Clarity

 I've been for a long walk and a swim today.  In the river in our valley.

Decisions have been made and now I feel great.

This is less of a blog and more of a tweet length.

Potentially the decisions will change but for now they feel right.

The Highland Trail 550, not 2023

It's been a long time coming, a post about not doing the HT this year. Earlier versions could have held a lot of complaining but now, I'm so overwhelmingly OK with my decision, this post is only to serve as a sort of wrap-up piece. 

My love for cycling is temporarily on hold. I can still enjoy a bike ride but it's been for the occasional whimsical jollies, running errands and not using a car on my holidays. I no longer feel inclined to train but have instead slipped into the simple habit of purely enjoying my daily life. 

Where 5 years ago I enjoyed my long bike rides and 10 years ago I enjoyed packing swimming, cycling and running into daily life to spit triathlons out at the end, I'm now celebrating the pure joy of movement through a landscape with my dog by my side. 

Last weekend we walked and sniffed for 15 hours across two days. We ate 2 lunches, breakfast and dinner OUT. We cooked dinner watching the sunset from a peak bog, pee'd in the bracken and were lulled to sleep by the haunting cries of Curlew, Jack Snipe and owls. We walked our legs off on Sunday and I was suddenly struck by the same peaceful monotony bike packing has brought me these last few years: being at the exhausted edge of consciousness doing nothing but moving forward because there's nothing else to do and no other way to get home (although the dog did want to get on the bus as it passed). 

It's no longer about how quickly I can move through a landscape or how much I can see. This weekend we went to Bamford and Hathersage on a day walk., using footpaths I've never been on before (or for so long ago I don't remember). 

We have found valleys and views I never knew existed then inevitably been spat out somewhere I know perfectly well - a stile that I have cycled past hundreds of times. I've stumbled across many wonderful bivi spots. All out of reach to any (but the most audacious, cheeky) bikers and set away behind squirreled little gates, stiles and dry-stone-wall gaps that are hardly wide enough for my hips, never mind my handlebars. I'm confident I could do 15 hours travel a day for 5-8 days but my backside is not accustomed to bike travel anymore. 

The knee-pain I "wear-in" every year is fresh as January snow and my shoulders start to click when I ride to work for the day.  So I will be happy to sit it out of the Highland Trail this year - maybe from afar or maybe from close up. Who knows? 

I'll not regret missing this years group start. What I learned last year is that the hard parts are not the hard parts. The hard parts are the monotonous boring parts - the transition pieces that are just about turning the pedals and not falling asleep and nowadays I'm so very tired.

I'm not sure if knowing what's ahead makes it any worse or better. 

When you know how long it goes on for, everything gets nearer. Until you forget how far away that next bit is and you're not moving as fast as you used to and then it takes, oh such a long time. 

And I'll not miss those race-time missing out moments - the feeling that it would be nice just to stop "here" another hour / a little longer / for the night / climb" that" peak / watch the sunset.

Instead for the first time in years, I'm looking forwards to the future... the future me.

A running streak

A running streak.Not streaking. No nudity is involved It must be the warm, sunny mornings. Finally I'm motivated to do a little more than just walk.

It's not just the warm dry mornings though. Once I am out there, the movement flows so easily Almost 4 months of daily dog walks and my legs have once more found the strength to run. I bumped into Anne W and when she told me that she is still running I was so impressed I confided that I can no longer run far, or fast, or with any consistency. Her response:

"Neither can I but I don't think that matters at my age". She set me thinking and I've come back to running (again) as soon as I felt able. Maybe my backpacking weekend kicks started muscles. 

Despite Anne's commentary on consistency I thought I'd progress my walking streak and make it a running streak. There's no end date on it. Just run. At least I km per day. Mornings have worked well. If I know I have to do it tomorrow I am more careful not to overdo it today. 

On day 1 I got frustrated because the dog wanted to sniff so much and then I remembered: I'm not out there to be fast or train for anything. I'm just there to enjoy myself and if that means standing, watching the birds, so be it. After 1. 5km my legs were tired and I wished I had spent a little more time watching the dog lick someone else's piss off a blade of grass. 

Today was different. Today the world flowed and I floated. Woman and dog moved in (some sort of bungee) harmony. I stopped for all of the sniffs except the really long ones or the ones that seemed to require us to backtrack - a lot. 

I still walked the last little hill but I wasn't nearly as shot-at and we managed almost 5km.Let's see how tomorrow goes.

Pupdate

We paused the rules on the streak at the weekend which followed this post. With an 18km hike in, a campout and 27km hike home at the weekend, I think we will allow ourselves a running break.

