Fifty Shades of Grey - the fruits of a weekend writing retreat

Last weekend, I hosted the fourth edition of my Running & Writing retreat together with Feet in the Clouds author Richard Askwith. Each retreat follows a similar format, and part of the weekend involves a group run on Saturday morning. Everyone then has to produce a piece of writing about that same run by the following evening, including Richard and me. It's always fascinating when, sitting by the fire on Sunday evening, we get to hear the pieces read out one by one. So many different ways of experiencing and writing about the same run. We're all running together, taking in the same landscape, yet in our heads we're each of us - it becomes evident - in a completely different world.

Here's what we all made of our Saturday morning run on a misty Dartmoor ...

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY by Richard Askwith

IT’S SAID that eighteen per cent of the world’s population has never seen the Moon. Urbanisation, light pollution and indoor living have left it permanently out of their sight. As someone who often sees the Moon, living and running mainly in rural places, I often think about that statistic. The Moon suprises me with an unexpected glimpse, and makes my world shine briefly with its silver-and-pearl magic; and I remind myself how lucky I am.

But only on this moist Dartmoor morning has it occurred to me that many people never experience fog either. Not proper fog: the kind of thick, muddy clag, damp as mould, that sometimes settles on my part of Northamptonshire like an immense wet blanket for days on end; the kind that has smothered any number of my Cumbrian fell-running adventures; the kind of Devon pumpkin-souper that has reduced visibility this morning to less than the length of a line of eleven runners. This is the kind of fog you can feel with your eyes closed.

I wonder if I’m weird to find that feeling soothing.

I suppose that, over the years, my rural home and my rather niche running habits have caused me to spend much more time than is strictly normal immersed and disoriented in fog. And it occurs to me today, as our ghostly line of shadow-runners wiggles noislessly up the peaty slope ahead of me, that this is another thing for which I really ought to feel grateful.

Fog. What a treat. Fresh, damp fog, kissing my skin, gentle as a pony’s breath, cooling me as I run, insulating me from a whole world’s worth of worries and distractions and sealing me – sealing all of us – in this elemental here and now.

You rarely hear a good word for fog. It’s cold. It’s damp. It’s gloomy. It blocks the sunlight from our lives, censors views, washes out warmth and colour, hems us in. It muddies our senses, too, until we can barely remember what direction we’re facing in, which is rarely a good idea on Dartmoor. I have often been afraid in fog.

Today, however, my fears seem tame. So what if I slip and fall, and nobody finds me? The sun will come out one day. So what if I am going in entirely the wrong direction? I will still be on Dartmoor somewhere, among the boulders and the dripping gorse, with ponies munching the peaty turf not far away. And right now, in any case, there’s that line of shadow-runners to hang on to, with Adharanand leading. I don’t think I’ll be getting lost soon; or not very lost.

I remember wondering once, in a dark moment, what would happen if one particularly dense and persistent fog never lifted. The thought terrified me. These days, I don’t care. Fog is my friend: the thicker the better. Even the sense of being utterly lost and isolated feels like an experience to be embraced.

I love the way that, just like moonlight, fog makes familiar things dreamlike, subtly recalibrating the landscape’s colour-palette and tricking you into seeing your world anew. How else would you know that there could be so many different shades of grey and brown? And shapes, too, reveal themselves differently when fog has drained all the fiery warmth from the world. There is barely any light and shade, barely any depth or perspective, and we are left only with stark, unexpected shapes. A towering stack of huge granite slabs emerges abruptly from the cold grey sea, like a battleship. Dark, leafless, dripping, twig-fingered trees appear from nowhere, silhouetted in frozen poses, like witches disturbed in their coven. Then we’re suddenly jogging past a wide pool, overlooked by a small cliff, and everything seems so saturated with wetness and mud that there is no discernible border between the wet murkiness in the sky and the murky wetness in the ground. Everything – air, water, rock, earth – has blended into everything else.

