a runner – you’re too heavy on your feet!’. The danger is that I get obsessed with my weight and BMI, standing on the scales too often and not normalising around this new body shape. Even now I still see a small amount of visceral fat around my middle and think ‘that has to go’…. that thinking could lead to long term image problems if I don’t just accept that this massive change is great and let things settle down.

A noble re-enactment by Mr Smith

Back in the Kilpatricks with a fast descent from Greenside and Jaw reservoir, about half a mile before home I hit a hidden metal spike and I’m hurled forward onto an old section of grit and concrete by the fence line.  I gouge a good chunk out of my knee, split a nail and scuff my elbow and hip.  I’ve ridden here on my vintage Dawes Super Galaxy racer, replete with Birmingham leatheries 1930’s seat. Images of the toughness of Hinault and Merx come to mind as there’s blood streaming down my shin as I jump on to race back to Glasgow. In reality, a bit shaken, I knock on a local farmhouse door to try and get a plaster and stem the flow. No one is in so it’s time to  grit the teeth and head for home. By the time I’m back the blood has dried black in the wind. I suspect I will now have a sore knee to contend with during the forthcoming Glencoe marathon….there’s always something!

Down to London to support Ann and the ‘Aunties,’ the gang of wild women we holiday with every summer in Devon/Cornwall. Remembering back to last December they had declared a 10K challenge for the year and Ann had taken a £1,000 bet from me that she would complete it. She started training really well, quickly going through the NHS ‘Couch to 5K’ programme, shedding the pounds, running 3 times a week and easily getting up to 6/7K. Then disaster struck in March with plantar fasciitis and a horribly sore heel giving stabbing pains with every foot landing and take-off. 

On top of long term sciatica and loss of feeling in 3 toes on the same side she was truly crocked. I persuaded her after 2 months off to start again, run shorter strides to reduce heel landing and going out twice a week her heel at least got no worse. There is a moral  here, that many people stop running in middle-age when some quite manageable injury occurs and never try and work through it. She is proof that with icing, stretching and a gentle restart you can keep going. Her training never got her past 7K so she was a bit worried about the last stretch, but ‘Run to the Beat’ promised lots of music and excitement all the way round the race route.

There were around 5,000 mostly young runners taking part with a big start and finish outside Wembley stadium, I heard a pretty luke-warm shout when the gun went off and then it was……a near silent trot through the suburbs of Wembley with absolutely zero atmosphere and interaction with public (wait for it ‘hotspots’ were meant to bring tunes up on your mobile and headphones in key zones). Well that’s worth £35! It’s hard not to see the utter cynicism of large commercial race organisers. Just like the Edinburgh Marathon, the only motivation here is the profit line.

The only thing you say for it, as that people who might otherwise not run, get an intro to that world and some might keep going as a result. We were promised a massive party after crossing the line, but unbelievably in warm sunshine only about 400 stayed to listen and dance to Marvin Humes (of former boyband JLS) knock out some house classics.

Ann did brilliantly; she was the first Aunty home in 1 hour 14 mins and kept going with real strength of character considering her broken up training. She walked the hill sections so fast, that it was the same pace as a slow jog and gritted it out without stopping for last 2K. I kept her bubbling along with a bit of technical chat about breathing and relaxing her ankles and shoulders (that really went down well) and Beccy Haughton (daughter of Rosie -a core ‘aunty’) ran with us, blasting straight through a vicious hangover as only the young can. Ann imagined that the Womens 10K in Glasgow must have ‘way more atmosphere’, so I’m quietly hopeful that this won’t be her last sojourn into my world and she will keep it going when she sees fit.  

Scotland is surprising us; after months of moaning about how relentlessly bleak the weather has been, we have been entertained by blue skies, calm conditions and an unexpectedly kind end transition into Autumn. I  met an old hill runner on the Loch Lomond jaunt who talked up Glen Loin in the Arrochar alps, so it’s into Al’s van and a blitz up the road to Succoth.  It’s a gentle and sociable ascent of the rocky path to the high saddle between the Cobbler and Ben Narnain along the banks of Allt a Bhalachain, with lots of walkers shouting encouragement or mild abuse as we make our way past them.

Rocky buttresses start to close in from both sides with Yawning crag rising steeply to our right. At  the final rise to Ben Ime we cut sharply  down a long cleft, with numerous hidden drop hazards in deep grass leading to a few rolling tumbles on the way down to Allt Coiregrogain and Glen Loin itself. The scale is grandiose and its uplifting looking up to Ben Vane towering over us, its flanks pockled with notable erratics, rockfalls and deeply etched burn-lines, all cast in relief by clear light from the south.

Next time I start complaining send me a silent reminder to remember days like this, when you have your health, fine company and Scotland is truly at her best. 11 miles and just under a Munro’s worth of rise and fall. I hold a long debate with Al as to whether the word ‘munter’ describes his personality and I get it back in spades. We are on opposite sides of the political divide and on the big current issues he drives me mad by not making a clear distinction between refugees and economic migrants. In many ways he reflects mainstream opinion which beyond the horror of the humanitarian crisis in Syria, which impels migration to survive; feeds on pumped-up stories of the crafty foreigner coming over and working our soft benefits system. Whether this relates to one in a hundred or not is deemed irrelevant as all are tarred with the same brush.

A glorious autumnal day coincided with my second Glencoe marathon and the end of a stressful week as many years of funding rounds and applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund for St Peter’s were finally completed. By February I will know my future and NVA will know its fate. Are we ready? Some of our institutional partners doubt us, but we have done the best we can and if they don’t believe we are prepared for the reality of running such a challenging but exciting new venue, there is not much we can do.

A quick visit to London and a bitter/sweet night watching my (ex) brother-in-law Will Whitehorn celebrate getting remarried, I had said the day he and my sister split up that he would always be family whatever happened and that remains true 3 years later. Yet the party was overwhelming, I felt mum’s presence and missed her and felt the sadness of things lost, even if Will and my sister Louise have found new happiness apart.  Arriving back in Glasgow and it was a manic morning of packing and cooking up an alkali treat of rice and steamed veg to take with me on a fast drive up to Fort William.