On Monday I didn't label it a run but I shocked myself by managing enough of a jog on our dog walk to meet the cut and continue where we left off. 

Easter 2023

For this Easter weekend, I got pretty enthused about the concept of stage-walking the coast of the uk with the dog. I made vague plans to start locally with the ugly stuff then progress from there. I studied trains & almost booked hotels or an air BnB. I even fully packed for 4 days then chickened out (completely/de-rated it to a Peak bivi). There were too many unknowns: bank holiday trains, how the dog word do, how I would do, whether the dog will camp.

We ate at the Sportsman with TSK then walked into the night. My wisdom to wear lightweight shoes was tested when I got adventurous, crossing White Stones edge and bog hopping with Lena but at least the grass was dry. The dog scanned back and forth across the hillside chasing rabbits in the darkness and I got a little grumpy as she pulled me off balance while I tried to balance on stones and tussocks.  Still, I reminded us both, out loud, that at least we weren't at Immingham Docks.

We ran out of energy in an unfamiliar place as the breeze picked up so l emergency pitched a shelter. I was panicking so much it was a case of third time lucky.

First we found a spot that was completely out of the wind behind a big boulder but very lumpy. I realised how tired I was that, having sat down to assess the situation. I immediately started to think that I could (or would) just sleep sitting up for a few hours. As soon as I started to unpack a few things I realised that was a fucking ridiculous idea. Surely there was a better spot? 

The problem was, every time we moved I risked one of us breaking a leg as the moss between boulders would suddenly slip or give way exposing the chasm beneath. More than once I got a shoe temporarily stuck between 2 rocks. 

My second attempt had a slightly flatter area and my main challenge now was trying to persuade the dog to move from the bed she had very effectively hewn from the bracken and peat. Again, I got out my human bed and very quickly concluded that although the space was possible the really sensible thing was to head to the bottom of the edge where sheep trots created plenty of flat places to sleep. The only challenge then was finding a suitable wind block. Really, I failed in this respect and the dog knew I had failed her and wanted to go back to her first spot. That was a major challenge as my kit was still spread all over the hillside since scrambling over the boulder field with a 14kg rucsac on my back was too dangerous. Thanks to her desire to get back to her own bed, I was able to find all my kit (I hope) and relocate it to our new spot while the dog sulked that I had moved her to a less-convenient location. With the bivi fixed I braved a breezy tarp pitch to keep off the residual wind that was shedding off the tiny rock I was claiming for my home.

The tarp pitch was sound, but unfortunately my bivi bag kept sliding out from underneath it! Eventually we had a home. Thank god it wasn't raining. Once pitched the dog settled down to sleep in the hood of the bivi with her head on my mattress. She shunned her mat and blanket all night + slept soundly. It was me who had issues - with my bladder, the bright moon, the flapping tarp noises, cold legs. At one point I heard a noise which sounded like one of my bags blowing away. There was the scratching of bracken and doggy snoring. 

I'd closed the mesh so Lena couldn't escape in the night but it wasn't enough to keep out the full moonlight and I couldn't close the solid door or we'd both suffocate. Eventually, after my second pee, hitching up the biv bag so it couldn't slip, adding goretex trousers, finding my earplugs, I got comfortable and cosy around 2:30am. The dog mostly stayed where she was put and rolled her eyes at me faffing. I think she got up and shuffled her position once in the night. 

After getting to sleep at 2:30am we had a lie in the morning. Whether anyone saw us (dark green amongst the bracken) I do not know because I was unconscious till 8:30am.  

I packed everything away rather than brew up. I lost the inflation bag for my mattress, assuming that was what I heard blowing away in the middle of the night, so the first thing we did was wander up or down looking for it, to no avail. 

I stopped to brew up some food at 9am before we joined the hoardes of people walking over Stanage Causeway. There was a nice big flat slab of warm rock so it would have been rude not to.  Lena was good apart from attempting to drink my Coffee water - merely reflecting my incompetence as a dog-mum. Fortunately I still had enough water for me to donate my mug of water to her and pour myself a fresh one without dog slobber in it.  

We looped over to Stanage, had a pee at the toilets then walked down past North Lees to Hathersage for lunch and to see if anyone sold exped inflators.  Outside did not so instead I settled for new insoles to stop my feet hurting so much and a peaked cap to keep the pesky sun out of my eyes. I couldn't decide what to do next as this plan was a bit last-minute.  We started heading for Grindleford then changed my mind to go back home over Bamford Edge with the option of getting the train home from there. My mattress was still playing on my mind and the thought of another chilly, even-less-comfortable night filled me with dread. We found somewhere to sit down for a paddle by the river and Lena slept next to my rucsac while I soaked in the atmosphere. I was almost sleeping & the dog was tired so getting the train home looked like a tasty prospect. I could have emptied out all my bags on the beach to look for my rucsac inflator again, but I didn't.

