Book review

6 at 60: Keswick trail race

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I’ve just finished reading The Edge of the World: how the North Sea made us who we are (Michael Pye). It’s a fascinating ‘ramble’ (and I do NOT use that word pejoratively) around the countries surrounding the North Sea and through the centuries. The introduction starts in Scarborough but moves quickly and memorably to Domburg, and the various discoveries there of ancient remains including a temple to the goddess Nehalennia (who I had never heard of before). It continues by looking at the Frisians and the invention of money, and covers how money developed from paying for ‘things’ to purchasing more abstract items (insurance); it looks at the Vikings, those incredible explorers; and discusses politics, fashion, religion and travelling. It’s the sort of history book I love: a delve into social history and how the so-called dark ages evolved into modern life.

However there were certain thoughts that kept popping into my head as I read it. One was how human nature really does not change much. Another was that ‘back then’ people were always looking for signs about when the world would end. It struck me that we do that to a certain extent even now: there definitely is an ‘imminent disaster’ feeling about climate change. Whilst I do believe that climate change is real and has been exacerbated by human greed, at the same time the climate of the planet does change naturally from time to time – there were floods and famines in the past – and seeing signs that the world will end is nothing new. Don’t get me wrong – I believe fervently that we should be using fewer of this beautiful planet’s resources, and also taking more care of it; and I’m very conscious that as a ‘westerner’ I am one of the greedy guzzlers who uses so much of those resources.

The other theme that seemed topical was that of plague. The Black Death was as terrifying as Covid and as highly transmissable. The book has an entire chapter entitled ‘The Plague Laws’ and, having been published in 2014/15 states: “Like terrorism, like AIDS in our time, it settled in memory and panic and stung a sense of guilt into life”. It led to rules controlling travel and for a long time nobody knew what caused it nor how to prevent its spread. It has struck me often recently how a year and a half ago when Covid first became prevalent, there was a sense of panic but also perhaps our adrenalin was running high: certainly I was emotional when I first had to queue up at the supermarket, or had to queue outside an empty secondary school to pick up a Doctor’s prescription.

In terms of the series of trail races I’m running as one of my 6 at 60 challenges, there are still some safety precautions in place – likewise for choir. Lakeland Trails, who organise the races, ask that all entrants take a lateral flow test prior to racing; they also ask that we wear facemasks in the marquee, and provide hand sanitiser in the marquee.

Yesterday’s race took place at Keswick, in the heart of the Lake District. Having dropped the kids off at their Dad’s house, I thought I’d allowed plenty of time to park: after all the schools were back or going back on Monday, so could Keswick really be that busy? After driving around one car park twice I went to another – on the second loop I spotted someone leaving. Hooray! I paid for parking, ran through the town centre – the market was on, so it was busy – went to the toilet and registered and got to the start of the race a little flustered but with 10 minutes to go.

I’d opted for the mass start but a lot of people are still choosing to pick a time and do a wave start. Ironically, I think they’re limiting numbers to 30 for the wave starts and there were only 33 of us on the mass start… I seemed to be with a lot of young, fit, men and kept trying to make sure I didn’t start off too fast. After a short trot along the old railway line (now a multi-use track which I’ve previously cycled along – see https://runningin3time.wordpress.com/2021/03/28/return-to-the-lake-district/) we veered off to run up a gravelly track, which I think had been created to help with the tree clearing (the hillside looks denuded at present). We ran along an undulating track, but mostly uphill, around the southern side of Latrigg, and then along towards the Glenderaterra valley.

I’d run much of the course from this point several years ago: and conveniently had forgotten how it’s mostly a continuous but gradual uphill. At the northern end of the valley the route cuts up across the ‘Glenderaterra bogs’ – the long marsh grass lay underfoot like reeds, but hiding some very wet mud – and also at times stones. A young guy overtook me at one point and his left leg disappeared at the same time up to the ankle in mud. Through here even the young, fit runners were walking – and there was little room to overtake anyway.

At the top of the valley you cross a couple of streams and then after another short – but this time stony – uphill, you’re then on a gorgeous track which wends around Lonscale Fell – not much good for people with vertigo though – and then starts to go downhill. The car park on Latrigg was further away than I remembered, but at one point there was a lovely view of Derwentwater, and it’s basically downhill all the way – and the sun had come out. I’d previously run/walked up the path which goes up the northern/north western side of Latrigg, so it was great to be running down it. At one point I was overtaken by a very fast young man with rabbit ears on and an orange skirt. His t-shirt said ‘Matt’s Stag’.