I sat in a pub drinking tea and watched South Africa take Scotland apart in the Rugby World Cup, then a quick run round a park in new Hoka trail shoes that I have been stretching in vain all week to stop them pinching around the bunion and neuroma in my left foot. Inevitably by the end of the night my little toe looks red and angry and is ready to blister at any moment; not the best preparation you want for a tough and long hill race. I’m up early strap my foot in zinc tape and head downstairs for toast and porridge after 4 hours sleep in a thin walled B&B. At breakfast I meet Anson Mackay, a lecturer in ecology at UCL; it will be his first mountain marathon though he has run across Lake Baikal in Siberia. which would count as pretty effective training in most people’s eyes.

We chum each other to the shuttle bus and the start line in Glencoe, I ditch most of my mountain safety gear to run light as there is not a cloud in the sky. It bodes well for the race. Last year the mountains loomed dark on a dreich day and rain kicked in halfway up the Devil’s Staircase, this year I would meet a glorious inversion, with all the hills etched perfectly against a clear sky, there is even a benign wind blowing us gently north to Glen Nevis.

I love the quiet anticipation before setting off, the knowing looks, quick nods and smiles between strangers, the odd good luck mouthed, the stretching and last minute peeing in the bushes. Then we are off; I’m in the second wave departing at 9.07 am and leave at a steady pace. We start in the shadow cast by the great western flanks of the Aonach Eagach ridge, but after a couple of miles we pop out into the sun and course our way up the glen. There is a brisk headwind which no-one had expected so gloves and hats are still on. I steal looks up to the Hidden Valley and the Three Sisters to my right, alongside the pyramidal bulk of Buchaille Etive Mhor silhouetted in bright white light. The going is easy till we hit a mile and half of boggy tussled heather leading up to the Devil’s Staircase.

There is no discernible path and plenty of ankle-twisting potential, so its lift the knees and pay close attention, while trying not to expend too much energy; it seems to go on for ever. Up the stairs and we all speed walk  the steepest section on the course. While intense on the quads and lower back, the joy is that you get your breath back. Last year I noticed that my post-race recovery was much quicker than a road marathon which pushes your muscles and lungs more specifically, due to the constant high speed and repetitive stride pattern. Ironically, the endless change in foot strike and muscle combinations used in a hill race seem to take less out of you, even though a strong base endurance i vital for staying on your feet for 5 hours or more.

At the top of the Devil’s Staircase there is a view back to the spreading bowl of Rannoch moor, blanketed with low-lying mist and wisps of cloud, burning off in the morning sunshine. It captivates all the runners and we happily stop to take quick pictures of each other before setting off on the endless descent to Kinlochleven. Last year this section had really burnt me out and it felt no easier this time. Coming into the halfway mark is a relief and hearing people cheer you on is an unexpected lift, helping you realise how locked inside your mind you have become while concentrating on not totalling yourself on the way down.

The following 1,000 feet climb back into the Mamores is tough. After the fulfilment of getting to the halfway mark unscathed, you face a body which rather than talking to you quietly, has gone straight to shouting for attention. Everything starts to close in and differing bands of pain let themselves be known in no uncertain terms. Here is the rub with a mountain marathon, you may recover quicker but during it the pain is present earlier than the gradual wind up to the last excrutiating 4 miles on a flat road. I have to laugh, my left foot neuroma aches, my shins are starting to pulse, my left knee flashes angrily after a poorly placed landing, my left hamstring tweaks from a pull achieved in my only Westerlands speed training session. My lower back is spasmodically seizing and won’t release when I arch back; to cap it all my lungs start to tighten  and my breathing is getting laboured.

With negative thinking you get lost in the different sensations as they pull you further inside to deal with them, I note that the odd runner is passing me and I have no capacity to respond. If this gets worse, there is no way I can survive another 10 miles as the path stretches into a distance with the knowledge of more hills and ascents to come. Regroup; a honey gel and a drink of salt spiked water, concentrate on keeping the legs loose and swinging from the knee, keep the strides small and economical, pump the arms to maintain momentum and slowly I come back from the precipice.

Coming back, means flurries of quick chat with people you pass and the resolution that not in a hundred years are you going to stop, so you might as well make the best of it. My pace is quite gentle and I repeat the mantra, ‘It’s just a walk in the park’. I think of professional marathon runners and the intense wall of pain that they run through to maintain sub 5 minute miles. My canter through some of the most stunning landscape in Europe really isn’t that taxing by comparison. Someone somewhere has felt much worse than this and carried and that is enough to buoy me up.

By the time I hit 20 miles I know there is a last refreshment staging-post coming. Tom, the director of the Piece coffee shops spots me as I arrive and shouts a friendly hello; afterwards he says that I almost look through him and just mutter “Tea…I need to find some tea!”  He knows that look and lets me go in search of a lukewarm cup. It goes down well and I leave the lively camp walking and sipping for 100 metres before ramping up again. I’m  happy that my stomach has been behaving itself and the odd Bisodol pill is keeping any acid at bay.

At 22 miles the same cramp I caught in my shins last year re-appears, I know what I’m in for and brace myself for waves of sharp stabs of pain coursing down the front of my lower legs. This time I’m wearing long compression socks and immediately pause, bend down and push my toes to the ground for 20-30 seconds, a kind runner holds a gate open, saying in truth he’s thankful for the break and repeats it a few times for on the way down to Glen Nevis.  I meet Jennifer Rees-Jenkins down from Inch in Aberdeenshire, she is a live wire and exhorts everyone to give it their best and go for the last few miles, her pal Ruth Howie is below us on the final climb, she had apparently lost over six stone and was hammering her way home. It was great to be distracted by the vitality of these amazing women…nothing was going to get in their way and it lifted me immensely.

At 23 miles, we enter quiet woods and the curving descent is delightful, cramp or no cramp I’m going to enjoy this and savour the miles done and the short distance to go. After a brutal final ascent we hit a wide cinder forest road that will drop us down bend after bend to the finish line. For the first time I look at my watch 13.48. With a jolt of recognition I realise that if I up my pace I can smash my time of 5 hours 15 from last year.  The road is hard and jars my  tightening shins, but something clicks within me and I say ‘fuck this’ and belt for the finish in a sub 7.30 pace.

The energy is draining from me, the road flattens out and I desperately scan for a cut-off into the woods that spells the last few hundred metres. I have glimpsed the white tent and crowds from far above and know it must come soon. 5 long minutes later the relief of a right pointing orange triangle and soon I am into the stubble of the last field with the finish line rising to meet me.  There is a big smile on the face of the official Timer as I plant the tracker on my wrist into the end totalizer. She looks up and asks if I want my time…….”4.57!”