It had been drifting in and out of my conscious for the last few hours that the only remaining place I'd not really looked for my mat inflator - I mean *really* looked - was inside my bivi bag. While I had shaken it out, I'd not looked for a floaty lightweight polyester bag of air.

I got to the end of the path before sitting on the rucsac to get my phone out and see if there were trains - of course it was just about to arrive. As we walked under the railway line, it reassuringly rumbled past overhead. I almost hoped it was the last train so we had an excuse to head out for one last bivi. The evening was just getting more and more pleasant as the bright sun started to show signs of setting. 

The cricket club in Bamford was hosting a motorbike a sidecar rally and we almost begged to camp on the fringes but if we were going to get another bad nights sleep we were going to do it somewhere lovely, not Sandwiched between a railway, an A-road and a children's playground. At the end of the lane my brain just crashed, caught between the route to the station or backtracking to the path to Bamford to head back up to the edges & sleep amongst the bracken.

My responsibilities as a dog owner kicked in though and by the time we got to the station and bought a ticket, 35 minutes had passed and there were only 25 minutes to wait. When the dog duly celebrated me taking off my pack by curling up right next to it to sleep, I took it as a sign I'd done the right thing and duly joined her on the floor.

I've learned that getting her up and mobile can take a couple of minutes so at 1840 I got her up on her feet and she happily watched the train roll in. She usually loves an automated door. We have trouble keeping her out of shops and banks. I got on the train with my rucsac carefully balanced on one arm and dumped it next to the nearest folding seat only to find resistance on the lead and the dog wide-eyed in full-on STOP! mode with the door beepers on the train sounding.There was no patient waiting for the obedience training to work.  I yanked just hard enough that it didn't pull her harness off right over her head. Thankfully she made it into the same space as me and my kit before the train doors closed. She spent the rest of the journey calmly sat between my legs watch­ing the countryside, then city, roll past the window.

We got TSK to drive us home because when you can't walk another step, you can't walk another step and we were starving hungry by 1906 when the train got into Sheffield.  The homeless guy in the station got short shrift for not getting his words out fast enough as we strode past in search of TSK and the van.

Back at home we all ate Chinese food (just scraps for the dog) and fell into bed to sleep away the miles and catch up from getting to sleep at 2:30am on Friday morning. We'd packed in 24 heavily weighted Kms and 4 hours sleep into 26 hours.

Saturday was for sorting out the kit. Getting to the bottom of that nagging feeling that if I just looked hard enough I'd find my mattress inflator and if that failed, I'd go back in daylight, un-laden and hunt amongst the rocks and if *that* failed, I'd buy a new one. I carefully unpacked every dry bag but then yes, there it was, at the very bottom of my bivi bag - squished but perfectly accessible as it had been swinging on the outside of my pack all day. A tiny bit of me kicked myself for not finding it yesterday and spending another wonderful night under stars. My back and ankles were perfectly happy to be back home, sat on the sofa, drinking in the cafe and pottering around the house ticking off improvements for the next trip. I went pet food shopping then took Lena for a spin in Greno woods in the sun and we couldn't have been happier, unloaded and free and able to go back to bed when we needed to.

We have an order in for doggy saddle bags for her to take a little of the load and I've started paring down the size of her kit after I discovered her sleeping bag (home made from off-cuts) is 750g and she didn't use her sleeping pad at all, or need any food supplemental "special sprinkles" because she just wolfed down the dry food I gave her without question. 

There's a way to go.  When I add back in my stove, fuel, mug, my emergency food, we still come in at more than I'd like to carry long distances so I have to rethink my priorities and either get fitter or downscale my ambitions to walk 20km every day - though as with all these things, you might as well start and train into it. 

 Maybe we'll not start off at Immingham docks though.

In Appreciation of Fire

We're staying in a holiday cottage. I know, get us!

Collectively, we're over 100: me Tsk and the dog. Before we see if the dog enjoys camping we needed a holiday and we need to make sure we can take her away without crying the house down at night.

The holiday cottage has a log burner which ties into the hot water tank and central heating. This is no run-down shack kind of holiday cottage but a well appointed one with double glazing, a dining room, wifi and impecable soft-furnishings So we expected the heating system to work.

