It's raining outside and running around doesn't seem very appealing at all. Yet as I sit/lie here looking at the rain, I recognise that I've run in worse, much worse and in fact, this mornings rain is quite fine, falling straight down, no wind. So really it's my state of mind that's rejecting the concept of getting up and pulling on my shoes. Yesterday however, I set off for a run with clouds so grey the threat of very serious rain was almost 100% certain, and I couldn't care less.
It didn't, in the end, but was drizzly and in fact was such a refreshing run, I'd say the conditions were almost perfect. It had been raining and the air was clear, fresh and crisp, inviting you to take great big deep lung fulls, a change from the muggy August fug that usually makes breathing a chore. I ran up to the Edge at a fair pace, pleased to be outside after what seemed like being a whole day in the car battling with bank holiday weekend traffic.
Running up the hill, I was aware that I could hear something that sounded like me, but didn't seem quite right. It's funny the noises you make when you're running...your breathing, foot fall, laces, joints, general grunting huffing and puffing. But I looked behind me and did the classic double take. A guy, all fresh and chipper, about to overtake me. Rude. Ah well, had to take it on the chin, but I'm still smarting. Pride, a funny thing. I tried to stick with him, keep on his tail...a long tail as it turned out. At the speed limit sign, he touched and did an about turn.
We passed, he said something, not sure what and I tried hard to convey the image of a man who had already been out a long while, and had further still to go, no sissy hill repeats session for me today. I'm not sure he caught that subtlety of my message as we crossed. And so into the woods up by the Wizard, all damp and wonderfully pure. Still warm and steaming from the efforts of the hill, under the tree canopy it was like my senses had been turned up to 11, sight, sound, smell. Wonderful. But not the stiles.
These are curious devices, constructed to various degrees of rigour and questionable fit-for-purpose. Intended to ease the path of the adventurous runner, a bridge, a passage of convenience to help you on your way. But other day, I came across almost the perfect stile. First the basic design was that which is crossed, meaning you can literally walk up and step over it, as opposed to those that involve some awkward leg crossing, and bizarrely finding yourself having to descending in reverse. Then it had foot grips, to stop foot slippage for those ambitious enough to run at a stile.
My favourite stile is one that stands there in isolation, no connecting fence or hedge, just a stile on it's own, once useful, now awkward. I feel duty bound to cross rather than by pass! Then there are gates, some on hinges, many not. Kissing gates, farm gates, slammy gates, ancient and modern. Gates with latches that work, gates with string looped over an aging post. And cattle grids. In a race I've charged over these with gay abandon, but on a more leisurely run, they often minced over, arms aloft.
Around the back of Wilmslow, there is a cattle grid of dubious effectiveness, small, neither wide nor long and with generous margins, I suspect a homage to a regulation of some kind. Looks good though. And I've said this before, but what these all are, is a reason to stop, take a breather, stand aloft or loiter at the bottom and enjoy the view, reflect, but almost without a second thought, there is little regard for the stile, or who put it there.
Around the back of Wilmslow, there is a cattle grid of dubious effectiveness, small, neither wide nor long and with generous margins, I suspect a homage to a regulation of some kind. Looks good though. And I've said this before, but what these all are, is a reason to stop, take a breather, stand aloft or loiter at the bottom and enjoy the view, reflect, but almost without a second thought, there is little regard for the stile, or who put it there. The weather, fences, gates...no barrier to running around. And no barrier to the cows either!