I don’t know where we’re running to, but I’m sure we’ll arrive somewhere, one day. Meanwhile, I’m too curious about what lies round the next corner to notice if I’m feeling out-of-breath or tired; always assuming that there is a corner, out there in the depths of the fog.

The weight of the great grey blanket seems to keep everyone and everything grounded, making us solid and strong. And not just us. At one point we pass so close to a motionless pony that I can almost touch it, once I work out what it is. It stands so still that I am not even sure that it has noticed me,  as if I were a ghost. And that spectral thought directs my attention back to the line of ghostly runners up ahead, weaving their way easily through puddles and peat-bogs, boulders and tussocks, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Which, of course, it is.

I notice, too, how relaxed those grey shapes look. Some may be moving faster than others, with better gait or greater energy, but no one seems tense. The line wiggles fluidly, easily, and it’s hard to believe that any of those runners could be worrying. Not up here.

Barely twelve hours earlier, we were nervously introducing ourselves and our writing; brains in overdrive, muscles clenched, vulnerably exposing some of our most personal thoughts and dreams to a bunch of complete strangers. I’m not an expert in body language, but I don't think many of us looked relaxed.

Now, however, in an environment that most people in Britain would probably consider grim and hostile, we seem to have become ourselves again. We are running, and running and anxiety are rarely found in the same moment. We are immersed in Dartmoor, not just looking at it; and, as a result, are not really thinking about much else. And, best of all, the blanket of fog is insulating us: from the whirring of the world beyond, from all the mental and emotional baggage we brought with us to Devon, keeping us in moment.

How could we not be grateful?

Many hours later, back at the Shippon, I realise that our strange adventure in a land of fog is already melting from my mind, like a dream. But the valley outside is bright with moonlight and echoes with the calls of owls.

FOLLOW THE LEADER by Adharanand Finn

Mist. Everywhere. I can barely see five feet ahead, and I’m running on Dartmoor, a place notorious for people getting lost in the mist. And I have a group of 10 other runners trailing along behind me, all chatting, joking, and blithely placing their well being in my hands.

I’ve done this run 100 times, I tell myself. I know it like the back of my hand. Which, in truth, I don’t know very well. Cover my eyes and ask me to tell you anything specific about it - the back of my hand, I mean - and I might struggle. I’m hardly a qualified expert.

A bit like guiding a group of runners across a Dartmoor shrouded in swamp-like mist. I’m hardly a qualified expert.

“It’s very atmospheric,” I say to Richard, running next to me, who probably nods in agreement. But where did those rocks come from? They shouldn’t be there.

It takes me a few seconds to realise we should be a little further up the hill. The gate into the old quarry is always tricky to find even on a clear day, so it’s no wonder I missed it. I veer gently up the hill, and up to the gate. Nobody really notices, or cares, but it’s a little warning. I’ve got to keep sharp, keep my nose to the ground.

Being a leader is a position I don’t often find myself in. In my working life I was never forceful enough to gain any position of authority. I was always content to sit in the group, to follow along, observing, taking notes, watching the plot lines around me unfold. Maybe that’s why I became a writer. As a writer, the key thing isn’t asking questions, making decisions or being assertive, but rather paying attention. I can do that.

Paying attention is useful in the mist, where you can quickly find yourself taking the wrong path and heading off to god knows where - into a bog perhaps, or a trail through the bracken that starts tailing off away down the hill you’re trying to run up.

Oh no, we’re doing that now. I’m trying to keep my bearings as we descend through the clad, the undergrowth closing in around us. I know the hill is somewhere to my left, and so I’m searching for a track cutting off to the left. But one doesn’t appear, and eventually I have to accept defeat and tell the group that we’ve gone the wrong way. We’ve got to turn around and go back the way we came.

I’m mad at myself for the slip-up. I’ve always prided myself on having a good sense of direction. I came up with a theory once that eldest children - like me - usually have a good sense of direction because they were more often left in charge when the adults weren’t around, and so they learned to pay more attention. I wonder how many writers are eldest children?