The stove itself is tricky to keep lit. As I struggled one evening to keep the flames going, I used our frivolous wifi spend to google the stove manufacturers website to see what the toggle marked + / - on the right hand side does. The manufacturer doesn't appear to have a website. The only images I could find were for similar-but-different models with much more ventilation to aid airflow. I found one image of "our" stove - for sale on Facebook marketplace. I pity the unlucky new owner.

Every evening I have taken ownership of the fire. Apart from my obvious childhood experience of growing up in a household with a coal fire, I, as the qualified engineer in the house, am the one deemed competent to understand the myriad instructions from the owner as to what switches and devices to turn on/off to magically heat our home. This important work - in the eyes of both husband and dog - involves sitting on a footstool (shaped like a highland cow) feeding paper, kindling and logs into the hungry burner and staring as the orange licks of flame spread-momentarily roaring (paper/ kindling) then flickering, glowing, pulsing (logs) and occasionally popping, sizzling and collapsing. The fuel air mix is key. With this stove that means figuring out the airflow defaults to the left and putting the fire there. It means stacking the logs carefully like jenga, the aim being not to let the flames go out-even if the tower topples over. Getting the air means cleaning the grate. Without a grate brush we repurposed the plastic dustpan brush - so best do that when the fire is cold. I sit and I watch - moving the unburned fuel in the log to sit in the fire + knocking the burned ash off to expose new fuel beneath.

I rotate out the hissing soggy logs and pull in new ones to pre­heat. I stack and I turn, judge, discard, poke. Occasionally I use the hair drier in place of the roaring gales which got us through Sunday and Monday. I write a few words at a time or knit a few stitches until I know there is enough thermal mass in there to sustain a fire. Only then can I relax. 

We've already had to shop for one new bag of kindling All of this keeps my attention. It's mindfulness on an epic scale. People would pay double what we paid for this cottage, just to have this much focus. It brings a new importance and relevance to life. If it were the only source of heat we had available it would be frightening but as it is (we have electric radiators and an immersion heater) it's satisfying to know that in an indirect way, I've made my hot bath myself. It's so much harder to add cold to the mix when you've gone to all that effort to heat the hot water, and you can forget the electric shower - like a steel bike you built yourself compared to a Carbon fibre shop built thing off the peg - I'd happily go 3 days without using the elec­tric shower in favour of a part-full warm (not hot) bath I've made myself.  The unpredictability of fire is a sound life metaphor Sometimes the more you prod and mess with it, the worse it gets. You're better off keeping the handle closed, shutting the heat in and letting energy plot its course.

The fire introduces a leak path through the fabric of the house. The Chimney allows sound to penetrate where otherwise none would.The first morning that I sat staring at the fire I was convinced I was about to set light to a blackbird, so loud was the birdsong penetrating from the hedge outside the chimney wall. 

Staring at the fire has given me thinking and processing time to work through what is important to me. For instance, processing the medium of long distance racing. I am questioning my reasons for chasing it - specifically this year's HT. 

While 12 months ago I could have seen myself progressing to something new after the HT, this year I don't know if I'll ever do an ultra again. It's not about the finishing time I get, it's become about chasing an obscure most-female-completions record with my quirky long times. I know there will be moments when it won't be about the ride or the Scotland it will be about putting up with pain or suffering...or just plain boredom. In a new menopausal middle age where life is all about a painful body, social and career indifference and outright boredom, I need my holidays to be about escapism and peace with some challenges and a moderate level of comfort thrown in.

I still follow Ultra racers as they take on their various global challenges. I absolutely know why they do it. I love seeing their smiling faces beaming from Morocco to Mumbai, Armenia to Atlanta. I also tire of seeing their bleary eyed tearful updates from in-race reels, crying about how tired they are of fighting with the punc­ture fairy or empty stomachs. The pride in their placed finish is palpable. The knowledge I won't ever be placed is real. I mean last or second-to-last is a place but why bother?

Well, the bothering is not the problem. I have the bother. I have the bother to go back to my bike. I have the bother to dig out my camping gear. Now I know I can relocate the dog's home to be "any place Trep/Tsk/food/bed/water" is then my world has just opened up. 

For years I've dreamed of long trips with a canine companion in tow. 

The day to day strife of long trips is reflected in the fire at the cottage. That I can't do more than that one thing. How do you keep a fire running, play with the dog? the kids? have a career? watch TV? The day in / out task of surviving comfortably through simple heat - it's all consuming. 

I remember the constant battle throughout childhood to keep the fire lit. Accepting that sometimes, if you want to treat yourself to a lie in or all-day-out, you'd need to go through the whole rigmarole of lighting the fire again - from cold, wet coal. This morning we didn't start the fire which is fine, it was a beautiful day.