Spontaneously I burst into tears, hug her and kiss her cheek, laughing with my face streaming, I stagger out of the finishers funnel, saying ‘fucking hell’ over and over again, I have dropped nearly 20 minutes on last year and I am still on my feet. All the toughness of this year swells through me, the battles for St Peter’s, losing mum, the undiagnosed illness and in these overwhelming moments I let go and enjoy the fulfilment of  this day. I suddenly realise I am swearing incoherently at a family with a young boy of about 12, I apologise and change my verbal tic to ‘far canal’ which makes them smile. It turns out he is Tom’s nephew, who I had met briefly at the last rest station.

The afternoon sun was still warm, an October day in the Highlands that you might get once in 30 years. I talked to anyone, then re-met and hugged Anson, (he from the start of the day) who had done a very respectable 5 hours 30 mins. There was tea in the tent and I had made sandwiches; after lazing in the sun and a final stretch I headed out onto the road to drive home.  I was worried about seizing up with my foot on the clutch; but replaying the memories of the day, a quiet contentment kept my eyes glued to the road along with the desire to get home to Glasgow, Ann and the girls in one piece.

Last year my chiropractor Alan MacInnes had beaten me by 11 minutes and I won’t deny that beating his time gave me some extra motivation in the last tough miles; knowing he would have to live with that for another year before no doubt he would do the same to me again!

[thegrimrunner]

Summer 2015

10K with Al in the Kilpatricks, stomach sore and talking loudly but a good loup through the hills that might become a mid-week touchstone to try and break  the hour mark, with plenty of short steep ascents and descents . Back to over 40 miles for the previous week including 3 hill runs. Weirdly this matches a serious condition building up. I first got what I thought was indigestion in the build up to the London marathon, but lately it has multiplied, till I have pain in my throat and across my chest permanently. A bit frightening to say the least.

I've been out on tour with Test Dept, screening our Miners’ strike film DS30 across the northern cities of Britain, but had to retire wounded after a couple of dates. After every showing the words of Kent miner Alan Sutcliffe, who recorded with us on 3 albums, ring out- recorded a year on from the 84/85 strike;

“Some people listened to us and some didn’t- but at least we fucking tried….”

I’m seeing a gastroenterology consultant in a few days and have cut alcohol and spicy food already; I’m determined that it shouldn’t stop me running even if things are a bit uncomfortable. So, another trog with Al  to a new part of the Kilpatricks past Cochno hill, romping over deep bogs west of Duncolm and Loch Humphrey to Fynloch hill. As the endorphins kick in, Al starts screaming ‘Stoneymollan Roondaboot’ at the top of his voice which clearly amuses him intensely (only the feeble laugh at their own jokes mum used to say to my dad) but as I join in, screaming it over and over again I too regress without difficulty.

A day off from the TD Miner’s strike film tour, it is having real impact and making audiences feel passionate again not only about what happened in 1985, but the need for activism today in the face of an increasingly brutal right wing government. I head to my beloved Hebden Bridge, which has the best station café anywhere in the country, (turning into a bar and music venue after 4pm: cup of tea 95p..). I climb behind the town, through the deeply dappled green of Granny woods to the ancient Hellhole rocks, then up and out over Popple common, across a treeless moor in 22 degrees to Gorple reservoir. It’s a “taps aff” day and I beg a drink at a house on the way back. 9 miles and tired legs but the next morning it’s out with Jo Wain, my local running partner to tackle Cragg Vale, Stoodley Pike and after a few wrong turns to follow the Pennine way to find ‘the highest beach in the UK’.

Gaddings dam is now locally owned by a preservation group, at 780 feet up in the upper Calder Valley it has a remarkable outlook. Whinstone has been worn down over thousands of years to form the white grains of its sandy shore. We meet Paul who lives nearby on the moor and swims it every day, also doing most of the maintenance. “Not a committee man”, it’s a privilege to sit with him and hear the story of its survival.  A story in the Daily Mail brought a mass of rubbish leavers last year that he had to clear up after (never trust a Mail reader) but it normally ticks along well.

Jo admits she’s crap at route finding as she is normally talking with a friend on runs and not looking at the path lines. I ‘manfully’ take charge to get us back to the Pike and promptly lead us into a mile or two of bogs and claggy mud. Soon we’re back on course and then finishing on planked legs we drop back down to Hebden. We’ve done a proper off-road half-marathon, in real heat, its Jo’s second longest run ever. She’s done well given the conditions and lack of potable water.

I’ve been doing a lot of slogging in to work recently in poor weather and all it really needs is some inspiring surroundings to get my dander up again. I just hope I can sort out my bloody ailment quickly though the prognosis fits well into the ‘chronic’ category of no cure and long term impact.

Running in a deluge with the wind whipping along the River Kelvin on the first day of June, so cold my hands are tucked into my cagoule, young Fionntan McCaughey’s words to his mum on the way to school are ringing in my ear and raise a smile, “I love the rain!” Love is stretching it, but you’ve got to accept it or consider emigration, with half the days of the year ending up wet. A bearded lad takes a picture under a high curved bridge he turns to me and points, a breath catches in my throat, as I see a flash of iridescent metallic blue channelling up the water at incredible speed. The one second view of a kingfisher in full flight turns the moment into something exquisite and I carry my mind home on recharged legs.

Low motivation after London.  I drop down to 16 miles for the week. There is a cycle of demotivation and latent illness that is toxic in giving you reasons not to bother getting out. When a run has little quality, you are heavy on your feet and old injuries niggle, it’s hard to stay so active. I am banging out the same routes to work each day either 3 miles along the river or a longer 5 via the canal and Garnethill. On any day, I can run 6, 8 or 10 miles depending on the effort I want to put in.

With the weather still unrelentingly cold and damp, I pop Bradley Wiggins, Desert Island Disks onto headphones and head out; within 10 minutes I am laughing (Hollande and Chirac described as Pinky and Perky at the end of the Tour de France) and crying (his mum and nan bringing him up when drug dealing father walked out on them when he was a baby and finally hearing he has been murdered  in Australia two decades later). After 30 minutes I’m running 6.30 pace and feeling the joys of the world again.

