Keeping the faith.

Nuffield - Streatley

The only previous time I’d ever entered Grim’s Ditch well after sunset was during last year’s R86, having waved off the checkpoint team (who’d probably been waiting an age for me) with a jaunty 'thanks, I’ve got crew up ahead!' They seemed cheerful enough about it, but thankfully if they did throw visual daggers, it had been so dark I couldn’t have seen it even if I tried.

That night, I’d been conscious that the levels of light under the trees would imminently halve at best, and in the absence of a head torch I was in a major hurry to get down to my crew before the sunlight beat me to it. I knew that the only light I had in my phone would never be near enough. When the sun was firmly gone, my phone came out and its impossibly tiny and ineffective light led my way. To keep the chimp at bay I’d belted out Peter Gabriel’s Biko to the trees with all my heart.

You can blow out a candle, but you can’t blow out a fire,
Once the flames begin to catch, the wind will blow it higher…

But again, that was that and this was this.

Today I'd arrive and depart Nuffield well into the night time hours, so my headlamp already had plenty of action. Barely through the gate, I could see countless muddy channels to avoid up ahead, so I did a little balance beaming across the raised bits before reaching the junction and its familiar right turn into Grim’s Ditch. I was in a much more contemplative and optimistic frame of mind today, and it seemed particularly appropriate, as I’d just passed a church, to be singing the Jerry Garcia Band’s rendition of My Sisters and Brothers on my way down that ever troublesome trail:

I wanna say to my sisters and my brothers, keep the faith
When the storm flies and the wind blows, go on at a steady pace
When the battle is fought and the victory's won
We can all shout together we have overcome
We'll talk to the Father and the Son
When we make it to the promised land…

A clear view of the moon shone off to my left and I checked my watch to see that the sun would make its return within the hour from the opposite side. This at first delighted me, until I realised I should probably do my business behind the trees before daylight, lest I encounter other people who would largely frown upon it. Noticing the pairs of animal eyes on the other side of the gate staring away, I thought best to dig a deeper hole, while trying to identify precisely when I’d turned into some wandering outdoor survivalist.

It seemed so fitting that when the sun finally lightened the sky enough for me to switch off the headlamp, it was right at the junction where I’d been sat in that camp chair back in September. That place where I said enough is enough, it’s time to change the nature of this particular beast in favour of grit, and determination, and inner strength. I thought then my victory would be won that very night, albeit a bit more slowly, but I shut that down too for the lingering fear that my preceding illness would come back with a vengeance from the exertion.

Today I held such a strong acknowledgement in my heart that every single road led me to this moment.

I had been constantly reminding myself to stay right here in the present as I’d walked, no thought of the miles to come, what time I’d reach point ABC, only of the next step, and the one after that. I would chide myself with ‘that doesn’t matter. You are here and it is now and this is your next step, and this, and this. Stay here. Stay here…’

I navigated the last section of Grim’s Ditch in the rising light, pausing not only to enjoy long views of rapeseed fields in their yellow bloom but also to settle my increasingly queasy stomach. Ye Olde Grim Undulations did not disappoint once again, delivering their best nausea as per, but as I had time on this occasion to resolve it, I found a seat on a suitable log, stretched out my legs and gnawed my way through a packet of ginger biscuits. I’d thought to bring those along having remembered that the only thing which settled my morning sickness when pregnant with Rukai had been ginger granola bars. And would you believe that after all this time trying to crack that Grim’s Ditch nausea nut, I had finally done it. They worked a treat and are now on the list of forever ultra snacks.

The way I’d extended my legs when I sat meant I was putting zero weight on the soles of my feet. They were tired and I could feel them throbbing a bit, almost going into a mild spasm. I made a mental note to keep using that foot placement at rest after I noticed that by the time I started walking again, the throbbing had eased measurably and that level of discomfort didn’t come back for at least the next hour. This would become a technique I used for the duration – when my feet would demand a sit down, I’d sit, let them freak out a bit, they’d settle, I’d go again. It was utter madness, but it was sustaining my ability to keep moving. Yet another gift from this journey to keep in mind for the future, like one of those fire axes encased in glass to only be used in the event of an emergency.

Those revived feet carried me over the road and through Mongewell, aligned with the Thames but not yet beside it. I came across a pleasant elderly man out cycling with his dog alongside. He had a stack of questions when he spotted me sauntering along under blue skies wearing a headlamp, massive pack and a rain jacket. I told him what I was up to and we parted company.

We met again just before I passed through the churchyard in North Stoke, after which I prepared to start counting the 11 gates I knew were between that exit and the opposite end, when I’d be on the final stretch into Streatley. Unfortunately, it was barely a few minutes when the counting went out the window. A woman with two small dogs was headed towards me explaining how the way ahead was completely flooded and it wasn’t a good idea to go that way because ‘…it’s knee deep, so you could easily just head to the other side of this farm and…'

I heard very little of the rest, as leaving the Ridgeway proper wasn’t an option. Obstacles in the way just require an adjustment, right? I nodded and smiled that I was wearing waterproof socks so thought I’d have a bash anyway, and continued straight on.

But man alive, my gal was not joking. I regret not taking a picture of what I stumbled upon as it was so disheartening, initially appearing as if it were impossible to identify a way across. The Thames had clearly flooded over into the farmland, and because I had no canoe handy, I would need to put my faith into my trusty poles to guide the way. I scanned for anything below the surface that would indicate a higher level of earth underneath, and didn't see much, but fortunately there was no indication whatsoever of fast moving water, and no enormous dip in the terrain in front of me (from my current view along with my memory of the route) so I could reasonably estimate the water level would only be knee high.

Guided by my super sticks, I started wading across.

