Cortina via Europe

 “When the Eastern bloc collapsed and Soviet rule fell I could hardly believe it, my new life began. Today we still see, there is not peace, there are wars in Iraq, in Syria. As we stand here we must understand that our freedom and our independence must never be taken for granted, we must cherish those who we love and guard against these ways of thinking that would see history repeat itself.” – Helena, guide Auschwitz.

 

My journey to Cortina began not with one pair of shoes, but 40,000. I gasped involuntarily as I entered that room, and tears ran down my face, a red pair of children’s shoes conspicuously lies in front of the others. When I passed back under that infamous gate at Birkenau as many had never done my outlook had fundamentally shifted. What has this got to do with running? Technically nothing, but after that moment, for me, everything; both freedom and good fortune mean that I am able to make choices as to how I spend my time, others have not been and are still, not so fortunate.
Reflections can be as painful at times as they are happy at others. I want to be unflinching in writing these kinds of memoirs. In both writing and reading them I feel that they can, and should be as cathartic, and uncomfortable, as they can be insightful and uplifting. Never have I felt so thankful or heartbroken in the same moment as I felt then, and it was perhaps inevitable that it would affect everything that followed.

Afterwards we continued on to the staggering city of Krakow, both of us often quiet, reflective and consumed in our own thoughts, we sat out in the square there, drank a couple of beers and held hands a little tighter as we walked back to our hotel that night. The following day we drove to Slovakia to the Tatras, an area not dissimilar to the Alps, but far less well trod. Our journey continued to the great city of Budapest and then the little gem of a city that is Ljubliana, the Slovenian capital. Everyday that the sun rose I reflected on those parting words from Helena, and I read the histories of each of our stops, sometimes with amazement and sometimes with sadness. We drove via Lake Bled in the Julian Alps to our next stop in the beautiful Dolomites, to the town of Cortina D’Ampezzo. (Bled, by the way was every bit as beautiful and serene as those top 10 lists of most beautiful places promise it will be.)

I reflected throughout Cortina on that day in Oświęcim, as I had on many of the days previous to the race, and many of the days since. I have never been so emotionally devastated by any experience, and I have never felt so singularly grateful for the freedom that I have, and now, admittedly ashamedly feel, that I have often taken for granted. I am somewhat conscious that weaving this experience in among my memories of Cortina may come over as trivialising, far from it, the experience made me feel penitent for self-pity and even more so when it comes to running issues. I am aware that by the same token it might seem pious, but I’ll take that risk.

I started out of the market square of the stunning town in the already hot sunshine, and soon began the first uphill slog of the day – in fact, the first 23 miles is basically one long climb before 7 miles of downhill! The first thing I should say is that the path was very busy, this is a mass start race (1500) and we started outside of the pen and shuffled for probably 3-4 mins after the starting gun went. Duncan and I had decided to just run our own races and I quickly lost sight of him in the melee, occasionally spotting his green shirt on switchback sections. The crowds started to get to me – for those who haven’t read it, my Plymouth half blog pretty much covers how much I hate crowds and mass starts. I was trying to constantly hustle through and dodge poles, to little avail. When I reached the dry river bed on the way to the biggest of the cols, the temperature was sweltering and I was grouchy about my inability to make headway.

I stopped. I looked up. I marveled. Like the Himalayas, this was a landscape that I had dreamed of seeing since I was a child. It fused my two passions – the sea and the mountains. How? The mountains of the Dolomites are formed from ancient coral atoll. Stood there in that hanging valley, high in this most magnificent of landscapes I was struck by how ridiculous and wasteful it was to be irritable, and I castigated myself for it. Forget running for time, you don’t know what is around the corner, live in the now, moving through this geological gem of a place. From that moment I shifted; I took stock, took pictures and took time to look up and appreciate that I was there in this most mind-blowing of landscapes. I still haired down the final hill, albeit a little disappointed that it wasn’t a particularly technically challenging race, slowing down to avoid injury ahead of Lakeland when the grip on my shoes turned out to be a bit pants on the damp stuff and instead enjoying the smell of the damp earth and pine that enveloped me.

How had I considered letting this place become a footnote rather a chapter? Had the past few days taught me nothing?

Because this landscape deserves your full attention; it’s formation, scale and uniqueness are mind-blowing.

I crossed the finish line in a nothing to write home about 9hrs and 25mins, but I was neither sore nor injured afterwards and I had taken the opportunity to admire the staggering, otherworldly beauty and indulge my inner geologist. For the first time in a race in ages I was as peaceful as I am when I train. The atmosphere was fantastic, I shared some miles with a fell runner from Yorkshire and Duncan and I eventually covered around 20km together. Mass starts aren’t for me though I have firmly decided, and that will be my last! I am going back there at some point though, something low key where I can muddle along and really take it in alone along with all of the emotions that will entail.

I have had a tough year, the knee injury took it out of me and I have logged a fairly substandard mileage of late, but there are more important things in life. It is easy to forget that we have such freedom, that even now, our kin in many places do not. Running gives us the opportunity to see amazing places and experience beautiful things, but only if we remember to step outside ourselves, appreciate that we are free to be there and look up.

The world is beautiful. The freedom to appreciate it is priceless.