During that run, I remember an early inspiration. I was a huge fan of Alf Tupper,’Tough of the Track’. I first came across his weekly story in the Victor comic in 1967 aged 6 and read it for the next few years. In my memory Alf lived somewhere in the north of England, had bog brush hair, a hard graft job and was always late for some stadium race due to a ‘mishap’. He would have to catch up the posher better turned-out runners and always managed to break past them and win.  He was ever the underdog but always triumphant. Most importantly he would then sit down for a humungous plate of fish and chips, which were dispatched with great relish. That combination of physical effort and indulgent eating has stayed with me for nearly 50 years!

It’s the day after my sister-in-law Cathryn’s fiftieth birthday, which she has come over from Australia to celebrate. A big party at our house and I keep myself busy with the guests to allow her and partner Chris time to catch up with old friends and family and to stop myself from drinking too much. A couple of gin and tonics and I have to go and sit upstairs in my bedroom for a while to recover, so that is that, my stomach will brook no indulgence.  I head out to re-connect with an old half marathon route that I haven’t done for a while. It’s dull up the main road to Milngavie and then a turn onto Allander water (past Rangers training ground) and its 7 miles of waist-high grass, nettles, thistles, mud, puddles and the vague outline of a path. The head-on rain turns to sleet and I remember this is meant to be why you do off-road running- to masochistically plough onwards, getting stung, scratched and soaked and telling yourself it’s all good fun.

I feel great by the time I get home and spend the rest of the afternoon sorting out the roadside allotment at the front of our house; making broad bean nets, replanting peas, mangetout, french and runner beans; trying to out-think the relentless invasion of slugs and snails with mini-fencing and barriers. Tired but fulfilled at the end of the day a slice of  divine Victoria sponge birthday cake made by Bakery 47, who are definitely the best in town, beavering  away on a back street near the Hidden Gardens in Pollokshields.

The end of six months, 4 miles along the canal, muggy, overcast and drizzly, the Scottish summer continues.  I complete 720 miles for the first half of the year. Solid. I couldn’t ask more of myself. It is time for travelling and recasting my working life in some way as an aide to recovery.

Biopsy tests back from my consultant after an endoscopy last week. Nothing major found except irritation of the stomach lining. So the good thing is, I don’t have a hernia or ulcer, but there is still no exact diagnosis and I have no idea how long this will go on for. Patience is the word, the feeling of discomfort in my stomach and throat is continual.  I have made the big shifts, cutting out most alcohol, sneaky fags, caffeine, red meat, cakes, chocolate, carbonated drinks, so plenty of healthy eating but not much sign of improvement yet.

I’ve kept running throughout, as whatever I have is more likely to be age and stress induced  than by exercise. I hit a hard 11 miler along the West Highland Way from Glengoyne distillery to the base of Cochno hill. The route is fairly mundane with tight track, minor road and plenty of gates, but I go for it and build up some speed on the way back. The first part of the year has been full on. Looking back I was wound up trying to win the HLF asbestos war over Christmas.  I put in many hours of marathon training in shit weather; then the huge moment of mum dying,  the in-rush of grief and outflow of a lifetime of memories over early spring.  There were the endless Test Dept book edits , the tour of the Miners film and the launch of the final book. Then doing the marathon itself, while stressed and overweight, on top of a relentless continual workload around St Peter’s!  I need it all to slow down.

Ellen said I might think myself invincible and that I can say yes to everything but my body has spoken and it is time to listen. So, no email on holiday, NVA will only be in touch if an urgent decision is required.  I will do everything to forget who I am through my work and just enjoy family and friends as we move from Argyll, to the south coast of England with a sojourn to France inbetween.

 Lunga estate near Ardfern, Argyll, owned by the maverick laird, Colin Lindsay- McDougall. The grounds are full of semi-legal huts and self-build houses and he and the community have fought the local council for decades to allow it to continue. He told me that when Argyll and Bute realised that if they knocked them all down and turfed everyone out they would have to rehouse each resident,  they gave up the challenge after 20 years of eviction threats! From a raised position, we have incredible views from our cottage out to Sula, Luing, Scarba and Jura. At night the sun set behind the islands casting molten beams across the sea .

One misty morning I head out to explore the surrounding hills, passing round through Craobh Haven, up and back over forestry roads  a couple of hours later. Steep tracks to the tops that looked clear from road level, turned out to be a higgledy-piggledy broken wall and fence lines and I spent much of my time bashing  through waist high bracken. It’s hard going but exciting, with the rolling landscape disappearing below into swathes of low cloud. I treasure discovering tiny sheep tracks that contour up and over ridgelines that  would otherwise have been hard to attain. Your speed and progress multiply rapidly every time you find that six inch wide line; sharing something that another animal has made.

Back to Bewl water and my sister’s house in Sussex. I’m kicking myself because I arrive early on a Sunday morning to find out that 800 runners are doing the Wadhurst 15 miler around it and I should haveremembered it was happening . My stomach issues probably preclude me from going for this sort of race just now, but the desire has not lessened. I trot up and down a shady lane two times, until the runners have all passed through and set off round the reservoir.

There has been an uncharacteristic dump of rain overnight so the track is churned up and muddy, I pass some truly ancient competitors who are still slowly making their way along the course. Words of encouragement and I see the dogged determination in their small strides, often accompanied by a friend or a partner on a bike to see them through. As they cross the line many hours later, their effort is equal to and in many ways more courageous than all who have come before.

It’s 8 o’clock in the morning and already 28 degrees in France, I drag myself out of bed, put on my shoes, vest, hat and pack with a half bottle of water, fruit juice and salt and inside and head out to Le Darse, the old port of Villefranche-sur-Mer. An unpromising dusty road ends up at a cheap accommodation block at the end of the bay, but a concealed passage leads to an inviting roughcast path leading out round  sharp limestone cliffs that hug the shoreline of the Cote d’Azur.

Crystal clear water and the expected arc of pure blue overhead and my spirits rise. I’ve found the Sentier Littoral that wends its way west to Nice. A near perfect combination of stone steps, compacted earth, worn rocks and tight walkways weaving around deeply carved coves.  Everything shimmers in the heat. These are the runs that you dream of on a wet winter run to work in Glasgow.  The path invites you forward to the next view, to the next shift underfoot, a fishing boat bobbing in the water searching for seabass,  World War II concrete emplacements, graffito “To be or not to be…just relax”. Sprayed onto a brutalist gun bunker, a small boy seemingly incarcerated by the bars that run down next to his frail body.

Then steep, steep steps rising all the way up a cliff bank onto a high coastal road, halfway there and I have to pause and lean over to catch my breath and take a drink. At the top two racing cylists fly by with a comradely shout of “Salut” as I appear onto the pavement. Then it’s back to urban normality, single road runners locked into their headphones and inner-worlds with no acknowledgment of each other as they trundle past..

