One flew over the cuckoo’s nest

I was sat in the smoking room peacefully rolling a fag when old Harold walked up to the TV and exposed himself to it, satisfied he walked back to his seat and returned to rocking backwards and forwards.

The story actually starts 8 years earlier, the wife and i had jumped on the mortgage train and bought our own house, it wanted a little work but it was our new home. When i say a little work, what i actually mean is – renovation.

At the time, i struggled with the simplest home maintenance tasks and found fitting a fuse challenging, so buying an old stone built end terrace in need of major renovation work was not my smartest move. I set about learning the skills needed for various tasks and paid trades men to do the jobs that required specialist knowledge. Plastering, joinery and plumbing were amongst my new skills and the house slowly started to take shape.

Elsewhere my job was going well and i quickly moved up the ladder to the heady heights of “Data manager”, obviously this required a huge commitment in time and energy so the home improvements slowed a little.

I was getting to an age where starting a family was becoming a now or never thing and over the next couple of years 2 new additions were added to the Swift fold. Becoming a family is truly the most wonderful thing that can happen to a couple.

Life was going well, my hard work and dedication in my job had not gone un-noticed and i received an offer from a competitor, he wanted me to join his company as a partner. After much deliberation the decision was made and i handed in my notice.

Now those who work for themselves will know it is not all plain sailing, i worked twice as many hours and had to deal with twice as much pressure. However the work was interesting and the financial rewards a pleasant little sweetener, they certainly helped to ease away the pressure of self employment.

It’s funny how things change, before your very eyes the world begins to move, a faint rumble and a few cracks begin to appear. I decided the pressures of self employments didn’t suit my personality, the strain was beginning to take its toll on my marriage and my family were the most important thing in my life. So i rejoined the world of "working for the man" and started to rebuilding my career.


About this time the world around me fell to pieces, my marriage ended and i sank into a dark place where bad things happen. 

 I awoke one morning and realised i was alone in an unfamiliar bed, i sat and looked around the room trying to work out where i was, looking out of the window into the darkness i start to shiver and catch my breath, i hadn’t dreamt the last 2 weeks.

A familiar feeling creeps over me and the world begins to fade, total separation from everything, my heart begins to race and i try to struggle back to reality but a cold mist is all around me, holding me back, forcing me to look on as life goes on without me - death without dying.

Cuckoo's Nest

The first few times it scares me but i soon learn to relax and watch everyone else rushing around, like ants on the pavement waiting for someone to come along and squish them. The mist is a tool, an invisibility cloak that keeps me safe from harm; no one can hurt me now.

I dressed and wondered off to the smoking room, old Harold was sat in his usual seat rocking back and forwards, all around me the other patients watched TV, smoked their cigs and waited for breakfast to be served. A nurse wheeled in the medication trolley; i joined the queue and waited my turn.

It was six weeks later when i moved into my new flat and began to rebuild my life all over again, looking back i can see how close i came; looking forwards i can see how far i have to go.

The Bob Graham Club

The only way of becoming a member involves climbing 42 named summits within 24 hours in a round which includes 66 miles of mountain terrain and 27000 feet of ascent. This is called the Bob Graham Round.

Nick Harris said to me, “i need a runner to carry a bag over some hills at night with a group of other runners”, i have perhaps over simplified the exact words but that was basically what he said. My first thoughts were, this sounded a bit dodgy to me but after he explained i thought it sounded easy enough, after all it was only 14 miles and i could manage that. Count me in i said, if only i had known how this would change my life.

The night of the run came and i met Nick, at 4 am in Threlkeld,  now i may be a little forget full some times,  but i didn’t remember anything about missing a night’s sleep when Nick first mentioned this, however  i have always been daft enough to do silly things late at night, usually after a belly full of larger but here i was, sober as a judge, pacing up and down in the dark in a strange village, waiting for someone I’ve never met before to appear with this bag i had to carry  for 4 hours over some very big looking hills.

Nick was apparently the navigator for this run, navigator.... my mind is spinning, what sort of run is this? I know its a long way for the contender but at this stage i’m not aware how far. Time to start getting nervous, what the hell was i doing, the rain was starting to turn heavy and the wind was picking up. Bloody hell i must be stupid, how can i get out of this one without looking like a pansy and embarrassing myself? Before i could think up a plausible excuse a group of runners appeared out of the clag and we were off, around the corner to a support stop apparently.