Thoughts percolate and conversation flitters in and out of my earshot. We pass Hound Tor where Bernard tells us he proposed to his wife 21 years ago, on a misty day like today. I wonder what is going on around us in the mist right now. People emerge here and there, in hiking clothes, their dogs scampering around happily, the mist no concern for them with their supersonic noses.

Down by the clapper bridge a family stand around by a rope swing. I’m squinting to read the plaque on a weathered rock, thinking it might hold some useful information a guide like me should know, when I hear a kerfuffle. Unable to resist, Charlie has swung himself across the water on the rope swing, apparently only just making it. He runs back to us grinning sheepishly. Nobody else tries it.

On we go, up towards Haytor, our final climb. The hulking rocks don’t show themselves until we almost run into them. Bam, there they are, looming like some evil villain’s castle. We gather in their shadow, counting heads. I haven’t lost anyone. That’s not too bad; only one wrong turn on a day like today, and nobody got lost. I pat myself on the back, and point everyone in the direction of the car park. Then I let off the brakes and tip myself down the final hill, my legs barrelling away under me as I pick up speed, skipping and juddering and trying not to topple over. I make it to the bottom in one piece, and turn to watch as my charges file in one after the other, safe and happy.

Job done. Now I just have to go home write some fizzing prose about the whole thing.

I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE by Nigel Crompton (author of My Border Collie Doesn't Stretch)

I’ve been here before. But you would be hard pressed to know it. On a quick google search earlier, the BBC Weather had informed me it would be partially cloudy and mild of temperature. It is not the case. We are surrounded by a pea-souper straight out of a Sherlock Holmes novel, and the fog hangs around us like a damp veil reducing visibility to a few metres as our little group, most of whom I didn’t know just 24 hours ago, stand around in a car park somewhere in the middle of Dartmoor waiting to start our trail run.

I’m here again on a running and writing retreat. I’ve been twice before so know what to expect. We will go for a run and then write a short piece about it and read it out to other members of the group. That endeavour should be paramount in my mind. I’ve been nervous about it before. I should be making mental notes. Well, at least I don’t have to creatively describe the beautiful views. There aren’t any.

But, anyway, I’ve got other things on my mind. Last night, Adharanand, our host, had asked me to undertake an AiM based warm up with the group, so I am eyeing up the car park for a suitable place to do this. AiM stands for Anatomy in Motion and is a model of how every joint in the human body optimally moves at each stage of the gait cycle. I teach this stuff to runners all the time so I really shouldn’t be nervous.

But these people didn’t pay to listen to me and especially not to cavort around on a cold, foggy Dartmoor car park making somewhat alien movement patterns.

But Adharanand decides we should just set off and then stop a short way along the trail to do the warm up drills. I’m relieved at that. It is cold and I for one could do with warming up a bit before warming everybody else up. We set off uphill. 

Now, I run up hills a lot so you’d think I must enjoy it, but it occurs to me that usually you can see the top, or at least what you perceive to be the top, but in this fog, there is no perception of where said top is. It is only the slightly more laboured breathing and the added physical effort that lets me know there is a hill at all. And so, we run on, up hill, down hill, through beautiful primeval woodland, across streams and occasionally topping one of the many granite Tors that adorn this landscape. I bet the views from up here are great, I muse. At one point Adharanand tells us that they are.

Great.

Every once in a while, we stop to regroup, and my eyes search for a flat area to undertake my warm up session. Ah, there’s a good spot, that’s perfect. But then, regrouped, we run on. Back to my thoughts. Well, it’s not like there’s anything to see.

One of the things that is going through my mind is how to present this. I can’t just offer some movements, which in and of themselves are great warm up drills, without explaining a little bit about the theory.

At the same time how can I really give an introduction to AiM without firstly explaining a little bit about it and also introducing movements I don’t usually introduce until week 3 or 4 of a 6-week course? I need to find the right balance, I ponder. Oops! Almost tripped there. Maybe I should concentrate on running? Or thinking about running? Or thinking about writing about running.