 Instead we loaded the new dog trailer onto the bike and set off in search of the local railway trail to cycle all of 15km to Robin Hoods Bay.  Our first-and only major-hurdle was a flat rear tyre on my bike, no spanner to remove the trailer hitch thru axle and no sealant left in the tyre. A loan from the local "garage" (bloke operating off the street out of his shed) had us fixed up for the day and back on the road. The dog was happy as Larry in her new trailer then once we finally reached the Cinder Trail, she was perfectly happy to trot alongside as we rode. Initially there were a few emergency stops when she stopped for sniffs but eventually she settled into a steady trot or run and we made good progress over 5km. When we reached a road section for us to go and find a pub she got a ride in the trailer again. We all held out for snacks till the next bench then saddled up / put the dog on board for the descent into Robin Hood's Bay where our only near- miss occurred. TSK had failed to close off the dog's viewfinder window and she wriggled her over-inquisitive nose out, closely followed by head and legs. Thankfully I heard the velcro opening and realised what was happening in time to ground to a halt before she disappeared under the trailer wheels.  To allow all of us the space to calm down, we walked her to the end of the trail and only asked her to hop back in when we were on nice smooth tarmac. She did so without hesitation. If the Emergency stop or slow descent weren't hard on the brakes then the 30% road descent to Robin Hoods Bay harbour with 32kg of dog and trailer attached was the true test. Thankfully we (and everyone else) survived the steep descent and we parked the trailer with the boat trailers and the bikes in the beer "garden" where we could sit and watch the sea and enjoy a late lunch.

After a half pint we successfully pushed the bike/trailer combo up the hill and managed to keep control of the dog who was on her lead - there are no free rides up 30% hills.

Once back in traffic (the car park queue) we tucked the dog away and rode as swiftly as possible to the place where we could let her out for a run again. It was suddenly clear to me how much this was like old times. We never carried a trailer on our Canada tour but my pannier on the rack reminded me that this is an eminently doable form of transport. I was so glad I've had a weighty loadable gravel bike all these years just waiting for the opportunity to get out there & explore with my loopy snoot at my side.

After awhile it was clear she wasn't interested in more running as she just trotted along - rarely asking for me to quicken the pace to a run. So, we opened the trailer, she got straight in and lay down. TSK, my rear view mirror reported that, had she been any more chill, she'd have closed her eyes and gone to sleep. In fact, as soon as the tarmac got smoother she set her nose down on her mat. At the supermarket she did a lap of the carpark on foot before settling back in for a snooze. We had one comfy pup on our hands.

The trailer is muti-functional. Her future is in there for when she just wants to lie down and look out the windows. Her adventures are in there. I'm looking forward to plotting future routes in quiet places. It might be a means to an end for me. She might be my greatest HT 550 training tool or it might be that she can accompany me on a more leisurely ride through Scotland to watch the race unfold in all its glory in some of the best wild spaces in the world.

Until then, I'll stare into the flames to see what other dreams are contained within.

Broken runner

Broken Runner.

I've been itching to get out for a bivi run since Crete, wishing I'd taken a tarp with me or taken the massive fleece blanket from our accommodation out for a walk in the local hills.

Instead I packed a sleeping bag AND a quilt into my rucsac and headed into the Dreitch November Peak Moorlands.

I started by the cafe & Childrens play park in the valley. We had lunch 'inside the caf as I had ambitiously exposed my legs for the running so to sit around eating food, we sat in a room with warm fire.

I was Ok running through the park so I bravely got my feet wet at the stepping stones, knowing they would get dry again eventually - or if I got miserable enough I'd put on my waterproof Socks.

Even the heron looked soggy when I passed it. I taunted myself with a run past the nice warm pub then fields to the Stannington Road where it's pounding tarmac for a few hundred metres before branching off again onto a track then into farmers fields. Just as I was getting a bit too cool - on top of the moors running into the breeze - I bumped into a work colleague walking with her son. I slowed to a walk to talk to them until they turned off for home. I braved one more field before stopping to put my gloves and windproof on.

Half a mile later I concluded my legs were too cold and my hands needed something and sat on the pea-gravel driveway of the house at the end of the track to put on my knee warmers. I reached in my pocket and pulled out one lonely glove. Shit. At least I had my trusty marigolds so I put those on for a while.

The track continues to climb to a bench. By then I'd concluded the knee warmers were not going to stay up so I took a proper sit to add tights instead. They are the tights I normally sleep in so had to dig them out from the depths of my rucsac and in doing so found the other pair of thin gloves that I had packed to go underneath the marigolds. We were cooking! Along the farm track, up the hill to Ronkersley and down towards Bradfield but I turned off to head up towards open country as a black lab in the farm below had a woof at me.