In Italy and dreams of a rural idyll high up in the Maritime alps are quickly shattered as we discover a near abandoned house, overrun with ants, a dead garden and a broken concrete balcony replete with filthy sink and stained plastic garden furniture. At least the beds are clean and the views over a deeply cleft valley to the highest peaks are striking. We are nestled amid olive groves that snake up the sharp flanks of our 3,000 ft hill. Olive farming in Liguria is ancient and the steep terraces are banked up like the rice fields in Nepal, held in place by hand-built rock walls that are so old, they appear to be  part of the living landscape.

I set out  in 30 degrees of heat,  following guide-notes left by the Glasgow owners of the house (full of the romance about Italian rural life but not quite squaring with the dump that they are trying to sell!). Early morning light over  Apricale, a dramatically situated mediaeval village that literally tumbles down off the edge of a nobbled ridge line.  Every possible space is built on, creating the overall image of precariously balanced blocks of stone.

I turn from the ridge and make my way up a route that schoolchildren from the outlying farms would have used for decades before buses were introduced. The path should curl over the mountain and back down to our house on the other side. The rough track hits a tough gradient just as the sun  begins to really kick in.

Unlike it says in the guide, small paths proliferate in all directions, I hit two dead-ends leading into impassably steep scraggy scrub, high on the side of the hill. A final try and my last option peters out 100m before the crest. I’m feeling increasingly isolated and fantasize about a stupid fall or getting hopelessly lost and dehydrated; already I have to think hard to remember the different turns I have taken. There is no possibility of going off-piste as the terrain is treacherous and all the ground plants are spiky and look ready to rip your shins off.   I turn on my heels to run back the way I have come. Unfortunately this means engaging with three wild dogs that some an old farmer brings up to his Olive grove every day, just a mile short of home. When we drive past here  the crazed mutts  attack the car and one takes paint off the door handle, which he fixes onto with slavering mouth and bared teeth as we rattle by.

Increasingly dazed and overheated, I begin to imagine the brutes going for my legs and clamping their huge jaws into my tender flesh. I find a sturdy 5ft long sturdy stick and run towards  my end, naively attempting to imitate the soft tread of an African hunter.  The fear rises in my throat- I hear snarling and mad barking round the final corner, only to find that the pack have been chained  above the road and for the first time I can pass safely.

For the last leg we head along the south coast of England from Sussex to Cornwall. Further west the geology starts to change, gentle rolling downs give way to the rich seams of chalk and limestone that form classic white cliffs.  These become even more dramatic as sandstones and shales mix in to create the jagged formations seen on the Cornish coastline. I follow the Tennyson trail on the Isle of White, the land rising and falling sharply . Freshwater golf course is so manicured that I have a roll around on a green, like some mangy old dog, luxuriating in soft grass.

The ‘Needles’ a set of stacks at the southern tip of the island, march off the landmass and out into the sea. The view has been privatised by the National Trust, you are meant to walk for a mile to pay £7 to see round some dull fort and get a full panorama,  or for the plebs, it’s a partial glimpse of the stacks from a hill behind. It leaves a bad taste. This is arch Tory country; my Aunt Libby says that if you were to bring  the phrase ‘social justice’ into a conversation, you would be met by blank stares; it has no meaning here at all.

My annual runs along the edge of Cornwall have lost none of their allure. Intensely vertical stepped paths hug the cliff line, offering an endless parade of deeply indented raised beaches and softer rias. Seen from above you can read the shape and movement through time.  The hardness of granite and the drop away of looser shales still changing under the influence of an incessantly shifting sea.  For peace, I look out to the wider horizon where water meets sky.  

My stomach issues continue, so I have the odd position of cooking my own ‘alkaline’ lunches and dinners to avoid all the deliciously indulgent ingredients that make up a normal Pyworthy holiday menu. It is a hard drinking holiday, with quite a few of the 40 strong crew starting with beer on the beach during the day and just carrying on into the evening…every evening. At points I feel a bit isolated; it’s harder to let go without alcohol, but there is plenty of good company and craic. Though no better after 5 weeks on the road, I’m still well rested and ready to tackle Kilmahew/St Peter’s again. I’ll be leaning more on the brilliant NVA project team to get through the next few months unscathed.

[thegrimrunner]

The London Marathon

On the way south for Test Dept book launch of ‘Total State Machine’, the full untold history of the band, with archive films at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton. The book overwhelmed me in print, an incredible level of documentation, memorialization and comment on our experimental political art from the eighties. I’m proud of the herculean effort put in to making it happen with over 3 years of editing but it does as a result do our story justice. I have a few pints which is not clever meeting friends from over 30 years, but I know the coming race is not going to be my best and need to let go.

I’m suffering usual nervy feelings in the last days before the marathon, even though it will be number 9. I’ve sounded out a few people about the race conditions and my own physical state, also doing a stats comparison with my 3.28 Edinburgh training from 2 years ago. It doesn’t look good,  losing mum has knocked me sideways; I’m 9 lbs over fighting weight and am missing about a month of the necessary training at over 40 miles a week. I have consistency and lots of running under my belt but I need to be honest about this reality. I will do well to break 3.50. I’m on my own after the race and it would be a nice change if I wasn’t crawling across a crowded city reeling from cramp. Yet the idea of a ‘fun run’ and just enjoying the day feels like a cop-out and probably is. Curse my insecurities; I will be fine, I’ll run it to honor mum and give it a good shot without trying to emulate unreachable heights…we shall see.

I head over to ExCel, a massive conference centre (that next year will house a massive arms expo) to log in for the race. I can’t decide if I’m in heaven or hell. Thousands of us are wandering around in a logo infested hall funnelled in line to get bags, bibs and tags with Adidas official merchandising shoved in your face from every angle. I let it all wash over me and accept that a mass experience, is exactly that, chock full of humans, in stations, on elevators, searching for carbohydrates and coffee and waiting for the loos (if you’re a woman). You don’t so much interact but sense that you are all in it together and being runners the atmosphere is  generally good.

