Slow Times Are Good Times: The Guilty Pleasures of Being a ‘Runneur’
“Are you ok?” asks the lady with the Springer Spaniels in a concerned manner “You keep stopping.” “Oh yes” I hastily reply, in a bid to explain why my slothful stature belies the air of athletic vigour that my shorts and shoes suggest “Just listening to the birds.” I never expected to become a runner. All that huffing and puffing. I could not understand why anyone would do that for fun. Memories of school cross countrys invoke a breathless pillory overseen by a ruddy cheeked tyrant. Little wonder I never wanted to run. And for a long time I didn’t need to. First came the effortless energy and litheness of youth, attributes I largely wasted chasing the next sweaty shirtless high in the Midland’s finest techno barns. Then, when my wife and I discovered that the tennis courts near our new home would only provide a stage for embarrassing scenes, not the crisply coordinated healthy exercise we had hoped, we fell into the world of martial arts. Quite by accident, and rather fortuitously, our Taekwondo school was more ‘art’ than ‘martial’. Which suited me fine. Whilst training for my black belt I paid more attention to honing the tenet of ‘integrity’ than my jumping overhead kicks, studiously dropping the little white lies and putting all my weight behind promises. Although during our grading, when the student in-front of me very obviously broke his big toe whilst attempting to fracture the wooden board fixed above his head, I did wonder whether I should have directed my energies towards a more appropriate target? But I passed unscathed and became an Instructor: Mr Frenneaux to my colleagues and charges. And for many years, long enough to see youngsters I’d endlessly re-tied white belts around, earn their own blacks, it was enough. Until it wasn’t. A forgotten voice, buried deep under layers of life, was calling. I heard it when the kids moaned about yet another hill to climb or the length of our family walks. It echoed off the walls of the back bedroom when I glanced at the dusty bookshelf stuffed to the gunnels with maps and climbing guides. It spoke loudest over beers in the pub with my Dad, that stalwart walking companion of my teenage years, whose willingness to have an unheard of third pint hinted at a life about to be cut short.
I had to get out before it was too late. Out there. Out where I’d always been happiest, a connection I’d somehow severed with my indoor exertions. According to the OS Maps app, it is 3.5km from home to a little corner of Caledonia magically transported to the fringes of North Leeds. There, where the narrow finger of Meanwood Valley folds a green crease through the suburbs, lies Scotland Wood.
I’m not sure whether the Scots pines which stud it’s steep sides are a form of arboricultural nominative determinism, or whether they betrothed their name to the derelict Scotland Mill after which the wood was christened. But I am sure that this sliver of woodland, with it’s needle lined paths, stony outcrops, boulders and boggy bits threaded with boardwalks, is the closest approximation to wilderness I can find on foot from my front door.
I attend the Church of the Pines religiously. Early every Saturday morning I clothe myself in the breezy garb of a believer, and set out on still strangely fleet feet to soak up Mother Nature’s latest sermon.
So, yes, I run. But not chasing times or pace. My most common quarry is the unearthly light of the early hours that bends round neighbouring tower blocks to slide sideways into the treetops. Distance too is of little heed, apart from that one specific stretch. I run so I can clear the three thousand five hundred metre threshold which separates everyday me from my inner child-of-the-woods. One of the most deeply transformational books I’ve featured in Adventurous Ink is ‘Rewild Yourself’, from naturalist and keen twitcher Simon Barnes, who takes great delight in admonishing joggers on his local patch by re-appropriating Blofeld’s line “Right idea Mr Bond, but wrong pussy.” He means to say that in their haste they miss the experience of being amongst nature. I often roll this phrase over, jogging along with a lopsided grin or gawping gormlessly at some new natural wonder, safe in the knowledge that I found the right feline. Running for me is a means to an end. That end being solitary moments of pause immersed in the natural world.
I don’t really consider myself a runner, more a ‘runneaur’. My decidedly distracted approach holds more in common with the reflective stroll of the Flaneur than the hectic flight of a runner. Over time I have developed a ritual of noticing and gratitude each time I enter the wood. Outwardly it may look like fatigue is setting in, and it certainly provides physical as well as spiritual sustenance, for I am still slightly boggled by the relative ease with which I now accomplish my weekly pilgrimage.
I always pause at the same derelict stone gateway, to take in what has unfolded since my last attendance. The latest windfallen boughs or the sudden appearance of sheep fields after the autumnal leaf fall. Sometimes I document the changing light and foliage on my phone. Others I will murmur my appreciation with blessings of thanks for the natural world: the slippery tree roots pumping their sap, the squirrels forsaking their forage to scurry to safety, the resinous canopy keeping off the worst of the showers.
This though is a mere warm up. Inevitably at some point I will come to a full-on halt. Making myself comfortable on nature’s kneeler embroidered with strands of moss, I will slip into a state of awe whilst peeping flirty treecreepers circling each other amorously up seeping trunks. Or perhaps climb the disused aqueduct to throng with industrious woodpeckers hammering high in the canopy.
Inevitably someone will happen upon my moment of communion. If I hear them coming I will start away like the wary deer I occasionally disturb here. But more often than not my fellow congregants will be upon me before I notice, embarrassing me in the act of talking to the horses in the neighbouring field, swinging gaily on a convenient rope swing or sitting with my feet in the stream recording the ambience on my smartphone.
I think it’s my garb that induces the flash of guilt. Clearly I should be proceeding at pace, that much is obvious to even the casual observer. But our encounters are warmed by the glow of a shared confidence. We keep the secrets of our dappled confessional. They know I’m not a real runner. I know that slow times are good times.
Tim Frenneaux