Number 5 of 50: Canterbury

The giggling slowed us down

Canterbury was a particularly important run to do. It's where Dad died and it's the home of the marvellous Pilgrims Hospices, for whom my siblings and I are all doing challenges this year to raise funds. You might think that getting us all together for this 5k would be laden with meaning and grief, but in fact, this is the run so far I've laughed most during. It was also quite slow again, but I should say that all my siblings ran a lot faster than me, taking it in turns to hang back and keep me company.

Handsome family

With the everyone in different coloured hi-viz and Anna Flashdance-ready in legwarmers (something about cold shins) we were quite a sight to see as we trotted through the streets of the historic cathedral city of Canterbury chatting and giggling. Our Fisher family noses (appropriate, since they come down the line from the Archbishop) clearly marked us as a family to anyone who cared to look.

Warm *and* on trend

As you would imagine, Canterbury has a long and illustrious history. Its position relative to the Kent ports made it strategically valuable and it's changed hands a number of times since being taken from the Celts by the Romans in the first century AD. The cathedral was first built in the late sixth century and, after another few hundred years of being fought over, Canterbury fell to William the conquerer in 1066 and became the site of a motte and bailey castle, too. 

Cathedral view

The thing about such an important and historic city is that it gets absolutely stuffed full of tourists all year round. If you want to run in it, even if you want to do it slowly, it's best to give the huge groups of European teenagers with matching backpacks a wide berth.

Ignoring the historic gate

So, rather than run round past the Cathedral (as we did in quieter Ely) we settled for taking a photograph of it across the park. It is a pretty important cathedral, being the seat of the primate of the Church of England. It first became a pilgrimage site (and inspiration for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales) following the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170 - a tale that should give anyone given to overly dramatic exclamations of frustration pause for thought.  

Anyway, we avoided tourists, pilgrims and shoppers and headed along the river to Westgate Tower which was built in 1379 and is the largest surviving medieval gateway in the country. It's now home to a museum which we didn't have time to explore and a pretty spectacular view that we didn't take advantage of either. This is why running is no fun.

One of the rather lovely things about Canterbury is how quickly you can find yourself away from the crowds and running through countryside, and that's what we did. Hambrook Marshes run along the river out of Canterbury to the west. They're an area full of interesting and beautiful wildlife, most of which you miss when you run through it. What we didn't miss was the rather peculiar grafitti on the railway bridge we passed under and couldn't resist stopping for a quick photo.  

Hambrook Marshes

Guff!

Lovely tree.

Only slightly trench-footed, we returned to Canterbury through the rather lovely Westgate Gardens. There have been gardens here since the fifteenth century and it's home to some truly beautiful trees. It is also the site of Tower House, an early Victorian home that belonged to Catherine Williamson who became the first female mayor of Canterbury in 1939.

We don't usually take a post-run selfie, but on this occasion, as we finished the run and walked back along the river, we bumped into another Fisher nose on a small old lady, so we all took a picture together. This also nicely demonstrates where I get my not very big head from.

So, here we all are doing different challenges this year to raise funds for Pilgrims Hospices. Steve and I (I'm in the middle, Steve is on my right) are running fifty 5ks in fifty different places. Anna (over my left shoulder) is taking on the Pilgrims Way Challenge, a 55k walk from Wye to Dover. Clare (in front of me) is running in the Brighton Marathon and Simon (over my right shoulder) is taking part in Dock2Dock London, a 10km swim between Victoria and Albert Docks. We are hoping to raise £2,500 between us and we'd be really grateful for anything you can contribute. The fundraising page is here.

Five Fisher noses. And a Roman.

Pilgrims Hospices provided Dad and all of us with such compassionate and brilliant care last year when Dad died. We all want to thank them and this feels like the best way to do that.

And that's the end of this Canterbury Tale. Except to say if you have a local 5km run that you think we should do, let me know. We still have a long way to go and the logistics of finding places to run is harder than the running. We're really keen to see as many new places as possible and look forward to hearing from people.

