I am running down a hill. I am running down a hill in Scotland. I am running down a hill while holding the hand of my squealing, skipping two-year-old daughter. I am running down a hill while wincing from a dull, groaning pain in my right ankle. I am running down a hill in jeans and a jumper. I am running down a hill nonetheless. From high on the Pentland Hills, Edinburgh is at my feet.
I live here. I live in Scotland.
And I can breathe.
The Pentlands today are a green and brown cluster of hills stretching twenty miles from Biggar to Edinburgh; some 430 million years earlier they were the mush of an ocean floor that separated continents. As the land masses shuffled nearer, the sludgy depths were propelled upward, eventually piercing sea level and moving to the sky. The Pentlands were showered with volcanic debris and hewn by ice. Aeons passed. It is an existence of unfathomable proportions. I try to always remind myself of that: even the humble Pentlands are greater than any monument humans could build.
From Edinburgh, the three northerly hills of the Pentlands dominate the skyline, concealing the wilder, rougher parts beyond. Above an artificial ski slope at the aptly-named Hillend, the trio of Caerketton, Allermuir and Capelaw rise from east to west, taking the form of an undulating ridge when viewed from central and southern Edinburgh. While skiers are trapped on their brush ramps, the runner knows no fixed bounds. I look to Caerketton, Allermuir and Capelaw every day. They are a permanent part of my existence. Whether streaked in sunshine or silhouetted against a night sky, they remain constant, as they have done for millions of years, as they will forever. Sometimes they are concealed by cloud or hidden by haar. That does not matter; I still see them.
On my twelfth day in Edinburgh, I could stand it no longer: I went for a run in the Pentlands. Injured ankle, be damned. Where the hills succumb to Edinburgh’s southerly margins and within earshot of the perpetual rumble of the city bypass is the dead-end village of Swanston. I parked, re-tied my laces and started my watch. From this departure point, a direct route to the summit of Allermuir climbs some 300 metres in a little over a mile. Ian Campbell, a runner with Edinburgh-based Hunters Bog Trotters – a club eponymously named after the area of marshy ground between Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags, and once considered too disrespectful a moniker to allow registration with the Scottish Amateur Athletics Association – ran up this way (and back to Swanston) 29 times over three days, clocking up an overall ascent to match Everest. I had more modest ambitions: a single climb. Barring a momentary downhill respite, the path rises continually at an average gradient of 14 per cent. If it was a road, it would come with a warning. I would run for as long as I could, I reasoned.
Up I went: immediately into woods, over a stream, along a lane framed by Swanston’s thatched cottages, higher on a track of rising gravel, through a gate and forward on a rutted path before reaching open hillside. I looked at my watch: seven minutes. Ahead was a wedge of grass, angled like the steep, straight climb of a rollercoaster track. I yielded to Allermuir: I began walking. The liberation and relief of being able to move in the hills was replaced by the realisation of the pain the activity was causing. The entire right side of my body – back, hip and knee – had taken sympathy with the malfunctioning ankle, with each vying for attention. My ankle seemed connected by fraying strands of string, as if one clumsy manoeuvre might detach foot from leg. Back, hip, knee and ankle aside, I had forgotten how hard this was. I was heaving for breath, like swimming in cold, choppy water. I could breathe, of course, but the quality of the breath was insufficient, and as insufficiency mounted, a desperate fatigue emerged. When I could rouse the effort, I moved in a defiant shuffle. Ostensibly, I walked. It was dogged walking: hands-on-thighs walking, not-stopping-to-admire-the-view walking. But it was unmistakably walking. I was the epitome of irony: the walking hill runner.