Out of sight of the farm I took a bee-line along a fence and through a stalker's gate to follow the grousing line along a wall. My inner Canadian was relieved to be wearing hiker's orange whilst my inner Brit felt a tad too visible to the next farm up the valley so I hid behind the wall to make my way up. I turned my spot on in case I got shot.

The going was tussocky but relatively dry so I stopped for a while, out of the breeze in a grouse butt to get some rest and snack. It was squelchy in there so not at all tempting to pitch up early.

It wasn't a long rest. I had designs on making it to Fairholmes for early dinner before starting my run home, leaving myself as little as possible to do on Monday morning.

Braver out of sight of the farms again I stayed to the right of the wall but it was consistently soggy & difficult-going so I moved left, then back when I ran out of wall and was faced with a fence. I hadn't planned this part and had to dig the Garmin out to make sense of it. I've recently lost/expired my 0S Maps license so the boundary of open country wasn't easy to spot. I guessed and took a visual bearing to intersect with the corner of another path, the one I'd be slogging back up had I continued on my route instead of taking the stalker's gate. As soon as I set off it started to rain. For a moment I dreaded I'd lose my spot bearing in the mist but the cloud was high enough and I didn't need to get a compass out - just my coat. I was overjoyed to find I could pull my waterproof trousers on over my skort without feeling ruffled up & uncomfortable. Aside from the feeling of remoteness, it was a bit of a relief to get back on the path, though it was then a choice between going out of my way, or more tussock-hopping to continue in the planned direction. I was getting tired. I was happy to give up on the plan.

I carried on downhill to where the Peacocks live, crossed 2 roads and fields and was back into my faithful valley, womb-like, warm. I took a video at the bridge to record my joy. At this point I was still intending a bivi but not here, not right by the road.

Part way up the slope I realised I'd need the water to make my own dinner so I filtered some into one bottle then filled the filter bottle and set off again.

My next destination was headstone and I wanted to get there before dark. I had vague desires of setting up my bivi nearby but on the exposed moorland it wasn't going to be tonight. The weather was just getting wetter and wetter. My headstone photo was the last I took before my camera was packed into my waterproofs pocket. It was both too wet and too dark for this camera. Besides, it's not like there was going to be any sunset through the flat, grey cloud.

I retraced to the main path and soon my inquisitiveness to find out where that track went and my desire to traverse to Stanage via High Neb all crumpled into a desire to go home and behave like a normal person as I realised I needed to get out and put on my head torch before it was too dark to see.

• • •

I could have taken a much shorter route home. A distinct path led back down to the valley and would have cut off a massive corner for me. I n retrospect, this might have been a good idea as it led to golden leaved trees where there might have been some decent shelter at a good time of day to stop.

However, it felt too early to stop and there were some prospective spots on my planned route back which were speaking to me.

• • •

With the light dangling around my neck for now, I ran on up to the path that skirts the reservoir dyke and turned left towards home instead of right towards more adventure. It felt like a good decision, I mean I still had to work tomorrow. I'd not totally given up on the bivi idea and still kept an eye out for spots but everywhere was sodden and every step took me closer to civilisation

In a last flash of wildness, somewhere, the sun started to sink low enough that colour started to spread through the sky - somewhere far away. My cloud-free view was way, way to the South of West. If there hadn't been a hill in the way it would have been over Buxton, down to Shropshire. The gap in the clouds turned momentarily silver then fawny brown and mauve. I photographed it because it was the only sunset I had and my camera responded that it was definitely too dark to focus on anything. It made one attempt and then refused to take any further pictures, the sun had gone too far.

Not much later I turned my head torch on. The benches were all sodden and as I got closer and closer to the city, civilisation began to creep in.

• • •

The bridges over the dyke were concrete and closed off with fencing. Attractive-looking bomb holes had puddles in the bottom. Soon car lights were visible on the road at the end and the shelter with no roof was far from attractive.

I joined the road, now intent on heading home to the Waitrose pizza I put in the fridge last night. A happy cyclist called out a greeting as he whizzed past on the downhill but at least I was warm and wet, even if he would be home well before me.

When I reached the path home I decided not to run down the bridleway but take the top path for a change and because it's more remote. It all seemed too early for stopping but, you never know. When I heard the sound of the river next to me I was confused. I'd not been this way in ages and had forgotten how to get onto the top path. A dog barked at the head torch stumbling around by the river, talking to itself and backtracking until it found the path that routed up the side of the gritstone crag. The rock was dyed to the white of limestone - so drenched in dripping, silver lichen and sparkling in the LED torch light. I was soon back amongst the twigs and brown leaves.