Number 4 of 50: Wandlebury Country Park

Wandlebury Country Park is a very lovely country estate in Cambridgeshire. It's set in the Gog Magog Hills and is a mixture of woodland and meadow. Now, for those of you who live in non-Fen places, our hills may not seem very impressive, but for us flat-landers, they take us an ear-bleeding 75m above sea level and we consider them to be quite something.

Wait..did we..improve?

Car park selfie

Two rather amazing things happened on this run. Firstly, the sun came out. It was an early February morning after what felt to me like the longest, darkest, most miserable January on record, so having some sunshine accompany us on the run lifted my spirits enormously.

Secondly, as we started to run and headed past the iron age hill fort, I experienced something quite new to me. I was cheerful! I was running and I was cheerful. Hello birds! Hello trees! Hello fascinating archaeology! I didn't actually know what to do with myself, so I thanked my lucky stars and decided to go with the flow. Each time I felt good, I ran a little bit faster and that happened three or four times. It was really quite exciting. 

Iron age hillfort and sunshine

The iron age remains at Wandlebury are a rare example of a bivallate hillfort - one protected by two ditches. It was first inhabited more than 2,300 years ago by the Iceni - an ancient British tribe. I always find something uplifiting about seeing that kind of archaeology up close - all the lives of people that have gone before gives me a connection to the past somehow, and on this morning, with the sun over the fort, it was particularly beautiful.

We turned into the woodland and it felt like we had run into the very beginning of Spring. The dappling of the sun through the trees and the explosion of snowdrops and crocuses kept our spirits lifted and as we turned a corner and ran through an avenue of trees it really did feel like the perfect run.

Mother nature doing her thing

Proof that I was there

But with running, as with all things, but especially running, pride comes before a fall. Remember that enormous hill I told you about at the start? Well, Wandlebury has its fair share of undulations and as quickly as my feeling of joy had arrived, it disappeared and I realised I was half way up a massive hill and absolutely knackered. I was paying for the cheerful speed of the first half of the run (during which, it turned out, I ran faster than I have for a very long time, possibly ever) and the second half felt almost impossible.

The top of the hill

Well, except it wasn't. Because once you're at the top of a hill, you have the grim satisfaction of being there and then running back down it and, as Steve pointed out, I had eaten up a fair chunk of it before I realised everything was shit again. So, back down the hill and through more beautiful woodland and the run was over.

We carried on walking through the woods and meadows and past the buildings at Wandlebury after our 5km was done. It was a beautiful morning and one of the really lovely things about this challenge is that it gets us up on a Saturday morning visiting places we don't know very well. I'm looking forward to some of the local places we plan to run in through the seasons this year, and I'm hoping that maybe...just maybe...I'll have another joyful run.

Number 3 of 50: Wicken Fen

Living, as we do, in the Cambridgeshire Fens, Wicken Fen Nature Reserve was always going to be pretty high up the list of local runs. We often visit Wicken - I think it's the first place I decided it might, after all, be just about OK to live outside London. Huge skies, beautiful walks, interesting history and wonderful wildlife all combine here to make it a great place to visit. 

The couple that runs together stays together

Just me and Steve for this one and the first for a couple of weeks after illness, either mine or someone else's, had scuppered two of our planned 5ks. This had made me anxious - being defeated by January lurgy before getting into my stride on the challenge was not a good thing - and I wasn't 100% healthy, but I was determined to get another one under our belts. 

Plod plod plod

As soon as I started, I realised my lungs were still very tired after a persistent cough I can't shake. If I struggle straight away with breathing, it often makes me panic and stop, but I knew I couldn't just give up. For a few years I worked with an excellent running coach called Arran who selfishly stopped being a running coach and is now a friend, which is lovely but less useful. When my breath just wouldn't come, I imagined her on my shoulder telling me to check out the rest of me - see if it was just my breath, or was there another problem.  So I went through everything else and discovered, to my surprise, that the rest of me was running pretty well - nothing was tired or achy or needing to stop - and it was just my cold, tired lungs that were struggling. That meant I was able to relax, leave my legs to run on automatic and focus my energy on helping my lungs to cope. Gradually, the panic I'd felt in the first instance began to calm and, although my lungs were definitely struggling, the run started to feel more possible. As well as helping me get much stronger, Arran also taught me to work out how to beat some of my running demons.

