The moor vs the streets

While thousands of runners raced around London this weekend, we chose instead a slow, sun-dappled route around Dartmoor

We were sitting around on the sofas in the comfortable lounge area of our holiday house, after just finishing a four-hour run on Dartmoor yesterday. It was our latest Way of the Runner retreat, and it had been a beautiful spring day, not too hot, the moor in fine spirits, cuckoos calling, wild ponies grazing on the hilltops, the sun dappling through the trees, the ground soft but dry underfoot (most of the way). We even plunged into an idyllic, icy pool, a waterfall tumbling and churning the water.

Now, showered and clean, hungry, with lunch almost ready, most of us were on our phones, looking back at photos from the run, or checking out the results of the London marathon, which had been on that morning. Tigst Assefa from Ethiopia had run a world record in the women’s race. And who was that Kenyan who had won the men’s race? Most of us knew friends who had run, and our Instagram feeds were filled with sweaty, smiling faces of people showing off their finisher’s medals.

Damian Hall, our guest host and one of the best British ultra runners, sighed contentedly and said: “I wouldn’t swap running in London for our run this morning.”

After a long silence, he joked: “I was expecting a resounding round of approval after that comment. Not silence!”

It made me laugh. I knew exactly what he meant. Running around a city had nothing on the sun-drenched, ancient temperate rainforest we had run through, full of dwarf oak trees (Piles Copse), or the long, desolate descent from Three Barrows peak, or the coffee stop in the sun at Shipley Bridge. But, also, most of us sitting there knew that there was something special about a big city marathon, about putting it all on the line and going for it, pushing yourself in that big race you’d been preparing for for months. It’s not that we preferred that, but for most of us, it was not so clear-cut as it was for Damian. His comment had left us pondering (well, it had left me pondering).

The good thing is, of course, that we don’t have to choose. We can run on trails and in marathons. It’s not a binary choice. There is room for everything. And I, for one, am glad about that.

***

Talking of marathons, since I last wrote we’ve had the Boston and London marathons, and it seems the conveyor belt of East African talent is still going strong. John Korir blasted a 4.40 mile up the infamous Heartbreak Hill to decimate the rest of the elite field in Boston last Monday, while in London Sebastian Sawe threw in a savage 4.16 mile to break away from a star-studded field including the great Eliud Kipchoge, Tamirat Tola (the current Olympic champion) and Jacob Kiplimo (the half marathon world record holder).

Both blistering wins, and yet, even someone like me, who follows Kenyan running quite closely, has to admit, I don’t really know much about either of these runners. If they were from anywhere else other than east Africa, the running world would be having its collective mind blown right now. But they’re from Kenya? Oh, right. OK.

Korir won the Boston marathon despite falling over at the start. One detail I love is that his number came off when he fell, but he stopped to pick it up. Worried that he might get disqualified if he didn’t wear it, he then tucked it into his shorts for the entire race, and pulled it out and held it up as he crossed the finish line to show he still had it. There’s a wonderful innocence about that.

It was great to see people I’ve had on my podcast running well, with Abdi Nageeye in a mad sprint finish for third in London - he was pipped on the line - and of course, Kipchoge, who finished sixth in London.

In the women’s race in London, Rose Harvey - who was a full-time lawyer until a couple of years ago - finished ninth, while Vivian Cheruiyot was fifth. Vivian was one of the first Kenyan runners I ever met, when I turned up at a house in Teddington in south-west London almost 15 years ago. That day, and the article I wrote about it, was the launchpad for my book Running with the Kenyans, which was life changing for me in many ways. So it was wonderful to see Vivian still out battling for victory in a big city marathon like London.

Meanwhile, back on Dartmoor, we sat down to a post-run lunch of uglai and sukuma wiki, and then - like a team of elite Kenyans - we all went and had a nap.

I’ll leave you for now with a shot from the final run of the weekend … maybe next time a few of you will join us. Marathon runners and trail runners alike are all welcome. Of course.