Complete madness ensued for 10 minutes and we were off again, 5 idiots chasing after some crazy woman in lycra. Out of my depth and already  scared i clung to Nick like a drunk to his last can of special brew only to find myself ascending a massive hill called clough head, this is obviously where my dislike for this hill came from.

Things start to get a little vague here but I remember the rain lashing across the top of the mountains sideways, the wind smashing rain into my face making my cheeks sting and my eyes stream as i tried to get a glimpse of the path ahead. My brain was telling me to find shelter before i died of hyperthermia but Nick insisted that this was all part of the fun and nothing to worry about. A poor quality shower proof cycling jacket was not helping and i vowed to buy something more suitable if only god would allow me to survive this encounter.

The rain and wind continued for another 3 hours and many more hills, much of this time was spent stumbling around in the fog looking for a pile of stones. By the time we reached Fairfield the sky was starting to clear and day light was pushing its way through the clouds. This combined with an excellent scree decent and the nightmares were already starting to fade.

I managed to struggle over the last hill and down to the support team at Dunmail raise where a hot brew and tasty sandwiches awaited our arrival. People dashed around the mad woman, changing clothes and force feeding her before she ran off into the distance again, pursued by some fresh legged runner, apparently she had a few more hills to run before she could finish for the day.

My legs had gone and i could barely stand, i parked myself in the recently vacated deck chair and contemplated life after my first Bob Graham support, it would never be the same again.

Why do i run?

I'm often asked why I run, more specifically why I run long distances.

Its easier for me to answer this in 2 parts and probably easier for you to understand if you read only the first part as the second is probably drivel anyway.

So why do I run part 1.

I get fit, keep fit and live longer, who wants to die young?

So why do I run part 2.

I lived an unhealthy life for most of my twenties and right through to my later thirties, where I discovered the joys of Vodka, Stella Artois and self destruction. I was managing all this extremely well and enjoying my existence fully when I decided upon this ingenious idea of cycling the 1 mile to work every day, this would allow me to drink more without having to bother about being over the drink drive limit for my morning commute.

Honister

I gave Halfords one hundred of my hard earned pounds and rode off on my shiny new full suspension mountain bike. That was my first mistake; no self respecting drunk would be seen dead on a bike when he could just as easily get in a taxi.

My second mistake was to actually ride the bike home from work every day, in my defence I wasn’t aware what this would lead to, having had no previous experience of fitness.

Well one thing leads to another and before you know it I was planning secret assignations in the woods just outside Glenrothes with Polly, (Apollo Mountain bikes), trying to imagine what it would be like to ride a bit of rough stuff.

Anyone who has cheated like this knows you can’t keep these things secret for long, with hind sight I can see the mistakes I made. Not drinking all 24 cans of stella and leaving Vodka in the bottle at the end of a long nights drinking was not clever, but these things spiral out of control and before I knew it I was turning up at the girlfriend's house covered in mud, heading straight for the fridge and opening a can of .... Iron Bru.

As you can imagine she was furious, I had been caught cheating with another bike and failed to cover my tracks effectively. There was only one thing she could do “on yer bike” she said and to be honest I don’t really blame her.

I sat in my little flat alone listening to the crowds across the road at Raith Rovers football ground moaning about yet another defeat and decided there and then, I was leaving the good life behind. Polly  and I were going home to good old Littleborough to start a new life together.

Polly and I enjoyed many glorious days riding together over the west pennine moors. I look back at these times and smile, how we enjoyed each other, the long hard climbs and super fast rocky descents, learning each other and discovering the pleasures of a good rough ride.

It was luck again that moved me towards running, a physio suggested that cross training would help a knee injury caused by over developed quads. Running he said, would help to develop other muscles and pull my knee cap back inline.

It didn’t last long, 1 mile, but it had been a long time since my last run, it was also the first time in 22 years I had gone for a run voluntarily. My first “runners high” happened a few weeks later and I was soon addicted, scouring the local moor land and bridle ways, searching for the next high, which seemed to get harder to find the fitter I got.

The truth is, it was pure luck that my impulsiveness rescued me from myself and the self destructive path I was on, I had started the long road to recovery and with running as my companion I was on to a winner.

Its true what they say, life does begin at 40.