Swordfight
There’s a scene in my all-time favourite film, The Last Samurai, in which Tom Cruise’s character, Nathan Algren is getting an absolute shellacking with a wooden sword in an impromptu battle. It’s hammering down with rain. He fights to the best of his ability, but time and again he’s no match for his opponent and is thrown to the ground. He isn’t fully rehearsed in reading his enemy and knowing the right way to fight back. He hasn’t yet failed enough to have learned how not to fail. Every time you think he’s not going to get up again, he does. (All but the last time, but that’s not where we are for the purpose of this story!) Where we are, is that a race that’s succeeded in throttling me twice is in my sights for the third time on 2 September. The Ridgeway 86 - Ivinghoe Beacon to the Avebury Stones. Basically you run a hilly trail marathon before you complete the Race to the Stones 100k route. There are certainly much bigger beasts to tame in the ultra world but this is my beast. T...