There was a final slog up a wall of long grass etched with boot marks before I could go no higher on Allermuir. It had taken 18 minutes to travel a mile. I embraced the pillar perched on the summit and – rather than the earlier fleeting glances left and right that were quickly halted by the need to divert eyes to the ground – I concentrated on the land around me. There was something else I had forgotten: the extraordinary nature of this wild pursuit. Clouds were fidgety and low, the wind brisk. I would stand here countless times again: at sunrise and sunset, in mist and rain, in the cocoon of night, but this – the first time on Allermuir – could not be outdone. Transported back to the moment I stood on the apex of Geal-charn, I felt as I had then: as if in love, suspended in disbelief, incredulous that I had been all the way down there not very long ago and now I was all the way up here. Allermuir stood at the centre of the universe: a vision of hill, moor, sea, firth and city. The names of the places were incidental. I perhaps thought as Robert Louis Stevenson, the Edinburgh-born writer whose family leased a cottage in Swanston, had once done. Writing in Samoa, he conjured up a vision of his spiritual home: ‘The tropics vanish: and meseems that I – from Halkerside, from topmost Allermuir, or steep Caerketton – dreaming – gaze again.’ As I ran across the ridge to Caerketton, the setting sun was ablaze, blanching mountains in the faraway west in a red halo.
The essence of Nick Hornby’s biographical Fever Pitch is that Arsenal Football Club is the author’s constant in life. Amid the flux of education, work and relationships, happiness, sadness and indifference, Arsenal and football remain resilient to the vagaries of Hornby’s being. Come what may, for Hornby, it is Arsenal yesterday, Arsenal today and Arsenal tomorrow. The affection is timeless and unconditional.
Running is my thread, my Arsenal. The sport links a scrawny, unknowing twelve-year-old boy on a cross-country course in Worcestershire to a husband and father on the run I will do tomorrow. Naturally, the business of life intervenes. Running has at times been pivotal; at other moments peripheral. But the thread – at times twisted and stretched, tense and ravelled – endures.
The snarliest knot in that thread coincided with children. Six weeks of two-hourly Thursday night sessions – with twitchy-eyed Christine from the National Childbirth Trust explaining mucus caps and episiotomy – had not prepared Fi and me for the birth of Arielle. During the first session, the couples were handed images of new-born babies, some still decorated in the blood of childbirth. ‘What are you thinking?’ Christine gently asked.
‘I’m thinking . . .’ Fi paused, framing a statement as a question. ‘It looks disgusting?’
Our baby was not ‘disgusting’, but the rhythm of our individual and mutual lives, something we had moulded over many years, was destroyed in an early morning in a maternity ward overlooking Westminster Bridge. Our first week as parents was spent in a near-delirious trance. Looking back, we were undoubtedly in a state of shock. We were not sleeping, of course, and a cold that had lingered in the fortnight before Arielle’s birth overwhelmed me, becoming glandular fever.
Something had to give. I stopped running.
Even at three months, Arielle preferred nocturnal living. One night – a night that was probably no worse than many others – was, on reflection, a psychological turning point. I wrote in a diary: ‘I struggle for one all-defining adjective as every day the reality of being a parent is shaped differently. Compromise is the great battle. Where do my priorities lie? With my baby? She comes first, not some inconsequential trip to the track or a ten-mile run. But in giving Arielle life, has something in us died? No parent should feel guilty about maintaining a sense of independence, should they? Yet I feel ashamed for even intimating that my personal pursuits might – for some minutes or hours of a day – be more important than the upbringing of my daughter.’
Tentatively, I started running again. The knot loosened.
It is not always like this. Sam Hesling would be the runner-up in the Carnethy 5 hill race in the Pentlands a fortnight after becoming a father for the first time. Having had the ‘race of his life’, moving from fifth to first in the descent of the final hill, he was beaten by a second in a sprint finish. ‘How are you finding it?’ I had asked Sam, grimacing, offering the sympathetic face of a man who knows.
He seemed surprised by the question. ‘Good,’ he nodded. Better than ‘good’; he was inspired. ‘It’s made me more determined – determined for her to see me race at the highest level I can. I want her to remember her dad doing well. I don’t want her to think her dad is a big idiot!’ The words I had written years earlier jolted me again. Sam and I, we would run on.