I meet Justin Carter an artist and lecturer from Glasgow, he is thin as a rake and a great runner going from 4 hours to 3.21 in two years of training….it comes easy to some. We swap battle stories and the company feels great among the sea of faces. Nearly out of the shed and I spot an Altra shoe stand. My heart misses a (consumerist) beat.  I had tried to track a pair down after seeing ultra-runner Kai in them when we did the Hakone ridge run in Japan in 2012. They are cushioned, zero drop, black, red and white with a massive toe box and I am in shoe heaven. Ann does not call me the Imelda Marcos of running for nothing.

I’m staying with an old friend Morag and her kids. Her mum is dying in Edinburgh and she has just come back after being with her for the last few days. It’s good to be with her as I know what she must be feeling. Callum her eldest is knocking up the traditional ‘night before’ vegetable pasta and having grown up in Umbria, I know I’m in for a treat. My excitement is building and I lay everything out, I have written my name and mum’s onto the front of my Westerlands vest with her dates 1922-2015. I remember her great fighting spirit, I may need a bit of that to get me through.

Off early in the morning to Blackheath, probably too early, I get there with 2 hours to spare following relaxed chats on an unpacked train. It is 6 degrees, with light rain and pretty cold. There are already plenty of shivering runners walking round the heath. I wrap up in old jumper Callum had given me and find a spot to hunker down in the lee of the wind, leaning against the wall of a changing tent. Two French boys on one side, their feet in plastic bags and an interesting older American woman to my right, who trained by running round and round Hampstead Heath and was running her fifth London marathon. The atmosphere is subdued but friendly, a fine constituency of committed people, saving their energy for what is to come. Shaking out on the start line, shouts of good luck and we’re off, an easy 8.30 pace and I’m very comfortable. A few miles in and I’m seeing my old haunts from the 80’s, the top of Deptford High St and nameless roads that I stumbled down 35 years ago. Greenwich and the Cutty Sark is a revelation. Crowds are 10 deep and I begin to pick up my name being shouted or chanted (the old AC/DC shout for “Angus-Angus”). There is the thrill of recognition from complete strangers and if you run near the barriers, it doesn’t stop, hundreds of times over your name comes back to you with ceaseless words of encouragement- it completely floors me. I’m in tears by mile 6 and my energy and adrenaline is flowing with this beautiful sea of faces. It becomes an  intoxicating drama separate to the race, there are rows of children with expectant faces waiting for a ‘high five’, sweets being proffered on every corner. I see every nationality you can imagine and know this is turning London’s reputation as the cold heartless metropolis on its head.

Andy Cowton a friend apparently spots me at London Bridge and says after that I looked ‘deliriously happy’. There is a smile continually playing on my face which stays there for the full distance. I have never smiled so much in my life. I wanted to honor every one of the 750,000 people who had turned out to cheer along the route. For their act of giving, for the unalloyed joy of receiving undeserved praise for doing something that you simply like. The theatre of the moment takes over and I start to showboat, I shout at quiet sections on the route, “ I can’t hear you London?” cupping my hand to my ear and crossing the road at big bends to connect with the public on the far side. This raises a huge wave of voices sending a further surge of adrenaline through your body.

At every corner, a musical intervention: techno, disco, hip-hop, heavy metal, power ballads, old cheese and new,  live samba bands, dohl drummers, jazz bands, swing bands, steel bands, lone pipers and a full pipe band, who I invade to dance a quick Highland Fling.

I know that if I had wanted to run seriously then I would have run in the centre of the road avoiding the interaction, but as my overall time becomes irrelevant, I keep being drawn to the edges like a moth to a flame. Proffered signs say ‘touch here for power’, I run with Batman, Minnie Mouse (died platinum hair and tattoos of naked women) among other random transvestites and cartoon characters. The moment of crossing Tower Bridge, sends shivers down my spine, it must be the same for every runner. The endless wave of humanity ahead and behind, the enormity of the experience, the scale of the architecture.

The only bum note is seeing a red Sun newspaper double-decker by the side of the road, with nobodies parading on the upper floor. I run by with 2 fingers in the air. I also keep my head down passing through Canary Wharf, not wanting to feel crushed by the faceless corporate monoliths that bear down on you. In tunnels and under bridges the public support rings ever louder in your ears. The density of audience on both sides reminds me of being held in the flow of a huge river that you can’t leave, there are vaguely claustrophobic thoughts but you keep moving along and let them drift.

At 12 miles, I know I’m shot. I’d clearly harbored some doubts going into this, the fear of the inevitable   physical suffering, but I’m surprised at how early my legs start to stiffen and my hips begin to radiate tight circles of pain that do not let up for the next 2 hours. Normally I push myself through this, inevitably ending up with cramp and a mild sense of panic once I’m over the line. Paranoid images of collapsing when I finish surface as my hips send out sharper and sharper alarm signals,  this isn’t going to go away and need to come up with a coping strategy.

The thoughts of future hell swim into my mind and are dismissed by re-engaging with the people around me. I make eye contact with everyone who calls to me and nod to them, buoyed each time on a wave of empathy. After 21 miles I stop to briefly stretch out my calves and hips at each mile marker, chatting for a minute with whoever is up against at the fence line. I am determined to arrest the onset of cramp and it seems to be working. As people read my running vest, I hear the words repeating “Your mum would be proud”. There is no sadness, just the acknowledgement of how good strangers can be to each other sometimes. In a moment of naivety I imagined marathons as great happiness generators in every town in the world and the temporary cessation of war. You do become that delusional. After each pause I shout for a countdown from 5 to 1 and cut back into the endless line of runners coming past.  A less enjoyable element is seeing participants collapsing and receiving medical treatment, you have to look away, it reminds you that there for grace of god go I.

The 25th mile marker comes as a delicious moment, as music pumps out I pull boy band moves from my ‘cheese board’. Neither Westminster or Buckingham palace mean anything, the great symbols of British power pass by in a dwam, it is all about the human story. Crossing the line and I’m overcome with a wave of relief that it’s done. My slowest ever marathon at 4.08 but I can’t remember grinning so continuously before without the influence of drugs. There is no doubt that my pre-race fears were correct, you can never fake this distance. But as an emotional movement through space, I don’t think any run will match this one. Once you surrender to the mass, talk to anyone, let it all flood through you, there is nothing but positive feelings to take from it.  

Time dissolves and there is only the delicious agony of completion, a throb rather than a jab and a blessed stiffness that you know will pass, even if temporarily I feel 20 years older. I slowly get back to messages from friends over the evening. Callum, Morag and Ellie make great burgers, homemade chips and Caesar salad. We finish the night with Will Ferrell in ‘The Candidate’, which is about the highest cultural level I am capable of taking in. Another marathon finished and life as always is enriched. The train north the next morning is full of the war wounded, all exchanging stories and united by the same reaction to the unexpected passion and openness of London. Justin who I met up with before ran a solid 3.19 and promptly passed out in a pub afterwards.