There are a few bivi spots up here I've contemplated in the past but again I made excuses - too wet, too early, too overgrown, too close to the path. I investigated new spots which seemed buried deep in the trees but they were just on other paths - side-routes, dog-runs through the bracken. The seeds of the waitrose pizza were well and truly sewn.

In one last-ditch attempt I followed the dog tracks to caves that I had stumbled across in the summer. The one I found was no more than a wide crack in the ground and it was dripping wet. Nervous of falling into any more holes in the dark, I made my way back to the main path where my brain started to play tricks on me,foreshortening the route to believe I was nearly back until I remembered the next hurdles and how much further it was to go.

Sooner or later, "too soon to stop" turned into "dinnertime" and my body began to complain but the rain was persistent and even when it wasn't raining, I didn't want to stop to eat in case the rain started up again. Bivying wasn't an option as long as I was running along a 6 inch ledge 2/3 of the way up a precipitous slope.

Eventually my body protested at the big drop into the stream bed by the golf course. My stomach rumbled down the down hill, my brain crashed and took us on a scramble through the undergrowth before realising we'd missed the river crossing and had to backtrack then my legs all-but-refused to carry me back up the hill on the other side. I knew I'd need to stop soon.

• • •

I'd mostly dried off and it hadn't rained for a while but when a flat ledge appeared amongst some blackthorn bushes, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to test my tarp-pitching in trees without any stakes.

I snaked under the thorns, attached one third of the tarp to three tree points then crawled into the far corner to tension the whole thing out. One side flopped down and wafted in the breeze but there wasn't much breeze so it just made the whole thing much cosier. I'd never have slept with the fine, ultra-light tarp stretched out across black thorn but while I was awake I could keep an eye on it and I was really pleased I'd pitched it in no time. I dug out a knife and the lump of Saucisson I'd carried and as I sliced off a chunk of meat the heavens opened and I was dry and cosy in my little Den, texting TSK that I was heading home in a bit.

The rain didn't fall for long so I soon stuffed the tarp back in its bag, loaded up my sit mat and got moving as quickly as possible to pump blood back around my body - mostly to my hands - my fingers numb from handling a cold knife and fiddling with knots. After enough of a jogette to get the feeling back I gave up and walked the rest of the way home and at 8.30pm sat down to my pizza. At least I got the most out of the day - around 25 kms worth, despite having spent the best part of the daylight packing.

Lesson learned : thought I'd pack an extra quilt for sleep warmth but I think a coat would've been more useful for rest stops.

Back in the puddle.

 Last weekend, racing triggered something in my brain.  Connections were re-made.  Having scoured every excuse not to go, I foundo utht e race was in my home town so I had to go.  Local club mates rode out to watch.  Fellow racrs and their dogs chatted and I bantered with strangers in the pits.  

It didn't stop there though.  I washed the bikes and the kit then we headed out for a walk to hunt for dinner.

 

On Monday, sure, I had a rest day but I used the drive to work to divert via the sports centre to tick off something that's been on my To Do list for a while - sort out my car park permit so I no longer have any excuses and have a swim to tell myself that I'll actually be OK to return to open water swimming.  Unfortunately, by the time my work-addled brain made it out of the office, the pool was actually closed but the parking permit got sorted anyway.  

On Tuesday I packed my bike bags with swimming kit and booked my swim - and this time made it to the changing rooms.  There was a lot to remember - not going in the water wearing my glasses was a start.  The ride to work was almost as wet and in the evening I left the office in similar conditions and dragged both my bike lock and laptop home so I could work on the train on the way to London on Wednesday where I walked between stations and accommodation as "recovery".  The recovery was sadly slowed down by an expectation to go drinking till the small hours.  My concession was to stay up, drink tea and not beer and make sure my female colleague actually went to bed instead of sitting on the stairs all night.

On Friday I recovered from the hikes between stations and worked from home.  I nearly lost the flow of my mental recovery but a walk into town to get my hair cut had me back on cloud 9 as I made my way through the autumn leaves in the park below our house.  Walking home in the dark I took the same route through the park, dipping across the grass in the shadows, remembering when some police told me not to walk alone there a night in case I got mugged.  Beats walking with the traffic, I'll take the incredibly low risk.  After lockdown and the struggle since last January, I feel a little more human and it's so nice to feel that way in November.  Usually this is my "down" time of year - less daylight, poor office conditions.  Maybe it's the racing, maybe it's the hormones (I upped my dose recently). It's scary to realise there are so many things that can sway mood and ability so hard and if you don't recognise them or try them you miss out on so much.