Ramsay’s Round was a blurry proposition in London. The quest was an exotic journey in a foreign, far-off, snow-capped land. The mountains surely belonged to fiction. I gazed metaphorically at those high places through a rose-tinted prism, envisaging the day I might leap heroically from summit to summit under a brilliant sky. The statistics – the distance, the up, the down, the time – were too incomprehensible to be important. But then, in Edinburgh, the round possessed proximity and context. When the wind blew hard on the 164-metre summit of Blackford Hill, when I could scarcely stand against its ferocity and had to retreat to sheltered ground, I imagined what it was like at that moment on Ben Nevis or Beinn na Lap or Binnein Beag. Terrible, I knew.
But that did not stop me from taking the Road to Swanston.
I could reach Braidburn Valley Park, a neat, green valley split by a stream amid Edinburgh’s prosperous southern fringe, within a half-mile of home. I entered via an alley called the Fly Walk and turned right onto the crest of a bank of grass, a century-and-a-half after Stevenson trod this way. Born into the family of lighthouse engineers in 1850, Stevenson found his light in words: he had written Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by his mid-thirties. Aged forty-four, he was living in the Pacific and opening a wine bottle when he cried out: ‘What’s that?’ He then asked his American wife Fanny if his face looked ‘strange’. Hours later, having been overcome by a stroke, he was dead. Stevenson was buried on top of a hill above the ocean. The height of Mount Vaea is almost identical to that of Allermuir and Caerketton, the hills overlooking the Forth. Presumably, Stevenson – an atheist who did not want to ‘live a life as one falsehood’ – had no need to go higher.
Stevenson was no hill runner. His prodigious talents did not stretch that far. Not that such a pursuit would have crossed his mind. In Stevenson’s lifetime, running up hills in Scotland was not a done thing, certainly not in the recreational sense. Queen Victoria had helped see to that. It was not until 1895 – a year after the novelist’s death – that a man timed himself in a run from Fort William to the summit of Ben Nevis and back. On a day ‘exceedingly hot and unsuitable for mountaineering’, according to the Inverness Courier, William Swan, a hairdresser and tobacconist who would pause for a cup of Bovril at the top, completed his run in 2 hours and 41 minutes.
Paradoxically, the words of a non-runner writing in a world before hill running offer an impeccable summary of the sport. Kidnapped is set in the aftermath of the Jacobite Risings in the mid-eighteenth century. Accused of being an accomplice in the murder of Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure and pursued by Redcoats, David Balfour, accompanied by Alan Breck Stewart, ‘set off running along the side of the mountain towards Ballachulish’. David, narrating, breathlessly recounts his run: ‘Now we ran among the birches; now stooping behind low humps upon the mountainside; now crawling on all fours among the heather. The pace was deadly; my heart seemed bursting against my ribs; and I had neither time to think nor breath to speak with.’ The frantic episode concludes with a list of familiar sensations: ‘My own sides so ached, my head so swam, my tongue so hung out of my mouth with heat and dryness, that I lay beside him like one dead.’
Having cut through the park, I would follow a path signposted ‘Robert Louis Stevenson’s Road to Swanston and the Pentlands’. I travelled the way Stevenson went on his journey from Auld Reekie to his holiday home, up a broad ramp of grass and along an ever-rising track that today borders back gardens and a school, past metre-high graffiti on the harling wall of a garage declaring BAN NUKES, and onward to Swanston. The description of his journey along what Stevenson knew as Cockmylane is immortalised on the wall of Swanston Brasserie, close to his family retreat: ‘A bouquet of old trees stands round a white farmhouse and from a neighbouring dell, you can see smoke rising and leaves ruffling in the breeze. Straight above, the hills climb a thousand feet into the air. The neighbourhood, about the time of lambs, is clamorous with the bleating of flocks; and you will be awakened, in the grey of early summer mornings, by the barking of a dog or the voice of a shepherd shouting to the echoes. This, with the hamlet lying behind unseen, is Swanston.’ Stevenson was home.