[thegrimrunner]

10 years on from NVA’s The Storr: unfolding landscape

Mount Martin and the lost forest

The weather did not look good, the forecast rarely does for Skye, but then again it often takes you by surprise and after 5 hours of driving we emerged from the gloom of the western highlands into an immaculate sunset going down over Harris and Lewis. We were Catching up with Anne Martin and ‘Chalky’ White at the second  'Cèol on the Croft’ folk festival just north of Uig, offering a time for  beer, whisky, dancing and good companionship. Ten years ago Ava and Calla had been four when we staged The Storr: unfolding landscape and had vague memories of climbing through a dark forest hearing the swelling sounds made by some great creature living within them.

 A decade on we were back with friends Peter McCaughey, Lizzie O’Brien and their boy Fionntan to re-walk the route and see if the ‘Old Man of Storr’ still held any magic for us. This was to be my last large-scale environmental work with lighting designer Dave Bryant aka ‘DB’. He had battled back from cancer to make it onto the hill, inventing a new wireless lighting technology and software programme as he went, winning him UK Lighting Designer of the Year, before his final passing away.

His creativity shone out in all we did, enabling 7,000 people to climb the steep route to a great cirque of pinnacles forming a perfect corrie, to witness a beautifully ephemeral animation when the weather saw fit to allow it. There names still resonated: the Pig rock, big Fin and little Fin, the Castle, the Pinkie and the Cheese-slice. - but The woods below that had seemed so mysterious to my young daughters had now been decimated.

I never thought I would mourn the loss of a plantation forest, but the denuded scarred landscape with a rough grey grit path winding through it was a bad introduction to the walk and I was filled with sadness at what had gone. Even though the area will recover as a native woodland in 30 years’ time, the current reality was grim to behold. Anne’s hill, named Mount Martin in her honour, from which she sang the north Skye gaelic song tradition out to the world for 42 nights, had been reduced to an anodyne lump.

Thankfully above the forest line the path network which we had raised £70,000 pounds to re-instate was largely intact.  Apart from another few hundred tons of rockfall, the Storr cliffs and the ‘bodach’ himself looked just fine and I revelled in passing on stories from NVA’s time on that magnificent hillside. There were no ghosts there, the memories of how tough it had been  bringing the work to fruition had faded and I remembered instead friendships made; people and a place honoured as best we could and on a final scale that few could have imagined.   

http://nva.org.uk/artwork/storr/

[thegrimrunner]

February 2015

Edward bear who lived with mum for 86 years

Valentine’s Day and a huge moment in the Farquhar family history. Mum has finally died, just 4 days short of her 93rd birthday. The great leveller, pneumonia ruthlessly floored her after a few days struggle and she passed peacefully with me, Clare and Louise all able to be with her and surround her with a web of love and support over the last tough hours. Mum was ready to die, her recent months in a decent care home in Edinburgh were marred by reduced vision, mobility and energy. In her happiest dreams her soul would be mingling with Peter, my father again after 37 years apart. I have no justification to believe in that reality, but it is an immensely comforting thought. Grief comes in waves with periods of  ease and acceptance suddenly punctuated by overwhelming sadness at what has gone by and the fullness and loss of a life well lived but marred by emotional struggle and pain.

Mum was a great woman with a fighting spirit, a sharp tongue who was a true friend to all who opened themselves up to her. She remained interested in other people to the end and although deeply affected by a loveless childhood, she did everything she could to give me and my sisters the simple joys growing up, that she had missed out on with an alcoholic mother and a detached father. When I kissed her goodbye the morning after she had left us, she looked beautiful and calm, re-entered into the  flow of energy surrounding and beyond this immediate reality. Her funeral was quite something, in St John’s Church on Princess St, Edinburgh.  Cold winter sunlight flooded in through the south facing stained glass windows, a choir sang, the huge flower arrangement by the pulpit  seemed to glow and mum was given the glorious send-off she always wanted and deserved. I was crushed with nerves that I would crack doing the address but the opening line settled me down and I got through it, “Hair…check, Suit…check, Shaved…check…Teeth…done:  Don’t worry mum you can relax I haven’t let you down!”

[thegrimrunner]

January 2015

One of the best Januaries I can remember, 141 miles on the clock with no major niggles; it would have been my third highest monthly mileage for last year. The first day back at work, a patron lets me know that they are going to fund the final money needed to remove asbestos from St Peter’s Seminary, relieving all impediments with other funders to moving forward. David Cook started work as Project Director, having left WASPS artist studios, the business that he had founded 23 years previously. His experience and calm management has already released me creatively over the last few weeks and Ellen my NVA co-director is  smiling again too. Ann has also started running and has shown great discipline, following the ‘Couch to 5K’podcast programme.  She ran every second day throughout January, cut the umbilical cord to Tennents Brewery and already looks brighter and more energetic as a result.

A recent trip to Amsterdam with the twins, a moving and uncomfortable visit to Anne Frank’s house museum, with long queues snaking into the ever smaller rooms, where the family hid during the war. It builds a sense of witnessing in us, while also subtly referencing the claustrophobia they went through before being anonymously betrayed and sent to their deaths.

I ran a couple of 10Ks weaving to avoid the giant men and women cruising at speed along the narrow cycle lanes on their ‘sit up and beg’ retro bicycles. Imperious looks and the odd shout soon clear you out of the way of the thousands of daily commuters. It’s quite a sight to behold and reminds you of how far Scotland has to travel to even touch the same level of two-legged self-propulsion.

Travelling south 11 hours to St Austell, on the south coast; on the train I witness  a mad hail shower in high winds, with low sunlight shining through it, revealing great shifting curtains sweeping sinuously across the sea. It could best be described as monochrome, textured Northern lights and it has most of the carriage on their feet to watch.  The day after an NVA lecture at Eden; I’m out with friends Diana and Mathew on bikes and with me on foot we knock out a good 12 miles of rural side roads with at least 4 big ascents and descents. I’m strong during it, but its incredible how it still gets unusual muscles the next day, upper quads, side of calves and the front of shins all feeling it. Nevertheless, a tough 8 days concluded with plenty of mileage. Sore throat and a restful train journey back north watching the literally heart-aching Polish film ‘Ida’.