Anyway, we’ve almost run 3 miles and the run is only scheduled for 6 miles. Perhaps he has forgotten. We run on. Grassy inclines, rocky trails, a path that turns out to be a stream, which Charlie dismisses as ‘just a long bog’, more rocky edifices jutting proudly into the interminable fog. We run on. Occasionally regrouping but always running on.

Have I been worrying needlessly of how to present AiM to this group of runner/writers? Pondering how I can, in a few short minutes, convey the relationship between movement and gait succinctly yet meaningfully. Take them through some movements that illustrate the discipline in a way that will be both informative and useful. No, I bloody haven’t.

‘Adharanand,’ I ask tentatively, ‘where would you like me to do this warm up?’

‘Damn it, I forgot about that,’ he says.

We decide to stop at the next flat area and undertake the session.

Some seem a little puzzled as I take off my shoe and sock. If they knew me, they’d know I was always whipping out my feet.

But they are an engaged group. I talk about the flow motion model that underpins the AiM system, I talk about pronation and supination and the relationship with other joint movements, before diving into some movements. They are odd looking movements. I know that. But there is a logic to them, and they seem to be enjoying them. Better still, they are asking loads of questions. So, I’m pleased. Job done.

And now we run on.

Right, I’ve just got to think what the hell I’m going to write about this bloody run now.

THE DARTMOOR PIRATES by Richard Selway

I read it out loud last night
My poem
I showed myself
And in the car this morning
Chatting dogs
And kids
And books,
I am brimming

Our merry band
Empties into the car park
And braces for the run
In the looming shadow
Of the granite tor

What a view!
We remark
As we fuss with final
Kit changes, laces and stuff
And I want to know
What they’re feeling
Are their legs, like mine
Tingling with anticipation

What do they see
What do they notice
As we scurry off
Into the fog
Skipping
And Skirting round
Boggy pools
Like pond skaters
Over the waterlogged grass
Trying not to get
Wet feet
We pass through a gate
A way marker
Fixed to the post reads
‘Miles no Styles’
And I know
We’re in for a treat

A short way
Along a narrow path
The shroudlike mist fades
To reveal an ancient pool
Glasslike and cupped
By giant stone hands
A mooring ring bedded
Into the ball
Of a thumb, perhaps
At the waters edge
And I wonder where’s the boat?
Were there smugglers here?
I imagine us a moorland mob
Bringing our loot
To stash in this clandestine cove
Then hurry on
As if to be unseen
It’s Craggy here
Steep there
We walk a bit
And then a spurt
A dance down bouldered creek
My eyes well up
And blur my sight
It’s difficult to plant my feet

Through ancient
Mossy woodland glade
Cross heathered moor
And clapper bridge
Where Charlie swings
And nearly falls
We pass
Then stop
Where grazing horses stoop
Like timeless sentinels
Around the rock castle
And I climb up top
To get a shot
Of the crew below
Before back down
And down and down we go
Like mad marauders
My big toes
Jam into the walls of my shoes

And in my head I holler
Old black toe
The pirate runner!
Descending to the finish

Back on deck
We count our gold
We draw some breath
We share our thoughts
The run is done
The story told

Thank you for taking Moor care
I read on the sign
As we drive away

I SURVIVED by Verity Wright (who blogs at runverity.com)

I survived, I knew I would but still I had a get-out plan, a plan B. I always have had a plan b, c, d, e, f ……. a ready excuse to make a quick exit if needed.

But by Saturday, I’d put plan b safely away as I dressed in my warrior clothing; comfortable, familiar; the only expectation was to run, and I knew how to do that.

How soon we became a team, this group of strangers, as our accepting and acceptable gang quickly formed. Dressed in black we ran the hills, menacing silhouettes in the fog quickly forging forwards so easily as a group, gathering pace, momentum, and rhythm.

