Runners were still arriving – families, groups of friends, couples, and single people. There was a real mix of shapes and sizes and ages. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all.
Then we were called to the start. Here there was another talk as a tall, thin man, well padded-up for the brisk wind that whistled through the little valley we stood in, spoke through a loud-hailer to the crowd swelling before him.
‘Any first timers?’ A few of us put up our hands and the lady in front of me turned around and gave me a thumbs up mouthing, ‘good luck’.
‘Any visitors?’
A hand went up. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Delamere Forest.’
‘Anyone from further afield?’
I knew from Darren that people quite often ran other courses for fun and some even collected them like Munro baggers, the people who climbed the highest peaks in Scotland.
And then there were milestoners. A man in the crowd to my left had completed fifty parkruns and it was then I noticed a couple of red T-shirts with ‘50’ on the back. Another man had volunteered twenty-five times. For each announcement there was a round of applause.
And then, at last, with lots of people setting their Fitbits or smart watches, we were given the off. Everyone surged forward up the hill. My pulse leapt and I was running in the crowd. Ash had already been swallowed up – not that I’d planned on running with him. I think we’d both resolved to ditch each other as soon as we could after last night’s debacle.
I’d lain awake for ages beating myself up for being so stupid and letting my hormones do the thinking. They were about as fit to take charge as a toddler in a sweetshop. A man jostled my elbow and I slowed my pace. I needed to concentrate a little as it was quite busy.
We funnelled through a gate onto a tree-lined path that turned sharply right. The crowd had already thinned and up ahead of me I could see a moving sea of runners in a rainbow of coloured tops. And when I said up, it really was up; the route ahead on the soft, mulchy surface was straight up a hill and already my calves were burning.
Blimey, this is hard work.
I was relieved to see that quite a few people around me were already walking and when I glanced over my shoulder, it was even more reassuring to see that I was nowhere near last. Panting hard, with my thighs joining in the protest, I gave in and slowed to a walk. This was too much like hard work. I fell into step next to a small woman who was pumping her arms and walking quickly. She gave me a smile. ‘We’ll feel better at the end.’
I nodded. She was kidding, right?
And then I heard strains of Bruce Springsteen, which got louder as we approached the crest of the hill. At the top was a very smiley marshal standing beside an obelisk with a boom box perched on the white stone, making encouraging comments and directing us left up another hill. The brief burst of music seemed to recharge the batteries and quite a few of the walkers began to run again. It did seem a lot less steep, so I forced my aching legs into action. This was supposed to be fun. But they said when you got to the top you turned around and came back, so maybe we were near the halfway point.
At the top of this section there was a folly – a Palladian summer house – where the course turned a sharp right again up another flaming hill. I managed a few steps and then lapsed into a walk but I wasn’t alone, not by a long way.
‘Killer, isn’t it?’ remarked a man as I drew alongside him. He was panting just as heavily as I was and he wore a ‘50’ T-shirt.
‘But you’ve done loads,’ I wheezed, pointing to his top.
‘Never gets any easier. I’m better on the down. Once you get up to the top of this it’s flatter.’
‘Promise?’ I hauled in another breath, wondering why the heck I was doing this.
He just huffed in response and began to jog again with a wave of his hand.
At least if we got a run set up at Victoria Park it would be a hell of a lot easier, although there was one steep hill at the far east side. We’d be avoiding that section of the park if I had anything to do with it.
Towards the crest of the hill, the incline softened and I began to run again, pleased to see the path stretching away through the leafy green trees, flat and wide. Phew, I’d made it to the top. Now it was much easier and I could take in my surroundings. Through the trees, I could see last autumn’s leaf cover, and the fallen branches from winter storms, with dark green velvety moss growing on the trunks. Up here we were in the lee of the wind and it was much more sheltered.
Then there was a break in the trees affording the most wonderful view of the park spread below with the town beyond and even further in the distance a wide flat plain.
A flash of euphoria ripped through the heavy breathing and aching limbs. I felt glad to be alive.
I can do this.
With a burst of energy, I upped my pace, feeling my legs respond and realising my breathing was easier. I was actually enjoying this. Up ahead, I saw a lone figure sprinting towards to me. What was he doing? And then further behind him was another man.
Then I realised they were the front runners… on their way back. Sprinting? I could barely muster a jog and these guys were going for it. The turning point must be quite close.
It wasn’t.
The number of runners coming past started to increase. These were the serious runners, with serious faces and a serious pace. But what struck me was the camaraderie, the cheers of, ‘Go John’, ‘Well done Marie, you can do it’ that I heard. There were lots of travelling high fives, encouraging taut grins, and one man even made a love heart with his hands and blew kisses as he passed a woman ahead of me. Unaccountably cheered by this, I laboured up the final mountain climb, determinedly forcing one foot in front of the other at a pace that Hilda could probably outwalk. Just keep swimming, I told myself, hearing Dory’s voice from the Pixar movies in my head. Just keep swimming.
And there it was, the mythical nirvana, the turn. It was manned by a particularly jolly marshal who, despite it being summer, wore a big woolly hat and several layers. He gave me and another woman on my heels a two-handed thumbs up. ‘Nearly there, ladies. You’ve got this. Downhill all the way from here.’
‘Thanks, marshal,’ panted the other woman, giving him a limp-wristed wave. All I could muster was a bit of a nod. Even so, now I knew exactly what was in store for the rest of the run, I was able to relax a little. I wasn’t running into the unknown anymore. There was something very reassuring about knowing that it was downhill all the way. My legs felt less heavy and at last I seemed to have got to the point where my breathing was even; although it was still rasping out with harsh exhalations, I didn’t have to suck in desperate burning lungfuls of air.
The runners had thinned out and were now strung out unevenly along the path; I was completely on my own, following a woman a little way ahead and in front of her a small group of about five. All I could hear was the pad-pad of my feet, crunching into the gravelly path and the coo-coo of a couple of wood pigeons hidden in the trees somewhere close by.
My body felt looser; the earlier tension in my shoulders that had pinched hard at the tight muscles had dissipated. There was something about being out in the fresh air, the open countryside around you, with your heart pumping and your muscles, tendons, and bones working in perfect harmony, all doing what they were designed to do. I felt alive and buzzy with the awareness of my body working away. I felt at peace with myself.