As a child, I was brought up around farms and farmy things. My Dad worked for the Ministry of Agriculture, latterly the Health and Safety Exec, and was a Safety Inspector. Plus his side of the family all had farms, and so my collection of toys was farm focused. Tractors and an impressive array of implements. What I didn't know about PTO's and Three Point linkages, wasn't worth knowing, or so I thought. In the summer holidays we'd hear the unmistakeable sound of a set of rollers being driven through the village and we'd rush to the end of the road to watch it drive by. The same at harvest time, when we'd go down and watch the combine harvester being delivered to the fields down by the river, and later play on the hay bales. At secondary school, most of the boys in my class were farmers sons. They learned to drive and get their licence to drive tractors aged 16, a year before the rest of us in our mums cars. My bedroom wall was covered in posters of Massey Ferguson Tractors, John Deer Combines...and Jaclyn Smith! To this day, I still rubberneck at a passing tractors and privately inside give a little 'ooh, tractor - wow'.
So this mornings run went through 'The Farm'. It's located just between Styal Mill and Altrincham Road. And now for those I sometimes run with, any mention of The Farm is reference to this farm and no other. Of course, there are many farms around and about, but when I first started running many years ago, this became one of my established routes - through The Farm. The route gives many options beyond the farm, missing The Woods, perhaps going out to The Bog. It's livestock mainly, a few ropey old tractors, but a full set of geese, chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, cows and the muddiest shitiest route through you could possibly imagine. In winter, running through the farm is a curious sensation. It's not possible to get through without breaching the top of your trainers, no matter how much you mince. But it's just that the sensation for your feet is disturbingly warming. Once out of the farm, mud remains icy cold. In the farm, it steams. Not mud then, but certainly a degree of charm that only a very few of my running buddies appreciate.
A short run yesterday and the question of what do you look like from behind, when running, that is. I don't know what I look like, but I know it's actually quite easy to recognise someone from their running style. I have heard people running behind me and know who it is, seen people at night and before I see their face, you know it's him or her, by the style of running. And my view is that I think it's like a signature... or hair. Yes, you can change bits and bobs here and there, maybe to alter your biomechanics, but it's still you. The fundementals of how you run are quite unique, distinctive and are part of who you are. It's still you.
It's very humid out at the moment, and it's playing havoc with my euhydration!
