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Book review - Feet In The Clouds
There is no way to describe the weather here today in Sydney as anything other than “unseasonably hot”. In fact it’s something of a shock after several weeks of cooling weather and increasingly thicker clothing to step outside into what would be described, except for the fact that the calendar suggests it ought to be otherwise, as a very warm summer’s day.
It is not what I expected, nor is it particularly welcome for it is now 2 p.m. and I have not long been awake. Having completed the first of this week’s night shifts at work, I arrived home at 7 a.m. shattered – the first night shift always being the worst – and after ensuring my windows were closed against the sound of early commuters, and the blackout curtains carefully shut against the worst of the daylight, I quickly fell into a fitful sleep.
Too few hours later I am outside my back door in running kit and debating with myself the value of what in this heat is going to be a gruelling and largely unnecessary run. Gruelling only because of the heat and my exhausted state, and unnecessary because no-one on planet Earth or beyond is even aware of my scheduled run today, and even if they had known of it, would care still less whether I completed it or not.
But here’s the thing: I’ve just finished reading Richard Askwith’s Feet In The Clouds, a particularly evil yet brilliantly crafted tome designed to simultaneously make you feel utterly inadequate as a runner, and yet absolutely determined to find your limits as one. For many people with ready access to the fells of which he writes, that will meaning running up and down remote mountains in vile weather, constantly risking injury and at times even death for no other reason than it’s a pretty neat if utterly insane thing to do. For those of us with nothing but hot, smelly suburban streets to jog about in, it’s a little less wild, but no less insane as we feel obliged to push the boundaries ever further in the quest for ... whatever it is that Askwith evokes so strongly within.
So I head off, already sweating and needing a drink (I’ve only just had one) and telling myself I will just run for fifteen minutes – enough to have something in the running log but nothing that will cause me too much suffering. I turn right and then right again to avoid the first hill; at the end of the lane I turn left to stay on the flat and check myself over: hot, sore, sweaty and already threatening to cramp. Pretty much what I expected. But as my thoughts inexorably return like some cursed soul to the irresistible suffering described by Askwith in Feet In The Clouds, I find myself comparing again my pathetic whimpering to the genuine agonies of the heroic fell running champions he so mesmerizingly writes about. And then it becomes a matter of pride to turn this run into at least something worth putting in the logbook. And so as if by magic that is what happens.
Back at home I puzzle over what did exactly just happen. Most running books that commemorate the exploits of champion runners tend only to highlight my mediocrity as an athlete and dissuade me from attempting anything beyond my reach. Askwith similarly highlights my mediocrity with his frankly astonishing tales of champion fell runners, yet at the same time makes me desperately want to have a go. Most epic tales of champion runners do quite the opposite. For example, I am currently reading Pat Farmer’s Pole To Pole, detailing his run from the North Pole to the South Pole, no part of which I can even begin to believe is within my scope of ability. Askwith on the other hand, despite the adverse conditions and danger, will have you out in all weathers running for the sheer thrill of it. Even though I live nowhere near any picturesque fells at all, and despite the unseasonable warmth of the day; despite my exhaustion from night shift and with no-one standing over me with a stopwatch, he had me running for no other reason than it was a thrilling thing to do.
Feet In The Clouds is something of a “perfect storm” of a book. A great accessible setting, colourful champions, and superb writing that forces you into your running gear, desperate to get out there and have another crack at it.
I only wish I had read this book years ago.
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April Fuel 2014
