Today was supposed to be a running day. A mountain day. An event. Today was supposed to be a chance to share a day out in beautiful countryside with plenty of like-minded folk, exchange a few stories, make a few friends, have a good feed and a couple of drinks, reminiscing our most recent past and looking forward to our futures. Today was supposed to be a good day.
Well the essence of the day changed, thanks to old COVID and the restrictions that came to try to to control it, but, these are restrictions that are less restrictive than they have been. Today very much WAS a good day 😊.
The Glencoe marathon and half marathon may have been cancelled, but our wee break north of the border stayed the same. Ok, not exactly the same, but near enough in many ways. There was meant to be 3 of us here, but other health issues aside from COVID are still out there; diabetes for instance, Parkinson’s, temporal arthritis... One such issue has reduced our party to 2. I am sad for our missing person, they really wanted to be up here and seeing Scotland again.
We arrived on Friday to beautiful sunshine and stunning views across Loch Linnhe, the sea loch at the southwestern end of the Great Glen. The cottage we’ve rented is gorgeous, the owner is a very lucky lady, she has this to retire to and is living and working currently in Llanberis. Look down the loch from the bedroom window here at night and it is true 100% dark sky. Look up the loch and the lights from no more than half a dozen cottages on the shore line are visible from here. It is a stark contrast to the estate (council, nothing like Dyson’s) where we currently reside.
We took our train ride as planned yesterday on the Jacobite Express - the one of Harry Potter fame - the Glenfinnan viaduct really is something else. I’m not quite as enthusiastic about Mallaig, the destination at the end of the line. Still, a glimpse of the Cuillin ridge on Skye was visible from the train, and I know with certainty that we will be making our way there.
Our route for the half marathon from Kinlochleven and the marathon from Glen Nevis would have brought us along the West Highland Way and down the Devil’s Staircase into Glencoe. With weather a good bit warmer than the biting winds of yesterday we were able to get out and walk a good bit of this section of the route today. The easiest way to sum it up is to say it made us both feel very happy, but blimey it would be tough towards the tail end of a marathon, very tough indeed.
Glencoe was shrouded as most people would expect in its usual cloak of cloud. Intermittent rain is ok though, it takes nothing away from the pure enjoyment of just being where you are. Yes both of us would have been a little more comfortable if we could afford to buy ourselves all the proper kit, but then again, you’re not really living if you stay within the self erected bounds of comfort.
One thing I’ve noticed for sure as the chronological years begin to stack up, not just in me but in others around me too; those of my age, those more senior, and sadly, since lockdown, I’m seeing it in children too; our fear increases. Some is justified; falling off Yorkshire and breaking a knee cap makes you tread more carefully when you’re running downhill. Some of it is less easy to understand; walking past someone on a pavement is not going to bring instant death from COVID, standing still whilst they pass you is also increasing your exposure time to those people you are afraid of, why do you not just carry on walking?
Fear makes us behave irrationally. Fear traps us in a peculiar bondage, where we can move freely yet cannot escape. Fear reduces our interactions with other people - difficult for social apes, which we shouldn’t forget is what we are. Fear reduces the physical size of our world. Fear keeps us down and silences our voice. Fear makes us easily controlled by Eton schoolboys who possess nothing more than an excess of confidence, unmatched by their untested competence. Fear makes us unable to question. Fear makes us unable to modify, modernise, or improve. Fear makes us carry on with the same old same old when what we really need to do is change. Fear is quite possibly the greatest enemy we have, and for all of us it lives within ourselves - yet we look externally when we are looking to blame.
I don’t want to be ruled by my fears. So I will keep on challenging them. I will step out onto unknown hills, onto unknown mountains, into unknown weathers, and I will push the boundaries of my fears. I will walk on with an increasingly hard to read OS map (my eyesight succumbing to the realities of my years), I will push my boundaries outwards, not let them shrink in towards me.
Life is mountains. Mountains are life.