Unfinished Business

I feel as if the Big Run is not finished yet. It is definitely an incomplete work.
Not because I canceled the Edinburgh show, it's not that. In fact I'm glad I didn't go ahead with Edinburgh. The practice of stand-up has been useful to me in many ways, especially for freeing my voice, but after a while it can become a kind of elective tourette's. Anyway, I could care less whether I make people laugh. And I want language to be a much smaller part of what I do in the future.
So I want to do another Big Run. But this time I want to do it differently.
There are a number of things I want to change.
I think I would like to go in a circle rather than from one place to another. I want to undermine the idea that it is a journey.
And I want to keep going round the same circuit. I like the idea of repetition.
To emphasise the closed nature of the circle I'd like the run to take place in a closed geographical environment.
Around the coast of an island would be ideal.
Going round and round also has some practical advantages. After a couple of circuits navigation should become more or less automatic. And I could establish caches of food and equipment so that I could travel lighter and enjoy the running more.
The island of Arran has a coastal path which might fit the bill. Arran isn't too hard to get to and there are, as far as I can figure out, lots of places to eat and sleep. Once round the island is about 65 miles. Depending on terrain and weather that should be two or three days.
I have to decide how long I would want to spend on the exercise. I want do enough circuits to really hammer home the sheer pointlessness of it all. I really want to kill the whole idea that it's somehow some kind of "achievement".
I had thought of doing 81 circuits. The number has a magical quality that I like. But that could take the best part of a year. Maybe I should go for it. I can't think of a lesser number which has the same kind of power. Anyway, let's leave that aside for a bit. Suggestions are welcome, by the way.
The blogging was an important part of the First Big Run. I'd like to have video the next time. That would be fun.
You know, writing this has almost convinced me that this is what I need to be doing. I feel as if the decison will be made if I just click on the Publish Post button.
Well, here goes. Click.
PS (29 March 2010) I leave this here as an example of the kind of brain fart I have to contend with as part of my creative process.

The Road to Endorphia - Show Cancelled

OK folks, I have decided to cancel the show. I just do not have the energy for 32 performances in 21 days. Not even for considerably less than that.

I did the first show and it was a piss poor shambles.

It's over three weeks since I finished the big run and my heart rate is still significantly elevated, I still have muscle soreness and lack of energy. All symptoms of fatigue. I just do not have the energy to do the show.

In the past I might have kept going on alcohol and cigarettes and coffee but I have too much respect for my health and sanity to do that nowadays.

To those of you who said you wanted to come and see the show, I apologise. But seriously, I'm probably saving us all an uncomfortable hour in a small room.

The Road to Endorphia - Edinburgh Festival 2009

John O'Groats to Lands End - Day 47 Lunchtime

13.05 arrive at Lands End. I'll tell you all about it later. Running
well and feeling fantastic.

Thanks for support everyone, texts, emails, blog comments, phone
calls, all kinds of help. Many thanks.

John O'Groats to Lands End - Day 46 Evening

In my tent 18.5 miles short of Lands End. Very tired. 34.5 miles today.

Breakfast from Angie at the Mega Bites Snack Van someplace on the A39. Lovely woman - gave me free fruit and cakes.

Atlantic Highway did my head in and eventually I had to get on some quieter roads. Got lost a bit in Redruth and Camborne. Camborne looked a bit dodgy.

Got to Hayle very late and paid 24 quid for camping - would have walked away but didn't have the energy.

All cosy now. Eating. Sleep soon.

G'night.

John O'Groats to Lands End - Day 45 Evening

Funny old chat this morning with the geezer who runs the snack kiosk just outside the campsite. While I ate a sausage sandwich and had a coffee that is.

"What you doin' then?'

"I'm on a journey. From John O'Groats to Lands End."

"Oh. Another one."

He was priceless. Told me a story about visiting Bulgaria on a package tour when it was still under communism with a ... Anyway, this is a family blog.

I had got up late again. Listening to the rain patter on the tent had not got me bouncing up I'm afraid. By the time I finished breakfast it was almost eleven again.

Anyway I kept banging on down the A39 running when it felt right. Although now my left shin had a tender swelling I really do not like.

Passed through Camelford where I bought chocolate and Irn Bru for lunch.

Eventually had a lovely supper of chilli and rice and salad at the Halfway House Inn just before St Columb. Then had another good old chat with Rebecca who works there and a chap at the bar. Very pleasant.

I'm in a campsite 53 miles from Lands End by Googlemaps. Which means I've only covered 24 miles today. Must get on the road earlier tomorrow.

Cheerio!

John O'Groats to Lands End - Day 44 Evening

I could not get up out of bed this morning. The sea view came with a gusting Atlantic wind and sporadic rain. I could hear the rain battering down on the tent as I lay there. This time I wasn't trying to wait it out I was just knackered. Maybe I had stayed up too late reading the night before. Yeah, the campsite had a book borrowing service so I found a copy of an old favourite, The Thirty Nine Steps, and read a chunk of that. Story about a Scottish chap who is fed up
with London and ends up running around the countryside.

I eventually got going just before eleven. And I found myself walking in some of the worst rain I have met so far. The wind from the west I have been fighting with on and off since leaving Bristol was driving the rain so hard it stung my face and blinded me so I was having difficulty seeing the oncoming traffic. Yikes.

I stopped for traditional Sunday Lunch at the West Country Inn, the last pub in Devon as you leave for Cornwall. Roast lamb with everything followed by a beautifully presented but ultimately uninspiring cheesecake.

After lunch the rain never really got going again and I plugged away till about four thirty when I stopped for a pot of tea and a battery charge at a pub in Kilkhampton.

So I'm in Cornwall now and by the way the A39 is called the Atlantic Highway. I love that, I really do, the Atlantic Highway.

As the evening warmed up I got out of my waterproofs and managed to get some jogging done. At about eight I spotted a campsite and decided to call it a day.

I'm lying in my tent camped in the Cornish Coasts Campsite just beyond Bude and 11 miles short of Camelford eating breakfast-in-a-can for supper.

GoogleMaps has just told me that it is 77 miles to Lands End. I can't imagine what could stop me being finished by Wednesday (today Sunday 19 July). Anyway, I feel disinclined to count chickens. My right foot feels well dodgy - I haven't mentioned it because I've had so much other good stuff to whinge about but I have a recurring pain in my big toe joint and along the upper arch which comes on sometimes seemingly randomly and sometimes while doing hard running. Anyway, I'll be able to give it a good long rest in a few days.

Hope to see some of you real soon. I'll probably head over to London for a couple of days when I'm done and then back to Motherwell by way of York.