And so, to Wicken Fen. I discovered this week, after having visited it dozens and dozens of times, that it has been in the care of the National Trust since 1899. It is likely that the straight, raised waterways that cross it are Roman in origin and were used to transport good from the River Cam. In the 17th Century, when much of the Fens were drained to make way for agriculture, Wicken Fen remained undrained and was instead a source of peat and sedge which was harvested by the local people. In order to get to the peat, of course, a certain amount of drainage was required and today you can see one of the original wind pumps that was used, before the advent of steam or diesel, to do the job (it was restored in the 1950s)

We ran past the windmill and headed towards Adventurers Fen. I like the name - always feels like we're striding out like explorers, even though it's actually a very well kept series of foot and cycle paths. In the winter, in the early evenings,  it's often possible to see short-eared owls here - well worth braving the biting winds to watch.

Although this isn't strictly a wildlife blog, this was a particularly wildlifey run. We were, after all, in one of the richest natural environments in the country. It has been a place of interest to naturalists for centuries - Darwin used to come and search for beetles here in the 1820s. This run yielded several of my favourites and allowed me to demonstrate that I'm no more a photographer than I am a runner. 

Clearly a stonechat

Obviously a little owl

First a stonechat hopped along a fence beside us (picture, clear as a bell, left). They're attractive little birds that make a noise like two stones being hit together. Then, just before we turned at the halfway mark, I noticed a couple with a telescope trained on a log-pile. I hoped they were trained on a little owl, and my hope was rewarded. My experience of people with telescopes in camouflage gear is that they always look a bit scary, but turn out to be lovely people happy to share their sightings, and so it was here. And I took a picture through the lens. Kind of.

Definitely a marsh harrier

One of my favourite birds is the marsh harrier and they are a frequent spot at Wicken Fen, so I was pleased but not very surprised when, as we headed back, one came soaring over the trees ahead of us. They are brilliant birds and genuinely lift my heart when I see them. That this (right) is a picture of one is something you'll just have to trust me on.

Blatantly konik ponies

The other interesting local resident of Wicken Fen is a herd of konik ponies. These hardy, attractive horses from Eastern Europe range freely across the Fen and have been introduced as part of the National Trust's management of the land - the grazing animals (they also have highland cattle) are essential to for the wetland and grassland plants to establish. They were quite a distance away from our run, but they were all there in their gang going about their grazing business. As you can see.



So, after the success of the mind-over-matter approach at the start and the wealth of wildlife to distract me, there was just time to take a quick snap of the rather photogenic visitor centre (lovely cafe, shop and viewing points, none of which we took advantage of today) and look back at the waterway snaking through the reeds before heading back to the carpark and home.

This run felt like it put us back on track and I actually felt pretty cheerful at the end. It is a great way to start the weekend, particularly when the environment is one as lovely as Wicken. As ever, the point of this 50 5k challenge is to raise funds for the brilliant Pilgrim's Hospices who gave Dad and the family so much care when he died last year. If you have any spare cash, please consider supporting our family fundraising efforts. And if you have a favourite 5k, please do tell us about it.

Number 2 of 50: Ely

As my home city, Ely (pronounced Eee-Lee, not Eee-Lie or Eye-Lee or Ellie) was always going to be early on in the 50. The route we ran wasn't my usual running route; it was a much more interesting one and we had lovely company in the form of excellent local friend Vicky (who is making a cracking job of RED January) and, possibly for the first time ever, our daughter Lucy joined us for a proper family run

Bright eyed and bushy tailed

Two bad things happened. First, I paused my watch when I took some photos and forgot to start it again. This, right at the start of this challenge, means I won't have a neat set of runs all in the same place recorded by the same device. It also meant I was extremely grumpy all the way round because more than I hate running I hate not knowing how long I've been running or how far.