The up side was I had an immediate wash of everything from my knees down and an ice bath for my tired trotters. The down side was that my waterproof socks were now waterlogged. I continued onward through the rest of the fields which were mercifully free of flood water, navigating carefully through a particularly muddy channel alongside Little Stoke Manor Farm. The tape I’d so carefully placed was starting to gleefully detach itself and ball up beneath my toes. With that realisation, the chimp took immediate residence in my head, telling me how my toes would rub and it was game over.

Bad luck for that monkey when I grabbed it by the throat and explained how that ain’t happening. Because all of a sudden I fully realised where I’d gone wrong time and time and time again.

It was shocking how clearly I understood out of nowhere that I could not achieve this dream without a level of suffering I'd never previously been able to break through, mostly because in the heat of the moment, I'd never had enough time to become aware of - and to fully chew on and digest - its existence. I'd never been able to give the concept of suffering the same careful contemplative attention and pure logic that I assign everything else in my world. I'd never before reached the very edge of what I was capable of and found out how to push my way past it.

This was an absolutely game-changing revelation and I'm still quite remarkably giddy when I think back to that moment of discovery. Because, for my trail running, it is everything.

I reminded myself that some as yet unseen place in my soul would need to carry me beyond that maximum suffering, and if I failed to draw it out, I would fail, full stop. It was patently clear. I knew there and then that I would suffer as much as I had to until the job that needed doing was done. I knew I would recognise that precise moment in time.

I knew there would be no other outcome.

It certainly was a good thing I took that particular moment to punt the chimp into the Thames, because as I stepped into the road, my head nearly fell off when I saw the trail disappear once again under flood water.

You cannot be serious.

I stopped and blinked a few times, inhale, now exhale, and again. I looked up to the heavens. I heard Jerry Garcia reminding me to keep the faith, when the storm flies and the wind blows, go on at a steady pace...

So I captured a snippet of the scene for posterity and for sharing with my fellow running nutters while wading through. As the water level slowly dropped from knees to ankles, and the noise of my splashing subsided, I could hear an almighty racket from a goose turf war happening further ahead on the trail. One group on the river was having a go at another bunch on the grass and here I was about to pass straight through the middle. Give me those cowardly sheep again, please. This did make me lose it laughing though, as I thought of West Side Story’s Sharks and Jets, and pictured them all breaking into a giant avian production number.

I thought I was nearly done with the wading until I reached another bout of flooding blocking the way under the Moulsford Railway Bridge. The water here was swirling a bit and slightly ominous, looking as if it wasn't passable with any measure of safety. I took a long look at the railing to the right hand side of the trail, and decided that was the only way I could get through, provided it would hold my weight. Fast forward to me shimmying along with one arm wrapped around the railing for what seemed forever until I reached a shallow enough spot to step down. I laughed softly and shook my head at the ridiculousness of it all and trudged onward, while the tape balls in my socks continued to jig merrily under my toes.

Despite being so close to my Streatley base, I knew I had to get that tape out and change my socks or I’d have trouble brewing in no time. I kept scanning for a spot to sit down without luck, finally settling on the pavement after passing through that magical final gate number 11 which may well have been gate 111 at that point. I was pensive about the fact that I’d just got through a notoriously difficult space for the historic head game, which was made that much more difficult by the conditions underfoot.

It's done. You don’t have to do it again.

I finished the sock change, miraculously not taking on a chill because of that giant orange orb hanging about in the sky, and made my way through South Stoke in the daylight. I remembered staggering out of the checkpoint in the dark two years prior, when my Shinjury was brewing and preparing to ruin my day. I didn’t get much further than that bench midway between Goring Village Hall and the Bull Inn, when I’d called to retire from the race.

But today I stepped onto Withymead with a bounce in my step, happy that I was nearly at a place of prolonged rest and the hot shower I’d been dreaming about since the first onslaught of the previous night’s rain. A walker out on this sunny morning spotted the jacket and headlamp and eyed me with curiosity. The cyclist who passed next as I began the gentle climb into Goring eyed me with understanding, and a deeply knowing look to my face, to my headlamp, to my face…and grinned.

Maybe he could see inside? That blaze.

I moved onward to the junction, its hard right turn, past the café and over the bridge. There were so many people out on this bright morning. It wasn’t the dark drudgery of that repeated challenge where I’d always felt alone and worried on this stretch, but rather this reshaped one, with its reflections and shiny new discoveries. This, with its sludge and rain and troubleshooting and unlimited points of rest.

This.

With its end point that had now become merely a pause.

I crossed over the road early, lest That Bench invite me for a chat. I had a better place to sit; it was just there up ahead. When I reached the door of my room, I checked my watch to see it had taken me 23 hours to walk the 43 miles here from Ivinghoe Beacon, despite it trying to tell me I'd done 49. Sure felt like it. Still, I was profoundly happy with that outcome, because it didn’t matter at all how long it had taken, it mattered that I was there.

It mattered even more to already know that this time, I’d be leaving.

___

You got me feeling lately like a new world has begun
There′s a fire so deep in my soul, it's rising with the sun
I′m taking the future and I'm leaving the past
There's a sign on the road less traveled that’s saying don′t look back

Feel the wind in my lungs
The freedom on my tongue
My visions are becoming clear

Some people call it luck
I call it wakin up
I′m only going up from here

It's a brand new day

- Brand New Day, Sons of Legion

(7 / x)

Prologue: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/in-search-of-inner-greatness.html

Part 1: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/why.html

Part 2: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/when-adversity-comes-calling.html

Part 3: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/once-more-unto-breach-dear-friends-once.html

Part 4: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/dream-big.html

Part 5: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-big-chill.html

Part 6: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/let-it-begin.html