Running Barmore Island, Loch Fyne

I stayed in Tarbert, Loch Fyne, earlier this week waiting to get the ferry to Islay next day, and managed to get in a short early morning run around Barmore Island. 

Barmore Island

It's not strictly an island, as its joined by a causeway to the land, but apart from that it is surrounded by the Loch.

Causeway from the Island, with Stonefield Castle Hotel in the woods

A track runs all the way round the island, which makes it ideal for running, though you really need to pause to admire some of the views and perhaps observe the wildlife, such as gannets diving into the Loch.

sunrise from Barmore Island

The trail is mainly flat with a short hilly section. I just turned left when I got on to the island, and followed the track round. There is a short rocky section that involves cutting across the shore that looks like it might be more difficult at high tide.

hilly bit of the trail

 The distance round the island is probably about 1200m, you could run as many laps as you like or extend the run as I did by taking in the wooded grounds of the adjacent Stonefield Castle Hotel.If you were staying in Tarbert you could add in a run from the town turning off the main road where the Hotel is signposted and heading down to the Loch (see Walkhighlands for map)

The snooker table in the Stonefield Castle Hotel, made by H.Nelmes & Co. of Glasgow
(the food at the Hotel restaurant is excellent by the way)

A Quick Run in Suffolk: Minsmere Sluice

Pretty much wherever you are in the world, you can put on your shoes and  head out for a run. I had to drive to Suffolk and back from London today, so to reward myself when I got there I squeezed in a quick 6k trail run in the midday sun. I parked in the car park of the Eels Foot Inn in Eastbridge, and then found the start of a public footpath to Minsmere Sluice (come out of car park, turn right, path sign is on left just down the road). 

It was a very pleasant summer run accompanied by multicoloured dragonflies and the odd swallow. The only hazards were some brambles and gorse on the narrow path at the start of the run.

The outward run finished for me on the pebble beach by Minsmere Sluice. If I'd had time I would have explored the wider area, which includes the RSPB's Minsmere wildlife reserve, but I had to turn round and run back.

Sizewell Power Station.

'I set off to walk the county of Suffolk, in the hope of dispelling the emptiness that  takes hold of me whenever I have completed a long stint of work. And in fact my hope was realized, up to a point; for I have seldom felt so carefree as I did then, walking for hours in the day through the thinly populated countryside, which stretches inland from the coast... in retrospect I became preoccupied not only with the unaccustomed sense of freedom but also with the paralysing horror that had come over me at various times when confronted with the traces of destruction, reaching far back into the past, that were evident even in that remote place' (W G Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, 1995)

On the way back I drove past the London Olympic Stadium, came home and watched the excellent David Rudisha documentary, 100 Seconds to Beat the World, and I am now settled in front of the Commonwealth Games opening on TV with glass of wine. I am now officially on holiday.

100th parkrun in Hilly Fields

It was the 100th parkrun in Hilly Fields today. Since September 2012, people have been meeting at 9 am every Saturday morning in all weathers for a 5k run up and down the slopes of this South London park (see previous post for more on the history of the park). 

Last push to the finish at Hilly Fields today  - note 100 balloons
(photo from Hilly Fields parkrun flickr pool)

110 runners took part this morning, ignoring the fluctuations of the English summer climate. I left the house in a thunderstorm, but by the time the run started the parkrun weather fairies had arranged a dry but humid spell. To celebrate at the end there were parkrun cakes galore.

The great event was also commemorated in a Lego model of the infamous hill tackled by runners at the end of each lap, complete with cones, a marshal and dogs.

photo by @adeleprince, with some help from her son Hector's lego.

First finishers today were Steve Canwell for the men and Laura McCrave for the women. The course record of 15:39 set last month by Shaun Dixon (Highgate Harriers) remains intact - Shaun runs for GB in international mountain running championships, so presumably our little Lewisham hill didn't seem such a big deal to him!

Viv Albertine on running

Viv Albertine has a new autobiography out - Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys. At its core is the punk period of the late 1970s/early 1980s, when Albertine was the guitarist with The Slits, but the book goes on to describe her battle with cancer and a period of domesticity in Hastings after which she re-emerged in recent years as a solo recording artist and performer.

Viv Albertine playing with The Slits at the Alexandra Palace, London, in 1980 at the Morning Star's 'Beat the Blues' festival. I was at that gig, one of the best I've ever been to, The Pop Group, The Raincoats, Essential Logic and John Copper Clarke were also on the bill.

As she sets out in the book, she started running in Hastings to help her daughter train for cross country, but soon came to love it as a practice that helped her get her head and body together:

'I start to love running. It's like a meditation to me, I have to do it; I don't even notice the effort any more. I run in all weathers at all times of day; rain, cold, dark, hot. On one side of the sea wall is a road and flat fields of tall grass. I watch the swans gliding along a little canal...

After so long worrying and being fearful, living by the sea and running is giving me the mental space to think creatively for the first time in years. With the salty wind on my face, feet pounding on the shingle, Kate Bush, The Hounds of Love on my iPod, new thoughts enter my head...

Running also helps me accept my body After all the years of medical intervention, I feel violated. All those unknown men's hands up for years. To cope, I reacted like a rape victim, disowning my body, floating above it, not in it whilst it was happening... At last my body is beginning to feel like it belongs to me again and it's strong and healthy, serving me well instead of constantly letting me down'

Viv Albertine breaks into a run on the cover of her 2012 debut solo album, The Vermillion Border.
I saw here supporting Siouxsie at the Royal Festival Hall last year (part of Yoko Ono's Meltdown festival), and she was great.