I ran with childlike abandonment, chasing the front runners, jumping, bounding, skipping; the public diving out of the way as we fly past, laughing, shouting, stumbling, stopping “who are you” they ask us as we pass by. I want to say, “we’re on a top-secret mission”, “if anyone asks you, you haven’t seen us” but we just smile and reply “just random runners”.

Being able to taste this freedom is intoxicating, I feel comfortable in my own skin, running does that to me, my coping mechanism.

“I’ve thought about starting a new blog,” I say to Henny. “About a personal journey I’ve been on.” Henny seems interested, so I press on. “I was diagnosed with ADHD in July of this year” I continue.

Wow, Henny seems really interested, wanting even more details, asking questions, and enthusing about the idea of an ADHD running blog.

But where do I start? It’s difficult to explain what 53 years of undiagnosed ADHD looks like, it’s even harder to get the words out as you are powering up a hill.

My ADHD brain processes things differently; it’s like having 157 TVs on in my head all at the same time, but someone else oversees the remote. It has impacted all areas of my life, but until my diagnosis, I just thought I was someone who didn’t get the memo on how to do life.

Running has been my constant, my companion, my subconscious saviour; instead of chaos I have clarity when running. My brain needed the dopamine hit to get me through the day; I now have controlled amphetamines!

As we run up hills and leap down the paths, bonds are formed even further by a swing over a river, a deep puddle to jump over and a finishing downhill of pure joy as I weave side to side, arms outstretched, playing airplanes; it’s ok, I don’t think anyone noticed.

Our run complete, refreshed, and glowing, a morning of escapism, of imagination, of hope and tiny bit of intrigue from passersby.

TOGETHER IN THE FOG by Bernard Clarke

Okay. Let us establish the facts, shall we?

You were all in a comfortable, warm luxury cottage. Surrounded by amazing views on a fantastically sunny November day. Provided with scrumptious meals, calm reflective spaces and two, I repeat, two hot tubs.

So, why on earth did you do it?

What possessed you to head to that there Dartmoor, to travel high up into the fog and then run - not walk mind, as all the sensible people do – but to run up and back down a hill; then up and down another, and yet another?

You got no views. You saw no amazing scenery from the top. You didn't even see someone fall into a river - at least that would have given you a great pub story to share! Plus, you got wet, very wet feet indeed and cold. You disturbed those peaceful walkers and confused some friendly dogs. It was so foggy, you got lost yards from one another. To cap it all off you ran for hours and you still ended up right back where you began. What was the point of all of that?

Well, why not?

Will anyone ever get yesterday back again?

Is not a race run well, a race worth completing?

Throughout it all we got to talk, to listen, laugh and learn. To understand nasal etiquette better and the attraction of a rope swing. To wait together, to encourage and to watch together. To climb together, learn to balance together and slip n slide down paths together. Indeed, to be the only group of flamboyant waiters Dartmoor has ever seen!

We created memories together, got tired together, and shared a common adventure as one. We earnt the right to consume fantastic soup together. And thankfully not get 'too' lost together!

We eased a moment into our busy, busy lives to take a chance together on some strangers; to let each one become a little bit less strange. To open our pronated feet and wiggle our hips to a different beat.

To disrupt our daily patterns and usual weekend duties. And make a space to ponder and produce great art together. Crafting words from thoughts we each only had because we were together. To go to places, we'd not go alone. And rise high up upon a Tor just 'cos it's there to conquer, together.

We've seen the world from a different space. We get to reset our journeys from a new place and mind. A better place than if we'd lazily all said, ‘let’s stay and sit in a hot tub on a Saturday morn’; even if it would have been together.

SO SORRY by Rachel Southon

Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry ... sorry ...

It is like a verbal tic, a very British tourette's.

The number of times I say sorry is on repeat because I know that I will be at the back of the pack. It is unsurprising after the number of weeks that I have struggled to run, stop starting every other week. But I still feel the urgent need to apologise. I get my excuses in early. I apologise before we set off. I apologise for any time the group are waiting for me at the top of a hill. I apologise to the back runner for slowing them down, holding them up, for walking.

