Wild running: a night in the Shropshire hills
I am running in the dark. The hour is late; the twinkling lights in the valley over 500 metres directly below us are disappearing by the minute. All around me are mineshafts, treacherous tar pits and freezing ponds. I can’t see them because we have turned our headlights off. Nor can I rely on the moon; a tiny sliver in the sky. Every now and then a sheep looms large, a dim white glow almost lighting the way. We are well on the wrong side of zero – patches of snow and gleaming hoar-frosted trees confirm it. My feet are so wet and numb, I think trench foot could be a real possibility, and to cap it all, my trousers are falling down (my bottom is so cold it must have shrunk).
This is wild running. I am in the company of two ultrarunners, Andrew and Yvette Primrose of the wild running and bushcraft company Farafoot, for whom this seven-mile amble over the top of Brown Clee, the highest hill in Shropshire, is barely a warm-up. Usually, they arrive at the top of the summit, survey their territory – Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons over to the west, north-east to the Peak District and south to the Malvern hills – and ask: “Which way around Shropshire, clockwise or anti-clockwise?”.
I find the scale of their undertakings impossible to comprehend. They tell me their honeymoon was a 90-mile circumnavigation of the county in the pouring rain, and I decide they must be reinforced with adamantium (like the mutant superhero Wolverine), rather than the soft stuff of my bones. They even prefer to run barefoot, where they can, for a more intimate connection with the terrain. What must they have thought when I turned up in Grandma’s fur-trimmed gloves and my eight-year-old’s Russian deerstalker, ready to answer the call of the wild?
My main concern was the distances we would be running, but I needn’t have worried. My guides were very careful not to overdo things – they wanted me to have a good time. We managed three runs of only seven miles in total, punctuated with foraging for tasty mouthfuls of wood sorrel (lemony) and bitter cress (like it sounds). Finding food en route is very much in-keeping with Farafoot’s “pared down” approach to long-distance running. Gels and salt tablets – the staple of many a marathon runner – are dirty words. Andrew and Yvette take dried meats, fruit and nuts and forage along the way, like hunter-gatherers.
As dusk fell, I much preferred to run without headlamps. We had been chatting before, but something about the dark demanded quiet and we fell into a rhythmic step – running more slowly and carefully, anticipating boulders or puddles. Looking far out across the valley to the horizon, there was the faintest suggestion of my home town of Shrewsbury in the form of a pale orange glow. Over to the Welsh hills, past the Wenlock Edge, it was reassuringly dark. “Just don’t look behind you,” said Andrew, shuddering. “That’s Birmingham.”
By our final run, I had lost feeling in my legs and was very happy to pull in at base camp, high up in the coniferous plantation of the Burwarton Estate, almost at the very top of Brown Clee. Andrew told me it might be the highest camp in the UK, which was no comfort, given that the temperature was dropping like a stone and all I had to sleep in was a brush shelter made of sticks and leaves. It was, however, impeccably constructed, with four springy spruce pine beds around a central (essential) campfire, attended to by bushcraft expert and wild food enthusiast Nick Davenport.
I took instantly to Nick, our main provider of food, warmth and shelter. He had me at “pigeon jerky”, which he had marinated in soy and ginger and dried in his oven. His fruit leathers sealed the deal. By the time he got out his flint and steel to light our fire, I was ready to have his wild babies.
After a delicious lamb and hazelnut stew, I wriggled into my extreme-temperature sleeping bag, though even with it there were times I considered jumping in the fire. The other three seasoned campers, who have been sleeping in snow holes almost since birth, dropped off the moment they hit the pine. One of them snored; a reverberating, fulsome snort. At least it would keep the wild animals away.
There was nothing for it but to lie still and watch the little circle of sky in the smoke hole above lighten and bring on the dawn.
“Oh, what a shame,” said the other three when they peeked outside in the morning. “We didn’t get any more snow.”
• The next Wild Running Overnight Tester for all abilities is on 15-16 July and costs £75. Other dates are available on the website at farafoot.co.uk. Farafoot also offers longer distance five-day (and night) Wild Running Challenges. More details on Facebook at facebook.com/bushcraft.by.farafoot
Source: Read Full Article