In a way, I was too. In a little over two miles, like Stevenson, I was in the Pentlands, moving upward. And this much I knew: if I wanted to run Ramsay’s Round, I needed to take the Road to Swanston.
I did, again and again, and – as things do when you persevere – the road became easier. Having followed Cockmylane one Sunday, I reached the point at which I had resorted to walking on my first ascent of Allermuir, and every subsequent visit thereafter. Because I had stopped here once, it was instinctive to break the pattern again. This time, I told myself, I will carry on running for a little longer, even if it is just a dozen steps. Once I reached the top of the rollercoaster track, the gradient eased considerably and there was no longer an alternative: the going was still up, but not enough to justify walking. I ran every step to the summit. Pausing only to lay a hand on the cold metal of the toposcope, I set off to Capelaw, running all the way. I turned at the post on the highest point, noting how tempting Castlelaw, a mile to the south-east and illuminated by god-rays, appeared, and ran there too, the final climb a slimy, rain-eroded stripe through heather. Then I ran all the way home: every step on the bank of Allermuir, reversing the Road to Swanston, into the twinkling embrace of a city. The Pentlands would, of course, reduce me to a walk again – many, many times – but I was not here to conquer hills; I was here to conquer myself.
A balmy September gave way to the realism of October. Night, creeping inexorably forward, gobbled day. A long winter was coming. But the hills still beckoned. It was dark when I parked at Swanston and ran into the woods. For the first time, I was conscious of the gushing roll of the invisible burn and the rushing of leaves that clung hopelessly to branches until the sounds became inseparable. My existence withered to the dancing train of torch light. The rest was shadow. I slipped through the empty village and up the gravel, with the dim outline of Caerketton rising ahead. The bolt of the gate snapped shut in an ugly clack – a noise I must have heard a dozen times, but like the burn and the leaves, it seemed like the first. Twice I looked back, shining the torch down the track, expecting to see something following, dwelling on the ‘fiendish noises’ Stevenson said characterised ‘lone places on the hills’ at night.
I climbed higher, stalked by the fear of I-do-not-know-what, glancing occasionally at a smudged moon. Night was still and poised. As I raised my head, propelling a beam of light across the rising ground, picking out long grass and tussock, the torch caught a slumped, rectangular shape, like a glacial boulder – an obstacle I had not encountered here before. There was a further stone to the right, another behind. A moment of trembling dread. Trepidation had found its physical manifestation.
But then: relief. Cows, I realised. Lying down cows. Just cows.
Such was the motivation of paranoia’s tentacles, I seemed to float up Allermuir. As I stepped onto the last rise, placing my feet in the grooves of those who had been here before, I saw a clutch of bent-over figures, then – as I looked more closely – there were many more, perhaps twenty of them, all apparently men, silent and focused. They ignored me, as if I was some phantom or a figment of their imagination. The army, it seemed, had use for the hills at night as much as the runner.
I was going west, on the slushy plateau of Capelaw, when my attention was grabbed so violently it was as if one of the men had struck me in the ribs. My torch trapped the glare of what appeared to be numerous pairs of tiny lights, shining sharply, hovering a few inches above the ground. Soldiers, I decided. What else? Hundreds of them, crawling through the grass – and I have run headlong into a manoeuvre. I could see them in my mind’s eye, wriggling forward, propelling themselves on elbows, only for a hill runner to appear in their midst. One of the nearest pairs lifted and shifted, and seemed to disappear. I heard the undergrowth rustle and I breathed easily again. Sheep.
