#42 Lanark Moor

A runner friend on Instagram this week posted about some new headphones he was trying out. Do you run with music? No. When I last tried it, it was a disaster. Though I could hear the music, I could now also hearing my own breathing really loudly in my ears. I found myself trapped in a claustrophobic world where the rhythm of my feet, breathing and now music were squabbling for my attention. Personally, I quite like running for the peace it usually brings to my head, and this was anything but. I lasted less than 5 minutes.

Thing is, I love music. The other day when running through Holyrood, the Women’s Tour of Scotland was being set up, and over the speakers they were playing ‘Easy Like Sunday Morning’. I responded my extending my arms, Sound of Music style, and a sang along a bit with the guitar solo. I do get how music can lift your mood, and make longer solo runs feel less, solo. I just found the reality of wearing headphones whilst running to be weirdly traumatic.

Last Friday in the office I work in, a small plate of biscuits appeared. Some were of course snaffled quite quickly, but 5 chocolate digestives remained. These biscuits were still there, uncovered, on Monday morning. My assumption was that these would eventually be cleared away, however at time of writing on Wednesday, some of the biscuits are still there. I say some of them, since the 5 is now 2. I’ve made some enquiries, but no one seems to know who is still eating them. I presume given that biscuits are largely sugar that they are probably still fairly safe to eat, but I’m guessing any biscuity crunch has long since left the building.

Here in Scotland, the word ‘summer’ has a pretty flexible definition. I’ve had very few days where I’ve needed to wear a coat, so that’s obviously a bonus, but my umbrella has had quite a lot of use. I saw a chap the other day coming out of the gym, and putting on one of those polythene ponchos you get at theme parks. I can see how it would nicely packable, but I reckon the time it took from putting it on to realising he’d made a mistake wasn’t that long.

In August, there have been days where sunburn and trenchfoot are both equally possible. Reading any sort of weather forecast has, for the past month at least, been a largely futile exercise. On a lot of days, the outlook was given as sunny intervals, and rain of some sort, which is essentially the same as saying ‘anything could happen’. I would suggest looking out of the window would be more useful, however on some days looking out of different windows would lead you to entirely different conclusions.

I do genuinely feel for the poor tourists who have paid thousands of pounds to be here, only to find that the skies here seem to have taken personal offence to their being here. It’s no coincidence I guess that the festival activities are largely indoors.

I’d heard some really positive comments about the Lanark Moor parkrun course from some clubmates. The forecast for the day was for there to be weather, and lots of it. Hoping for the best, we both packed a complete change of clothes for after the run. Upon looking for the route for the drive over, we found that we’d be attending the event’s first birthday. I seem to have a knack for accidentally arriving just in time for these things, I’m honestly not just planning on the basis of increased likelihood of cake.

Arriving into Lanark Moor, there are quite a few puddles about but so far, the rain is holding off. It’s pretty overcast, but doesn’t look all that threatening as a merry band are gathering around the start line. We’ve got only just over ten minutes, so I head off for a quick warm up and to explore around. I’ve read from the course description that this one is ‘mainly flat’, and as I step up to the start line, I still haven’t realised what this actually means (n.b.: it means it definitely is not flat). Having had a really good run at the North Berwick Law hill race on Wednesday, I’m feeling pretty confident, and I’m in the mood to give this one a decent crack. Again, I have not realised how that will definitely go wrong.

Off we go, the course starts with a sweeping right hand path which quickly starts descending down toward a line of trees. We’re still on tarmac as the path curves back to the left, then onto gravel as the incline drops faster and we steady ourselves as we turn sharply right onto the side of the loch. We’d been warned about this turn at the briefing, and if we’d not known there’s a very good chance of one of us would have ended up in the water. Along the loch side, some of us are dodging the puddles, personally I’m gleefully taking route one straight through the middle whilst keeping the hammer very firmly down. The path on the loch is arcing round to the right gradually, and the view over the still water is really lovely. I’m currently head down though as we turn off the loch, up a steep gravel section, then back onto a similar piece of curving tarmac path we started on, but now heading up a fairly decent hill to complete a short loop. Past the start, briefly onto the flat before heading back down the sweeping hill again toward the loch. I’m already breathing very hard, but I’m not yet put off. Again we go through the lines of trees down the sharper gravel descent, but this time we go left on a much easier bend to join the loch in the other direction.

This takes us onto a section of wooden decking, with textured metal slatting for grip. Away from the slats it’s pretty slippy, but making sure I’m within them I’m sure footed and this passes easily. We follow the loch round, and as we get to a playground, we dart quickly left away from the water, then sharp right to follow the path into the trees. My watch buzzed in there to say the first mile was done, I didn’t look to see what it said, but I was in enough of a lather to know that I was going at a pace best described as unsustainable.

Round the loch we go, the trees drop away and as I stare out over the fields I am starting to regret my life choices. I am doing my best to keep things going, but I’m already aware that I am fighting a losing battle. We find the break in the trees again, up the hill away from the water, past the car park and now we’re heading into the trees. Marshalls on the course tell us we’re going hard left, and thankfully I see the runner in front of me going that way, since here I could easily have gotten confused. From here on in, the ground got much softer, and my pace got much slower. The course ducks this way and that, muddier in some parts, firmer in others, and on a good day (or rather, had I not run the first 2 miles like an idiot) I’d currently be really enjoying myself. As it is, the undulations in the course are relentless. The course fidgets left and right as we head through the trees. We reach the furthest point of the course and turn right and start heading for home. I have now entirely given up on maintaining even the illusion of pace, and I’m pleased in hindsight to only lose two places as I shuffle my way forlornly back to the finish line. We eventually come out of the trees up another a small hill, then back onto the tarmac and make the final few hundred meters up the hill for the finish line. We’re retracing our steps on the very first part of the course, and as I look behind me I’m pleased that there is no one near enough that I need to sprint.

Over the finish line, there is a lot of cake on a table, and cups of squash – brilliant! The team are lovely, and this is a course I definitely want another go at.