Other musicians in motion:

Running with Madonna

Joe Strummer: Marathon Runner

Morrissey and Marr: The Running Smiths

The Runner - W.H. Auden (1960)

The Runner

All visible visibly

Moving things
Spin or swing,
One of the two,
Move, as the limbs
Of a runner do,
To and fro,
Forward and back,
Or, as they swiftly
Carry him
In orbit go
Round an endless track:
So, everywhere, every
Creature disporting
Itself according
To the law of its making
In the rivals’ dance
Of a balanced pair
Or the ring-dance
Round a common centre,
Delights the eye
By its symmetry
As it changes place
Blessing the unchangeable
Absolute rest
Of the space all share

The camera’s eye
Does not lie
But it cannot show
The life within,
The life of a runner,
Of yours or mine,
That race which is neither
Fast nor slow,
For nothing can ever
Happen twice,
That story which moves
Like music when
Begotten notes
New notes beget
Making the flowing
Of time a growing
Till what it could be
At last it is,
Where Fate is Freedom,
Grace, and Surprise.

Wilma Rudolph (USA) wins the 100 m at the 1960 Olympics

In 1960 W.H. Auden was commissioned to write a poem for a BBC programme about athletics - presumably tied in with the Olympic Games which were held that year in Rome.  My favourite section of 'The Runner' is the opening of the second stanza: 'The camera’s eye, Does not lie, But it cannot show, The life within,  The life of a runner' . A reminder that we can never see the interior life of the athlete - or anybody else.

More running related literature:

Jack Kerouac running down a mountain

'These forms who hasten by' - runners on the Pilgrims Way, 1920s

'You just had to run' - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Morrissey - List of the Lost

Burns Night Running Thoughts

Running in the Railway Children

A Midsummer Night's Running

Running to Paradise - W B Yeats

The Sky of a Saturday Morning - John Updike

The Road is a Strange Country - Rebecca Solnit

Once a Runner - John L Parker jr

Louisa May Alcott - 'A Joy to Run'

Running Bristol - beware crocodile hazard?

I was in Bristol last weekend for the first time as an adult. I was planning to join the local Ashton Court parkrun, but as I woke up early on the sunny summer solstice morning I decided to do a longer run instead to explore the city. I like walking around cities, but nothing beats running when you're trying to get to know an area, if only because you get to cover more ground (but still at a pace where you can take it in, unlike driving).

Bristol is a compact city with very different areas in close proximity - in the space of a seven mile run I took in woodland, riverside, industrial architecture, grand university buildings, city centre shops, and urban graffiti (oh and lots of hills!). Bristol has a rich and contested history of docks, slave trading, music, rebellion and more and it was interesting to pass through some of the areas linked to these.

Starting from Clifton, I crossed the famous Clifton suspension bridge, and then ran down through Leigh Woods and along the River Avon/New Cut (including the 'Chocolate Path', so called because the tiles look like chocolate bars), cutting back in to the Floating Harbour and the remains of the docks, before heading up through Stokes Croft and St Pauls and back round by the hospital and university.

Drinking fountain, Clifton Down  - 'Coming to Thee that we may drink and live'

Another runner in front of me on Clifton Suspension Bridge

The view from the bridge, including Leigh Woods on the right

Bristol Harbour

Saint Pauls

All very nice - but I'm afraid I didn't spot the 'Bristol Crocodile'. A few days after my run Tamara Bianco, another runner taking a similar route by the Clifton suspension bridge, took a photo of what she thought was a crocodile in the river - the latest in a number of unlikely but possible sightings. So if you are running in that area, look out!

Tamara Bianco's photo - see article in Guardian

'Here be dragons'

Friday photos (12): Running with Madonna: 'Those who run seem to have all the fun'

Madonna's been running regularly since the 1980s, not sure whether she's ever taken part in a race but she's often been photographed out and about with an assortment of personal trainers and bodyguards.

Most of these photos were taken around 1987 when she carried off some great running outfits:

Madonna running past Buckingham Palace in London, 1987

Madonna in Central Park, New York 2006

Boy George said recently: “As for Madonna, I always used to laugh at her running. And now I run! I get why she always ran. I wish I'd run when she did.”

Madonna's Hung Up includes the great line 'those who run seem to have all the fun'. She has also written and recorded a song called 'Run'. I don't think it's ever been released but you can find demo versions of it online - the lyrics include:

'If you wanna catch up to me

You better run as fast as you can

If you wanna live up to me

You better show me that you're the man

Am I going too fast

Am I going too fast for you baby

Never gonna finish last

Am I going too fast for you baby

Run run run run for your life

I said

Run run run but you better think twice'

Previously in the Friday Photos series:

New York High School Runners 1970s

Lilian Board, 1948-1970
Running in Tel Aviv 1942
Alan Turing the Runner

Marilyn Monroe the Runner
Tom Longboat, Canadian First Nations Marathon Runner
Runners in Space: an image from Munich 1972 on NASA's Voyager spacecraft

Jim Peters collapses in Vancouver 1954

Anita Neil - Britain's first female Black Olympian?

Running in the Streets of New Cross 1953

Running tracks from space