By the time I got back to Fitz Park I was beginning to feel the effect of running 15km: but I knew that although plenty of young men had overtaken me (and a few older men), not many women had, and in fact I had overtaken a handful of people.

The results seem to indicate that out of the 33 people who did the mass start, I was 2nd woman, with a time of 1.42. That doesn’t really say much though – when I compare my time with the 335 people in all the wave starts it looks as if I would have come around 125th overall – and about 5th in the FV50 category.

If you’ve managed to read to the end of this with no photos, I hope you won’t mind if I now ‘advertise’ my fundraising page – https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sarah-lewis-briggs I’m using my 6 at 60 challenges to raise money for Medecins sans Frontieres (sorry – haven’t worked out how to put accents in to wordpress) and it would be great if you felt like sponsoring me.

Meanwhile here’s a photo to brighten things up.

Running, reading and riding

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The past year has meant running and cycling a lot of the same routes near home, varying them to make them longer or shorter to fit my mood: but one thing I’m grateful for living round here is that there is a wide choice. Even so, it’s still good to get a little further afield and to do routes which are new or which I’ve only done once or twice before.

This evening Anne and I had agreed to meet up at Kershope to do the route which Penny and I had first done back at the end of December when there was ice on the ground (the photo below is from December). Today, in contrast, was t-shirt weather and beautifully sunny, although the shady bits in between the trees – which had been so ice-covered in mid-winter – were still chilly. I’d also forgotten how much hill there was in the run; and then managed to go the wrong way at about the 8km mark, resulting in a lovely run along a track and then a gorgeous path between the trees, jumping over fallen trunks. Unfortunately it meant a fairly long final stretch back along the road but I was enjoying being out in the evening sun and with such glorious views.

I’d been waiting until the non-essential shops had re-opened to get new running shoes, and today was the first opportunity I had to make an appointment at Chivers, the excellent running shoe shop in Carlisle (they sell other things too but their core business seems to be running shoes, and they know what they’re talking about). My preferred brand is Saucony – I’ve had several pairs now and been very happy with them – but I was thinking of changing style, and I wanted to try them out before I bought them. I’d seen the Peregrine trail shoes online and whilst it was partly the colours that attracted me, they are also a good shoe – the guy in the shop said they’re a best seller this year. I think I’ll buy myself another Goretex pair as well though, as I’m a convert to having shoes where you don’t get your feet soaking wet unless you’re in water that’s more than ankle-deep. But I really like the cushioning and the lugs on the new shoes, as well as the colours.

Apparently the company was founded besides the Saucony creek, and it should be pronounced ‘sock – a – knee’. The company’s website also says “The word Saucony comes from the Lenni Lenape Native American word “saconk,” meaning “where two rivers run together. Inspired by the original location on the Saucony Creek, our logo represents a running river marked by three boulders.”

I had a real fascination with the Native Americans when I was a kid/teenager: I was probably more in sympathy with the Native Americans than I was with the Cowboys. I particularly felt cross about the way the buffalo had been hunted wastefully by white immigrants to America. I had a book called American Indian Myths and Legends which I absolutely loved, which contained their version of the creation story plus lovely stories about animals as well as people. Every so often I have tried to find another copy: it was unfortunately one of those ones which I sent to the charity shop or something, along with an extremely good book I had about Mathematics (all I can remember about that now was that one was almost square and had bright red boards underneath the dust jacket; but that it also explained maths in a very pictorial way, which is one of my preferred learning styles).

I copied out the Native American poem which begins something along the lines of “I do not want to die a white man’s death, sealed alone and inside a metal box” and stuck it in my scrapbook – I still have it somewhere. I probably started being more interested in the outside world at that point: not in gardening nor even in going for walks with my parents, but just in how I felt if I stood outside bare-footed in the grass at sunrise in summer; or if I stood and listened to the rushing of a brook over stones.