This morning it was time for my swim.  After re-discovering my love for wild swimming on holiday, I resolved to head back to swim your swim.  I booked.  I even made it almost on time (after a few minor navigational errors we won't speak of).  I thought I'd remember the way there - turns out not - but unlike many things in my life, it doesn't really matter if you're late.  

Friendly faces welcomed me.  Familiar faces had a chat.  I changed into my old wetsuit, regretting throwing my racing one in at the last minute - probably the smallest one I ever bought.  It was very snug on my post-lockdown, non racing body.  I thought, I have finally grown into it.  I used to struggle with them leaking.  They just weren't snug enough on my bony frame and allowed a constant flow of dilluting water to flow through them, no matter how small bought (I own three various sizes), stripping the heat away from me instead of excluding the water or at least trapping some warmed water against my skin.  

Just in case, I added a rash vest under the suit and neoprene gloves and boots, acknowledging that it wasn't going to be "like Crete".  

As I stood on the sipway, a skins (swimsuit only, no wetsuit) swimmer exited the water, pleased with herself for doing two loops and full of smiles.  It was just the push I needed.  We watched as the raindrops on the safety boat engine turned to steam then condensed into clouds in the cold air.

I guess the temperature differential affects how you feel about getting into the water.  There was no sharp sucking in of breath like in Crete.  I was getting into 10.5 degrees water from 11 degrees air, not 15degrees water from 23 degrees air.  As it soaked into my gloves and boots it was cold but not breathtaking.  I gradual seep went into places in my wetsuit but generally it seemed to stay away from my core.  I soon swam - might as well embrace it.  

As I pootled along in breast stroke, I found my neck was getting tired from pressing into my wetsuit closure.  I was a little concerned I couldn't keep that up for long and should probably accept that I needed to do crawl a bit.  I found my cold shock. The rest of my body was covered in some protective neoprene cover.  My face was not and I soon had an icecream headache, brain freeze.

Swimming crawl was OK but each of my gloves was now filled with a slosh of a few hundred grams of water.  I didn't get that in the pool and they were much more difficult to move above my head.  I reverted to breast stoke again for a while - more to calm the brain freeze than anything.  I was a bit panicky at the cold and had to just remind myself to be calm.  The old days of crawling out of the water a chattering mess came back to me but I was also enjoying myself immensely.  

Breast stroke was still uncomfortable so after a bit of faffing with my goggles to get them to seal properly, I buried my face again.  I could only manage 10 strokes at a time before the brain freeze set in again and reverting to breast stroke but things were passing at a good pace.  One lap wasn't enough so I carried on around.  

On the shoreline leg I noticed my breath forming clouds in the air just like on the boat, further out in the water.  A couple of coots were swimming in the shallows amongst the branches.  I wasn't just bird watching, I was with the beasts.

By the time I reached the penultimate buoy I was ready to get out.  Although I still wasn't cold, I soon would be, given the rate at which I was tiring and a little wave of nausea flooded over me to let me know it was time to stop.  I didn't even feel too cold, which really surprised me but I knew I would be if I carried onto another loop.  I buried my face in the water one last time and paddled towards the shore, trying not to look too urgent.  There really was no need to panic.  A few strokes of breast stroke then my face went back in to look out for the arrival of smooth sand and terra firma where I could eventually put my feet down, stand up and slowly sway back to the concrete slipway (no point in saying, "dry land" it was raining).

I grinned at Leon and muttered something about quitting while I was ahead.  That was silly.  I instantly started to shiver.  My Ursula Andres quickly became quivering wreck, though I've been in a worse state existing the water.  For the next 5 minutes I fooked about.  I tried to remove my wetsuit before my boots so, legs now tied together with neoprene, I sat down on the floor and used the ineffective hooks that formed my clawed, weak hands to remove the boots.  It took a while.  Finally I was sufficiently liberated to stand on the sit mat, get socks and trousers on (followed by my shoes - GET ME!) and then stare with dismay at the vest that I couldn't possibly get into without some breach of dignity.  Thankfully, no one was really watching.

The fastest way to warm up after a swim (so long as you're not too cold) is to walk, run or dance and get the body naturally warm.  The nicest (yet less effective) way is to drink a hot coffee - which I did, sitting on my mat on a bench and watching the coloured hats still bobbing about in the water.

Along with some chores on my way home it was a day-long round trip for a 15 minute swim but damn I was happy.  It left me the rest of the day to rinse and hang out my stuff and get ready for more adventures and I can't wait to go back next week.