Stunning night run with ‘Brother’ Phil Supple on my mostly off-road local 10K route round Garscube estate, which traces the river Kelvin, then cuts up through Cairnhill woods and back home by the Dawsholm recycling yard. It is crisp and snowy underfoot with head torches lighting our way. It’s magical running at night in a wintry setting, the criss-crossing shadows of trees cast over our paths as we catch up on his recent trip to China with Cristina to explore a new staging of Speed of Light. We firmly agree not to get drawn into doing some watered down ‘teaser event’ to coincide with a Royal visit to boost trade relations. Memories of the absurd levels of  protocol surrounding Prince Charles at the National Day for Britain that we produced for the World Expo in 1998 still haunt me.

After a champagne fuelled night with Ann, I am a tad the worse for wear as Al Smith drags me up Carman hill behind St Peter’s seminary, any attempts at speed through the snowbound upland moor bring burning lungs and mild nausea, so we toddle along on firm ground, marvelling at the breath-taking views, east to Loch Lomond and west along the Firth of Clyde. For a relatively unexplored landscape the summit panorama packs quite a punch.

Training for the London marathon ( I know I said after Edinburgh, I wouldn’t do road races again but who can resist a £32 club entry fee and I’m keen to find out how it feels to take part in one of the really big city races after having slogged round rural routes without any public support for the last few years). Mileage is going quite well  averaging 30-35 miles a week. My hip flexor seems to have calmed down which is a relief and just some tight calves and knee tweaks due to the hard and uneven nature of running on compacted snow.  On the weekend black ice hit Glasgow and to get to the shops at the top of Ashburton Rd I had to slide across the junction on all fours, it was like glass without the slightest purchase in any direction.

I see mum at her the Tor nursing home, (god love her aged 92 with only half an eye she still peers at me after 15 minutes and enquires ‘Do you have a black tooth?’) Ever pass remarkable she has done this every time I see her  for the last 10 years. Her turn of phrase is still exquisite, seeing a slightly portly relative in a wedding photo she witheringly comments ‘Hmmm…..there’s a lot of her!’           On to the Pentlands and a good solo sweep over West Kip and Scaldlaw with a bracing wind on the summits and perfect underfoot conditions. The 3 mile final run-out along a winding moraine always feels twice the length but at height it is an invigorating route.

I need to build my long runs up and three days later run 6 miles along the canal and back (adding a quick cup of tea and a ritual donut halfway); talk about marching on your stomach.  I manage 48 mins out and 45 back home.  As the reality of the effort kicks in, I remember with slight awe that I should be able to maintain this pace for another 14 miles in London. It is a sobering thought.

Diary of an average runner.  Someone sent me a link to the Barkley marathons in Tennessee reputed to be one of the hardest races in the world; to finish you have to repeat five 20 mile loops of almost impenetrable muddy hillsides, dense forests and scrub landscape in under 60 hours. Only 14 or so people have finished it in 30 years. I thought shall I run another 4 miles this morning to get me to 35 miles for the week. I looked out and saw it was snowing so went and had a bowl of porridge with nuts, dates, honey and double cream. I already knew I had put on 2 lbs over the previous seven days. Then the sun came out and I had a talk with myself and got out and did my 4 miles. I saw a beautiful grey heron on the canal, but it was a plastic bag flapping in a tree. I really must test my eyes soon.

True January weather is upon us, I set off to work in driving rain and gale force gusts. I can’t find anything within myself that enjoys high winds, I hate the invisible strength that as I found out can actually hit your legs so hard that your trailing foot is knocked sideways onto your ankle and only by the grace of god do you not end up face down on concrete with a bloody mouth. Nevertheless there is always the pleasure of arriving at our street and seeing the new Sikh gudwara (temple) with its golden dome sometimes resplendent in sunshine.

First proper run of 2015 with Al, starting at the Strathblane war memorial, tottering along the water road on a perfect winter’s day, smoke rises lazily upwards from chimneys and every tree is etched sharply against a hanging sun. The clarity of light is all you could wish for and the limbs soon heat up. A steep ascent up the first half of Dumgoyne;  Al and myself are grunting away like a pair of clapped out donkeys but gradually make height before skirting round to the west and a higher route to Earl’s Seat. We then cut diagonally south east across rough moorland following sheep and old quad tracks, finding ourselves deeper and deeper into ice cold peaty bogs which reduce our feet to shuffling plates of frozenness.

Every 5 minutes you get some feeling back then another plunge dips you  into the freezer. Ceaseless childish banter is a great antidote and even though my legs are unrecovered from the Lomonds circuit 4 days previously I love being out and having to battle a bit to find a way home on the near 10 mile jaunt. The views to the Western highlands and the glen below offer endless distraction and Al who is running in road shoes spends more time on his bum than his feet on the final descent, giving an added pleasure to the morning. The indulgences of Hogmanay are cast off and the run bodes well for the new peaks we hope to visit over the coming year.

Last two runs of the year, an easy jaunt along the canal in perfect winter conditions, a low mist hanging over the water, Vinni Reilly and the Durrutti Column for company. The hip is still playing up but I will keep trying to work it through. Out to Fife on the penultimate day of the year and  the chance to revisit the Lomond hills loop. Early afternoon and there is a good gale blowing directly into my face for the first hour. I’ve been puffing roll-ups throughout December ( I know, I know: I will give up in the new year) and as a result of that and general ennui, I make pretty hard going of the gradual ascent with an outbreath that sounds like a pig moaning, but this seems to be the only way I can maintain any forward momentum.

I pass one walker, who admires my tenacity as I pass and ascend into the swirling mist flowing over and around West Lomond. Very low visibility demands a quick descent and then onto the blissful path to East Lomond with a half-moon sitting high in the sky above it.  Another slothfull ascent and a welcome cheese and jam sandwich before the last haul to home. My hip is not right yet but doesn’t worsen so there is still hope for a clean start to training for the London Marathon next year.

A great night with Pyeworthy friends (a  Scottish, English and Welsh gathering) and the ‘Aunties’ lively as ever commit to a 10K in early summer. The next minute, unbelievably Ann is in and I’m betting her £1,000 to complete the challenge and she accepts. The twins meanwhile are offered £150 each to be her coaches. I don’t think she can quite believe she has committed and is photographed holding a note with 10K written on it as proof of her decision!