Moving up and down Allermuir, and out and back to Capelaw, kept Edinburgh on a shoulder, a comforting presence of sprawling radiance. As I progressed to Castlelaw, the city vanished behind the hills, but gradually, a pulsating high emerged from the tangle of imagination. Being temporarily purged of fear was a delicate state. The baleful sound of the wind rattling the rope on the flagpole atop Castlelaw reignited a dread I could not extinguish and I ran furiously for Swanston.
Like swimming in the sea, I would never get used to the unknown depths that darkness presented, never quite get over the worry of what might be out there. As winter gripped Edinburgh, I stood on the icy rim of Caerketton, pointing a camera along the murky ridge to Allermuir. The flash momentarily revealed some apparently hideous shape. I descended immediately. Another time – in the search for altitude gain in as little time as possible – I was on a second consecutive climb of Allermuir when I spotted the prick of torch light rising to meet me. As our paths crossed, I greeted the runner. The hooded man, wordless and morose, stared quietly ahead, as if I had not existed, continuing his apparent journey to the summit. I abandoned a third climb.
The Pentland Skyline, a 17-mile horseshoe along the broad-backed ridges of the northerly range, begins like a hill race should. Starting from a slope adjacent to the ski area, runners are immediately sent trotting on their toes up a triangle of grass, the first steps of an unremitting climb to Caerketton. The qualities that make Scottish hill running especially hard – gradient, vegetation, rubble and risk – are of less significance here. In benign weather, the ridges of the Pentlands are safe and wide, and even in October, when the race is traditionally held, much of the terrain is perfectly runnable. Such runnability comes at a cost: the racing is fast and furious. I clock the fourth mile, albeit dropping from Castlelaw on a military road of loose stone, at five minutes and 59 seconds. At the time, Murray Strain held a course record that was 20 seconds per mile faster than any other finisher in the race’s history. Strain had averaged eight-minute miles for a course that includes a cumulative ascent of Ben Nevis with Arthur’s Seat perched on its rugged shoulders.
More than half of the route has been run when the racing line swings north across a rougher, less-frequented western ridge. This is where the Pentland Skyline infamously ‘gets you’. Hare Hill comes first, with its descent on pathless moor, then Black Hill, a sprawling bulge clothed in heather and dotted with peat hags. By now, racers are straggled across the hills, gaps growing to several minutes. You could easily assume you are alone. I run in unison with another. When I break into a walk, he walks. When I recommence running, he runs. It is a peculiar dynamic. I give the green light for submission. He willingly submits. We trundle up Black Hill, catching a glimpse of blue and yellow ahead. The runner, Oleg Chepelin, is a previous winner of the race. Head slumped and feet dragging, he mutters something indecipherable as we pass.
Runners in the Lake District speak reverently of the moment they glimpse Joss Naylor on the fells. To be acknowledged by Joss – a simple nod or a ‘come on, lad’ – is to be welcomed into the fell running fraternity. Joss is not waiting for us on the steepest section of Bell’s Hill; Charlie Ramsay is. ‘Charlie Ramsay!’ I exclaim. He nods.
As we near the top, we catch another: Jon Gay, the first to run what had once seemed unattainable – a winter Ramsay’s Round within 24 hours. First Chepelin, then Gay. I suppose they would be scalps in road running or cross-country. Not in the hills. Their suffering was a cause for humility, for it was the Pentlands doing the vanquishing, not us. Besides, it would soon be my turn. As we move onto Capelaw, my hour-long ally opens a small gap. He glances back, then seems to lift his knees a little higher in response to whatever he had seen in my eyes. In a moment, I am dropped.
As I descend Caerketton, I fleetingly take my eye from the furrow of the path and glimpse the curve of the ski slope. I know the finish is very close. I long to be there, to be able to cease movement, to be able to sit down. But I am checked by a memory, a recollection from my earliest days in Edinburgh.
I am running down a hill, a 430-million-year-old hill.
I am running down a hill and Edinburgh, Stevenson’s precipitous city, is at my feet.
And I can breathe.