Within the first 100m we are heading up water-saturated grass and my heart rate is spiking. I'm walking within the first 500m, mentally questioning how I am going to physically get round a hilly 10km on legs that have been running flat. I'm feeling the self imposed stressful pressure to urge my legs to keep running, to keep up, when my heart & lungs are struggling. Where my fitness was in June and where it is now is like a seismic trench with vertical sides that I cannot find footholds to climb out of. Just as I feel I make progress, my body rebels, taking more backward steps, falling lower than where I started.

We reach the top of the first hill, I catch my breath and pray for a downhill to settle the nerves, reassure the mind and reset the legs. The views are non existent. Dartmoor has quite literally played a blinder.

We set off into the disorientating misty cloud, boggy mud, spongey sodden grass, rocky paths gently climbing to the invisible summit of the first ascent. Finally a descent to enjoy. Slippery cambered lumpy turf requiring fast feet & concentration. A reassurance that I can at least run downhill even if I failed to bring my uphill running legs.

We pause for Anatomy In Motion, an introduction to exercises that improve the running form, reactivating the body. Lunges, arms stretched, arms thrusted, testing balance & coordination to the max. A runner's equivalent to rubbing the head clockwise, stomach anti-clockwise at the same time. Reprogramming the body, but also testing the mind. The legs felt like they'd climbed another hill but the body feels better. Or is that a placebo effect?

We set off again into wooded trails, hazards hidden beneath the fallen leaves & beech nuts. Roots & rocks underfoot, ready to throw each runner off balance, as if these inanimate objects deliberately trip us up. We head down a rocky, rooted path, splashing through puddles, tentatively stepping on rocks to a clapper bridged brook. A fairy glen in the midst of exposed wild moorland. A momentary pause where I can find joy in the landscape before the pressure to keep up kicks in again.

The next climb is steep. My huffing & puffing audibly increases with effort as I watch everyone pressing on ahead. Human mountain goats, as I lumber along, gradually falling further & further behind. No amount of effort can convince my legs to move faster. All I can do is keep moving forwards. At a false summit the fast group scamper off, and I bring up the rear, following through narrow, bracken filled paths that eventually level and then drop downhill. Relief that I finally feel I can run a section, before the psychological torture of the realisation that we're on the wrong path and need to retrace our steps back up!

Another pause at Hound Tor top for a non-existent view, another gradual uphill that I reluctantly walk before narrow twisty turny trails that drop back down to another clapper bridge across the brook. A pocket of running restoring my belief that I didn't just dream I could run.

We start the last major climb back up to Haytor. Rock climbing. Steep grassy inclines. Tired legs. A pause to catch my breath before a photo shoot, the contrived running photo that belies the tired legs & unwilling body. Then the final final climb to the top of Haytor. The silver mist shrouds the Tor with an invisibility cloak, a dark grey shadow outline finally emerging, looming over our tiny dark silhouettes. My legs, mind, body are done with uphill.

But I have so missed running the moors. They are unforgiving. Brutal in their ups and downs. Imposing, inspiring, humbling. There are no airs & graces. A raw wild landscape exposing your strengths, laying bare your weaknesses. Whilst I may have felt down about the ups, the descents were pockets of pure joy. As we head down the final descent I feel a hint of my old self, the ghost of strength, a restored faith that I can run.

WE WAS ROBBED by Paul Kaye

Robbed! We was robbed. Robbed of the far clear sights of Dartmoor, of the views of the tors rising like an archipelago of granite islands from Dartmoor’s ocean of greens and browns. Lost, today, under an invisibility cloak of fog. 

I had been so looking forward to seeing these rocky isles again since my last run here three years ago. Instead we got to see them only once we’d arrived upon them, up close, about to dock, the eroded folds of the granite making each one look like a cerebrum of mineral grey matter. 

