At the top, I don't know what hurts the most, head, heart or my ankle. All are throbbing, screaming, raging. Shutlingsloe. The best place I could think to come on a day...a moment, like this. The place is deserted, the sense of isolation intense. Isolated. In other respects, the day is perfect. The skies are astonishingly blue. The warmth is palpable and absolute, despite the breeze. Such a wonderful few days, these the last of September. Surely the last hurrah of summer. The last hurrah. The trees, they remain honest, their colours indicating the true state of affairs. Autumn is here. Summer has been told to turn her back. The clouds are drawing over. Summer is being put back in her box, reigned in, smothered.
It's simply up and then down to and from Shutlingsloe. Starting at the car park, which today is empty, no cars, no refreshment van, it's up the well defined paths that lead into the Forest. You start steady, knowing worse is to come. Today, I'm steady, and then some. The sun is beating down on my back, again great long shadows stretching forwards, revealing the true time of year that the belies the heat of the day. It's like being away, but it's not. This is home...it surreal.
Into the trees, it's cooler. So very quiet, there is no noise. The path varies it's gradient, steep, quite steep, very steep indeed. The low sun is throwing perpendicular shadows across the path, like a giant bar code. I wonder how this code would read. Sun shade sun shade, the effect is mesmerising, hypnotic almost. Ahead, before the opening, they are felling trees. Not right now, but there is a huge piles of logs, stacked just off the path. How the mighty have fallen. And the smell, curiously like something in the bathroom that would be called Mountain Pine, but this was real, fresher, pure...and mine.
Out of the woods and above the tree line, the path extends out revealing the top only once you're over the next crest. This is one of my favourite views. Still the wallpaper on my phone. Shutlingsloe is a beacon, a constant reference, seen from all over. From here it's flat to the stile at the foot of the final climb to the summit. I decide to walk the final bit, not that this last section is ever in any danger of being run, no matter your mood or ability. But today, I've not really come for a run. I've come to get to the top. I need to be here. To be outside, unencumbered by the puerility and dysfunction that seems to surround me.
It's glorious at the summit. The views, the colours, the clarity of everything. And it's so quiet. I sit, and watch, looking around trying to take it all in. It's wonderful...kind of. The sun is still shining, and I sit here, leaning against the trig point, watching the clouds coming over. Another hour and the sun would start to set. Will the sun make it to the horizon before the clouds stifle its flame. But I can't wait that long. Nothing to rush back for, but my time is done up here.
Coming down, it's steep, and now the sun is in my eyes. I'm not great at running down the hills at the best of times, but I'm just happy for a jog today. A couple of mountain bikes cross on their way up. We nod. Down at the bottom to the reservoir edge and past the pub, for a long run back along the road to the car. I can't be bothered to stretch, so I take a drink and swing my legs over the reservoir wall. Everything still hurts.