Reading has always been one of my loves and about a month ago I started a book group, prompted by a passing remark from a friend. Our suggested book was Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell; having read that I passed it on to someone else, who lent me three books in return. I have now read those three as well: Toby’s Room by Pat Barker, War Doctor by David Nott and another one which was so memorable I have completely forgotten what it was… I’m now on to Michelle Obama’s autobiography, Becoming. As much as anything I wanted the book group to be an opportunity to chat about books generally and to perhaps share books; I didn’t want people to feel that it was compulsory to read the suggested book. We’ve had some fantastic whatsapp chats about poetry and crime novels; meanwhile I have a big pile next to my bed as I bought quite a few when I got some ‘bonus money’ last month, ranging from a history and novels to philosophy.

I find very often nowadays that when I watch a film or documentary or read a book, I look up more details online (isn’t the internet a wonderful thing from that point of view: an enormous and easily accessible encyclopaedia). One thing leads to another and I come round full circle and am then planning bike routes or runs… one of my vague ambitions is to cycle up to Orkney; perhaps not along quite the same lines but Michelle Obama’s book and her comment to ‘tell your story’ has made me completely revise the two books I was trying (very slowly) to write… I may have 6 at 60 challenges but my bucket list of things I want to do and places I want to visit (by bike, by train or on foot) is almost endless!

Acceptance

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We’re told there are three stages to grief.  The initial devastating sorrow; anger; then acceptance.  There’s a peace in acceptance but, I have realised recently, it doesn’t necessarily mean that happiness has returned and that all pain has gone.

I had thought that acceptance was about feeling cheerful again; moving on; forgetting the loved one and the past.  It’s not.  It’s about accepting that you have a great hole in your life and that life goes on despite it.  You learn to live with it.

In the past I always ran away: a different country, a different job, a change of address. My immediate, and ongoing, reaction to the sad events of the past year or so has been that I would move away: but because of my children I can’t, and nor do I want to, leave them.  Not only do they need their father as well as their mother (however crazy and emotional/volatile she may be at times), but I need them.

What my recent trip to Italy made me realise in any case is that you can’t run away from the pain of losing someone.  That hole where that person fitted goes with you wherever you travel.  And, at the same time, I miss my children when I’m away, especially if – as occurred this time – I can’t contact them.  Coming home was painful in some ways but the cuddles of my children and their pleasure at seeing me more than made up for it.  My daughter, who doesn’t normally like kisses, has kissed me a couple of times over the past two days, and given me plenty of hugs; my eldest didn’t stop chatting in the car when I fetched him from school (he can sometimes be a silent almost-teenager); and my youngest was full of cuddles and kisses as he always is, but also didn’t object when he had to leave his Dad’s and come to my house.  Their love is priceless.  Perhaps I should add that they have just as much love for their Dad as they do for me, and if we can live separately but be amicable enough that the children don’t feel torn between us, then we will have, in some small way, succeeded.  Another form of acceptance: that we offer different parenting styles and a different emotional ‘background’ to the children, but that neither is wrong or right, and neither is better or worse than the other.

Meanwhile two authors have brought the pain of loss and how to deal with it home to me recently, both of whom found some solace in their children.  I’m grateful for their books as whilst they’re about loved ones dying, loss is loss however it occurs.  However much you try to put a brave face on it, get on with life, and be cheerful, ultimately there are times when the tears just have to be allowed to come and the hurt and pain surfaces all over again.  This beautiful passage from Cathy Rentzenbrink’s heart-rending book The Last Act of Love (pub. Picador), about coming to terms with the devasting accident to and then death of her brother, was something I wanted to keep and to share:

“I know I’m damaged.  As I’ve walked through fire, bits of me have burnt off – but I accept that.  I’ve come across a new word.  Kintsugi is a Japenese style of ceramics where broken crockery is mended in an intentionally obvious way.  Rather than try to hide the crack, it is filled in with gold and the breakage becomes a part of the object’s story.  I love this idea.

I think how I am often drawn to broken people and find them beautiful.  I have decided that I can stop yearning to be fixed or trying to hide the scars: I can decide to think of my brokenness as an integral and even beautiful part of me…

…I no longer expect that my tears will come to an end.  I am no longer surprised that my reservoir of grief is so full and refillable.  Because I am no longer surprised, I am much better able to live with it.  I weave it into my days.  I can cry and laugh at the same time.

I have worked out that the only way to be alive in the world is to carry out acts of love and hope for the best.”

kintsugi