Denied the long views, today we had to recalibrate our horizons to enjoy the close views, the detail beneath our feet and at touching length. The patterns of fallen leaves disintegrating into the lowest common colour denominator of beige-brown, with only the sycamore and the poplar holding out against the fading tide, and one young fiery beech tree, by the stream, resisting even stronger, yet to release its leaves. The glossy black cap of a stag beetle, surely out too late in the year. The strands of pale green lichen lacing the dark boulders of the dry stone wall, creating a filigree decoration of vegetable on mineral.

At the start, though, straight uphill from the car park, there was no luxury of views near or far – just head down concentrating on getting the engine warmed up, one foot in front of the other, eyes locking onto the ground ahead of me. As it happened, that ground was occupied by Henny’s heels. Two green cleats, like oversize teeth, still clean, rose and fell on each stride. Two feet, like two toothy Goofies chomping at the Devonshire turf. 

Before long, opening aches were fading, the metabolic motor settling down, and I could lift my eyes and enjoy the scenes, and by the final descent, allow my legs to open and roll down the grassy carpet back to the car.

At the abandoned mediaeval village by Hound Tor, we had paused at a blank wooden sign on which some bored or playful passerby had drawn an imaginary map, with treasure marked by a cross. That cross was with us along the whole run today - the treasure was to be here, in this place, in this company, and to be able to savour the flow of body over landscape.

RUN, DON'T WORRY by Bryony Black

That was an actual social run!

I’ve never really imagine running as a social activity. I think of it as a way to improve fitness, to test mental strength, to push myself. I know that for many it’s a competitive sport, but that doesn’t even enter my head. However I view it, though, it’s not really as a social activity.

It may be that my background has had an impact on my attitude. My parents are all about the arts. My three sisters and I all grew up playing musical instruments and our social lives mostly revolved around the world of music. Orchestras, choirs, bands, concerts, piano exams, music festivals, the list goes on. If it involved musical development, we were probably involved.

So the world of music is the world that I get – the one I feel at home in. If I move to a new place, I can turn up at an orchestra, join the French Horn section and be confident that I’ll fit in, I’ll be able to hold my own and I’ll enjoy meeting the other people there.

It’s not so much like that with running. It’s not that I don’t run with others – it's more that when I do, I spend most of my time worrying.

After a not hugely sport-focused childhood, as an adult I discovered that I really enjoy pushing myself physically. Pre-children I tried out a range of sporting activities: climbing, mountain biking, tennis, running. In recent years I have returned to running, mostly because it involves very little faff and can be fitted in around everything else in life. I also love the running community, though, and I find runners a genuinely welcoming bunch.

Despite this, I have never quite come around to the possibility that running is social. I’ve never built up much confidence in my own abilities, which means that when I'm running in a group, I’m usually too busy worrying about whether I’ll finish, whether I can keep up and whether I’m holding everyone back to concentrate on the social aspect.

Yesterday’s run, though, was a revelation! The panicky voice had gone quiet. I wasn’t worried about whether I could do it. I wasn’t concerned that I was too slow, although it was clear that some members of the group could have gone much faster. I just enjoyed it – meeting new people, chatting about everything under the sun, almost running into roaming horses that appeared in the mist, clambering up rocky hills, laughing with others about the fun of almost falling down the steep hills – it was just fun.

I’m still trying to work out why there was such a shift. Was this just the nicest group of people I’ve ever run with? Did the mist help take away the fear of what was to come? Have my weeks of devising random runs in the Peaks meant I was just more prepared than normal?

I actually don’t know, but I’m really hopeful that more sociable running will follow.

FRONT AND BACK by Charlie Baker

Front and back
Speak and listen
Waiting and leading
Wanting and needing
Individual and group

You’re part of the pack
Until you hang back
Mist surrounds you
Still
Silent
Eerie

You hear the wind
A cow in the distance
For a moment you had thought you were all alone in this tiny world
Only your senses with so much stimulation removed
It’s all closed in
Alone on the moor

Your focus narrows
You take flight
Running down the hill as fast as you can
And back to the group

As if all that intensity had never happened
A secret moment
It can be a rich place inside your head
Back or front