August 2011 – Page 2 – Not a Jogger

“it’s not much of a hill”, my mum said, directing us over the Swale and straight up a gully to Crackpot. To walk, maybe not. To run, it was a killer: 100 metres up in 500 metres. I walked twice, at the steepest point and again at the top. Mr N did not. The man has calves of steel.

The hill was only 10 minutes in to the run and we spent the remaining 30 recovering. In the warm glow of hindsight, I enjoyed it. At the time, not so much. Running up these hills makes me feel like a novice. My heart is pounding, the lactic acid in my muscles is writing cheques my lungs can’t cash. If I don’t stop, I am sure I’ll be sick. Mr N feels none of these things. For him it’s purely a mental struggle.

Last run tomorrow and we might brave the Vale of Dead Rabbits again. I’m not crackers enough for another shot at the Crackpot.

I’m in the Yorkshire Dales, Swaledale to be precise, and the running is not easy. We’ve been out twice and the main points to note are: 1) it’s hilly, and 2) those hills are covered in dead rabbits.

On Tuesday morning we ran from Low Row to Reeth, about 7 miles up and down the valley side, and I counted 31 dead bunnies. Even the live ones (of which there are many) look unhappy, their faces rotting away in a terrifying Watership Down fashion.

Sorry if this is making you feel queasy. You can imagine how I felt after 30 minutes running along a narrow track, batting away flies, trying to avoid the next rotting corpse. Every minute there was a fresh wave of the smell of death. You don’t get that in North London.

As predicted, I was soon pining for the ‘hills’ of Crouch End for other reasons – the run we had planned was probably a fell runner’s walk in the park but it nearly killed me. I haven’t been this tired after a run in months. My face was still red an hour later. I had to walk up the last bit of the main hill, but Mr N made it without stopping. Here he is in the distance and this is me at the end in Reeth.

Month: August 2011

Crackpots

The Smell of Death