To hell with common sense.

I am off me chump. This maybe isn't the news I think it is. Anyway, the other day I was seized with the idea that I wanted to do the Thieves Road Ultra in August. I don't have any time to train. I just like the name and I like the idea of the course. I stumbled across it on-line on Saturday and said to Peter. He tried to talk some sense into me and I said "I think I'm going to impulsively just enter it." I gave myself the day to think about it anyway. We went to Gullane and had a nice run, although it was only 11 miles and my legs were sore by the end of it.

I told Peter there would definitely be no stopping for butterflies, but when it comes down to it, I like a bit of a stop as much as the next man. It took us 5 hours to cover 11 miles. Actually it was fantastic. It was like the butterflies had heard we were coming and organised themselves, like the cheering crowds at the London Marathon, all along the way. I think I'll just do a photo dump now.

"Amazing!". I know. I slept on the idea of the ultra and had an elaborate dream that could be interpreted in lots of ways - but I had a long run to do and I was tired, and then I realised the next section would be at night. I was talking to Jim Hardie and told him I couldn't do the next section because I didn't have a head-torch. We both accepted it. That was that then. Peter was somewhere in the background, and he thought I could do it. There was no telling him.
Then I realised I had a head-torch on, so I turned to Jim and said - "of course I've got this head-torch on, but it's not a good one. Not good enough for running with". But then I took it off and looked at it and it was quite a good head-torch with a strong, bright beam.

If you're anything like Peter you are now fast asleep or you are picking your nose or remembered something you need to do in the next room. It's okay. My dream is over now.

My dream sort of seemed to be saying that although I was saying I couldn't do the run, I in fact could do the run. Hmmmm. So I entered it and then told Peter and then he did too.

Then we went up to the Pentlands for a change, only stopping to fill ourselves with coffee and cake first. I didn't take my good camera, much to Peter's disgust, but it's heavy and I'm worried it's giving me scoliosis. I took my shitty little camera, which would appear to have a big dirty spot on the lens. It was a nice day as soon as we got running and now I was "training for an ultra" I had a relaxing sense of not needing to hurry. Then coming off Scald Law, chatting away with Peter I suddenly went right over on my left ankle. It was a sore one. Bad enough so I had to sit down for a good few minutes before the reverberations of tendons twanging calmed down. I was scared to put my foot down. We were about as far into the run as we were going - mile 4 of an 8 mile run, so if I couldn't bear weight it was going to be a long day..........but I could bear weight....in fact it felt.....right as rain. It was almost with a sense of disbelief that I got up and ran off. I was careful to do no bounding but honestly I would have expected at least that tweaky, weak feeling you get when you've rolled it a wee bit.
Was I going to get off with it Scot Free?

It seemed so. Then later in the evening it started to swell up and got incredibly sore. I have no idea why. Something must have been pressing on a nerve because for a while I couldn't weight bear at all. It was ridiculous. I felt like Joe Simpson in Touching the Void just trying to get through from my computer to the kitchen. I'm always very reluctant to take any ibuprofen but I couldn't actually hack the pain so I did. Peter plunked my tea in my lap as I sat with my feet up suffering not in silence. By the end of tea-time the pain had gone quiet. By the time I went to bed I could weight bear a very little bit. I thought I was going to call in sick for work the next day, but by the time I went for a pee in the night I could weight bear pretty well. In the morning I thought I'd just go for it and managed to bike to work and do my day's things. I went out a run on it today (Wednesday) and if anything the other ankle is worse than the left one. What was that all about? Who knows.

Anyway, I was wondering again today why on earth I thought it was a good idea to do an ultra, and I remembered a poem by Patrick Kavanagh called 'To Hell with Commonsense". I'll try to steal it off the internet for you. I don't actually think it's the best poem for poetics but I love the sentiment.

More kicks than pence

We get from commonsense

Above its door is writ

All hope abandon. It

Is a bank will refuse a post

Dated cheque of the Holy Ghost.

Therefore I say to hell

With all reasonable

Poems in particular

We want no secular

Wisdom plodded together

By concerned fools. Gather

No moss you rolling stones

Nothing thought out atones

For no flight

In the light.

Let them wear out nerve and bone

Those who would have it that way

But in the end nothing that they

Have achieved will be in the shake up

In the final Wake Up

And I have a feeling

That through the hole in reason’s ceiling

We can fly to knowledge

Without ever going to college.

Patrick Kavanagh

1905-1967

Yep that's it. We want no secular wisdom plodded together by concerned fools...  ....nothing thought out atones for no flight in the light.
Meaning the best things in life and the things you look back on most fondly are the daft things you did because something in you wanted to.  Amen.

Although I may be laughing on the other side of my face come Augsut 11th.