“And as soon as I take that first flying leap out onto the frosty grass of an early morning when even the birds haven’t the heart to whistle . . . It’s a treat, being a long-distance runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered . . . Sometimes I think that I’ve never been so free as during that couple of hours when I’m trotting up the path out of the gates . . .”
Pardon me if you've read this before, but something and everything about that particular passage comes around again every January – well over 60 years now since Alan Sillitoe first wrote it. His 1959 novella The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, a mere 40-page spread within a collection of short stories, is still among the best examples of running literature, if only fleetingly capturing the pure essence and purpose of why people run.
Just when you thought you'd enough reminders already about hitting half a century, there's Dublin's highest mountain in front of you
Well, we decided to run up Dublin’s highest mountain early one morning last weekend, those such days already blurred by the strangely suspended time of year. And believe me, such spontaneous exercises do not get any easier or indeed feel better when done so slow. At least not as time passes by.
Irma Thomas always had it on her side. The Rolling Stones had it covered too. The rest of us just never seem to have enough, and I'm not talking about money. And just when you thought you'd enough reminders already about hitting half a century – the champagne breakfast, the exclusive red wines, the undeniable sense of life receding behind you – there's Dublin's highest mountain in front of you, and now you're the only one wondering if you'll make it to the top or drop.
North face
Fear not the obvious. At 757 metres, Kippure is no north face of the Eiger. In my experience it’s not even the hardest run up around any of the Dublin mountains, compared to, say, the rocky trails towards Seefingan (723m), the sharper inclines of Glendoo (586m), or indeed the south face of Killakee (539m). It wouldn’t even get a look-in around The Kingdom.
Depending on the exact approach, most of Kippure mountain is in fact on the other side of the world, the old gravel path which runs southwest from where the Dublin Military Road turns into the Wicklow Military Road also marking the border between the two counties. Yet all of which, naturally, lies on the doorstep of our own capital city.
For running purposes, the more practical approach is up the more gently winding tarmac road, purposely built further on along the Military Road, and marked by the gated entrance to the first television transmission mast built in the country, back in the summer of 1961.
Indeed, if it wasn’t for that mast, nothing about this Wicklow approach to Kippure would have changed since the Military Road itself was first built, between 1801 and 1809, in the immediate aftermath of the 1798 rebellion, the original purpose there being twofold: to enable the British troops to quickly infiltrate the remote highlands; and to restrict the ability of the Wicklow rebels to move unseen. Just southeast of this spot, incidentally, is where the River Liffey first rises.
The exact spot of the mast was purposely chosen too, allowing for the television signal to be distributed to secondary points on mountain summits around the country, beginning 60 years ago last weekend, with the first Telefís Éireann broadcast on New Year’s Eve 1961.
Like the tree that falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does a long-distance run even happen anymore if it isn't immediately uploaded onto Strava?
At the summit of its sunken dome, which also marks the Dublin-Wicklow boundary, the high point of the mast adds another 127m to Kippure, the concrete structure a little unnerving, still taking nothing from the magnificent skyline of rounded summits and the kaleidoscope of views below, from Blessington lakes to Dublin Bay, all laid out in perfect miniature.
Mountaintop clarity
So, back to the point of this exercise, and perhaps some of the mountaintop clarity which came with it: for all the slick devices and cheap thrills at our fingertips these days, the heart-rate monitors and tracking apps, heads often wrapped around with earphones too, it’s sometimes better to run entirely spontaneously for a change, without any measure of distance and definitely not time.
Impossible as it may seem to escape from it, there is something liberating too about letting go of the stopwatch, especially at an age when it simply shouldn’t matter anymore, and more so if you don’t want it to. And, like the tree that falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does a long-distance run even happen anymore if it isn’t immediately uploaded onto Strava?
There is nothing wrong with staying competitive in the running sense well past half a century, assuming you get that far, and in that case it will most likely be against the clock – the body clock especially. Maybe part of this is to prove age is just a number, when of course it absolutely is not. And maybe all this can be a powerful and liberating thing too, the only possible danger being when it becomes an obsession.
There is no harm in slowing down either. Most runners I know will come to you either looking for or else giving out advice, especially around this time of year, maybe some little tip or recommendation to help see the year through. Noel Carroll wrote a book about this, the need for some all-year-round advice, something that would hold true come winter and summer, something like "keep dry in the wet, keep warm in the cold, keep cool in the heat"; or "run when you don't feel like it, as it is easy when you do"; or, better still, "run with an ache and never with a pain – and learn to tell the difference".
Only it’s not always advice that is required, something which might help in the short term; it’s some encouragement, to do or try something different, like running up a mountain without a stopwatch, which may or may not make it any easier, depending on the exact passing of time.
