Eventrac News

Can running forge a connection to place?

27 Dec, 2024 12:33 By: Ceri Rees

One of the questions I like to ask people on our running camps, whether it’s in the
Lakeland fells, on Dartmoor, or up in the Western Highlands, is to recall a special
memory of a specific place. It requires them to visualise the sounds, the smells and
the touch of the place they are transported back to.

This is our unique place. It’s the place that can give us strength if we let it. But it’s
also a place which has emotional resonance. For some people, it means a childhood
holiday. For others, it’s the place where they had their first kiss, or cigarette or a
favourite shortcut home from school, or met with their mates. But the connection is
strongest when they also experienced some kind of solitude. The Spanish have a
word for a familiar place, where you can draw strength from, it is where you can find
your authentic self. They call it ‘querencia.’

I went on a course with Wild Wise and we were asked to draw a timeline through our
life and on one axis we wrote key moments in our life, which we associate with great
happiness and sadness. Not just one-off experiences but periods of time recorded
on the other axis. The dates don’t really matter. The important thing is it’s how you
remember it. Next you write a timeline related to how connected you felt with nature.
It’s not a science but it’s meant to be a subjective, anecdotal exercise. Almost
always, there is a strong parallel between both timelines.

I used to take environmental students studying in Denmark out on Dartmoor with a
not-for-profit organisation, who discussed Gaia. The Americans in the group, who
were all very switched on, have a word for it, when it gets a bit too inward looking,
which is ‘crusty’. Connecting with nature isn’t this. And it doesn’t have to involve
wrapping your arms around a tree and getting too earnest and morbid about the
world’s prospects.

Our Lakes guide Jacob Tonkin, whose whole family is from Keswick, embodies this connection to place. Hi grandfather ran a Bob Graham at a
time when it was still likes hen’s teeth. And his own BG was greeted at the Moot Hall
by his entire family. Jacob ran with his dog George, his closest companion, until he passed
away. Whenever he passes a cairn or a Wainwright, he places a stone with the letter G
on it. Jacob’s connection to his dog is the same as the hills they ran together. They
are inseparable and somehow permanent.

When people are offered the chance to think about their nature connection, it’s often
beautiful what they come up with. This is the response I got from a guest, who came
on our recent Lakes Fell Running Camp in the Western Lakes (England).

“I’d like to thank you again for the beautiful Wild Running weekend. I
found it invigorating, fun and exciting. And it has inspired me to continue to strive to “live my best life” (which will probably involve doing more such weekends). 

I loved the way the weekend was so “organic” - I’m quite an organiser myself, so it
was great just to let go and go with the flow for a change. 

"My Mum took me on holiday to the Lake District as a young girl.
(My Dad was in hospital, as he often was when I was a child, as he was a French
POW in Königsberg -today’s Kaliningrad- for most of the 2nd World War where he
did forced labour, including digging trenches when Königsberg was besieged by the

Red Army. He returned to France at the end of the war weighing 40kg and having
TB. Before the war, he’d been a good 400m hurdler, nearly good enough for the
French Olympic team apparently). We stayed at Eskdale Green. I’d been brought up
in Peterborough by the Fens, so I’d never seen mountains before and I was bowled
over. I immediately fell in love with the fells. I remember my Mum taking me up
Scafell Pike and for a ride on the Ravenglass and Eskdale railway (I still have the
mug!). When we left to go home, I cried - it was like leaving a new love. I vowed to
go back. 

"This didn’t happen until the late 80s, when I returned with my then girlfriend (with
whom I spent the week before the running camp in Broughton Mills - so another full
circle - see further down in this email for the other). I wanted to stay near where I’d
been with my Mum and found a B and B in Ulpha (however one found those things in
those days before the internet!). The B and B (which I found again this time whilst
cycling as it has a huge monkey puzzle tree in the garden) was fantastic - it had a
vast living room with an open fire and a pool table and a landlady who cooked huge
full English breakfasts and made us packed lunches for a pound (which was very
cheap even back in those days - we kept telling her she should charge more). We
went back several times before I moved to Munich in 1991. Unfortunately it is no
longer a B&B. 

My Mum died in July 2021. I didn’t get to see her in the last year of
her life because of covid. It wasn’t a good time in my life as I was already struggling
with the effects of the covid restrictions (I live alone).

"So I decided it was time to go back to the Lakes and to take some of my Mum’s
ashes with me. And I made the decision to go on holiday on my own for the first time
in the whole 60 years of my life, googled that cottage near the Blacksmiths Arms,
and booked it for 3 weeks in July of 2022. The “on my own“ bit didn’t really happen,
because every time I told friends I was going on holiday alone, they said they’d come
and visit me! So I went with the flow (and ended up having about 4 days alone) and
had such a good time that I booked the same cottage for this year - to fit in with the
running weekend. My two nieces (one of whom, Caitlin Rice, used to be a top fell
runner) came to visit back in 2022 and we went up the Old Man of Coniston where
we scattered Mum’s ashes. So talking about going full circle when we went up
Coniston with Jacob and he laid those G-stones at nearby fell tops. 

"The Lake District (especially the south-western area where we were, where there are so few tourists) moves me deeply like no other landscape I’ve seen. I guess it has a lot to do with my childhood memories. 

"I was a little nervous beforehand - will I be the oldest, unfittest, least experienced?
And when on the first evening people started talking about their ultra events and
mountain marathons and fell runners I’d never heard of, I did begin to wonder if I was
in the right place, what with my never having run further than 25km in one go (which
appeared to be a quick lunchtime run for some) and age-category records at park runs being my greatest claim to fame! 

But it turned out to be amazing and I want to thank you once again for that. Back
here in London I read your mission statement and indeed found you thoughtful,
approachable and inclusive. And the weekend was relaxed, playful and most
certainly NOT bland!"