Fortunately, Vicky was also recording the run, so I can still give you a picture of it here. Look! We went even further than 5km! Be sure I shall resent that 230 metres for a long time to come. The second bad thing is that the evening of the Ely run I went down with a horrible cold and cough that a week later I still haven't shifted. So, there you have it, running makes you ill.

The first place we headed to was Roswell Pits, now a nature reserve and a site of special scientific interest, but originally the site of gault pits - a type of clay that's used to shore up riverbanks. The lake is intersected by Kiln Lane, a hill I decided we'd run down at the start rather than up at the end (more on our Fenland hills later). There are many things to love about Roswell Pits: it's a rich source of fossils, it has some amazing wildlife and is a lovely place to walk. Obviously, when you run through it you miss all the good stuff.

The other thing about Roswell Pits is that it's the site of one of the very best views of Ely Cathedral. We were running on a rather overcast day, but if you catch it at sunrise or sunset or on a beautiful day it is absolutely breathtaking. Views like this make it easy to see why they call the Cathedral 'the Ship of the Fens'. Built at the heady heights of 26 metres above sea level - the highest point around here - you can see it for miles and miles and it's easy to imagine, before the Fens were drained, that she looked just like a ship in the middle of an ocean.

We headed towards town along the river. Ely is on the River Great Ouse, a 143 mile river that runs from Northampton and to the North Sea via the Wash at King's Lynn in Norfolk. The flood meadows either side of the river are home to a wide range of birds and animals. In fact, I spent a very happy minute or two watching a stoat prance around nearby when I walked the same route a few days later. Much of the land around Roswell Pits and the river is now looked after by an organisation called Ely Wildspace which is doing a brilliant job of protecting the area and has put up a series of information boards about the kind of wildlife you can see here.

Anyway, all too soon, we had run the river section and, having run down Kiln Lane, were faced with the hill we had to run up - Cherry Hill. Now, having failed Charfield Hill, I was determined to beat Cherry Hill. And so I bloody should. Compared to most places in the UK, the hills in Ely are really nothing more than slopes. So, I took a picture from the bottom and then grumpily and wheezily dragged myself to the top, ably assisted by Vicky and Lucy who cheered me on all the way.

The bottom of Cherry Hill

And the triumphant top

After the hill, it was straight past the cathedral. There has been a religious building on the site since the 670s and work started on the existing Ely Cathedral in the 11th century. the Octagon Tower was added after the collapse of some of the original building in the 14th century.  It had a bit of dodgy 16th and 17th centuries (Neither Henry VIII nor Oliver Cromwell that big on cathedrals & the like, I understand) but actually got through those tricky times remarkably unscathed. A couple of restorations over the next couple of hundred years, and here it now is.

The thing I love most about this building is that it has at least one, sometimes two regular peregrine falcon visitors. I can watch those beauties for hours as they soar above the towers and perch on the ledges and sills.  

And that was pretty much our 5k. We ran through the market square (which I refuse to photograph because the beautiful original marketplace has been replaced by the most revolting buildings) and there was just time to take a photo of one of our excellent local businesses - Silver Oak Coffee. Not only does Silver Oak make absolutely delicious coffee (roasted locally), they also, until she left for university, kept Lucy in gainful employment and taught her how to do latte art. Highly recommend stopping in for a coffee if you're passing through.

And that's Ely. I realise there is actually a lot more I could have said, and perhaps later in the year I'll run a completely different 5km and share that. I can't decide if that would be cheating or not. In the meantime, if you have a local 5km you think we should come and run, then please let us know. And, of course, we're doing all of this for Pilgrims Hospices to thank them for the care they gave Dad and if you have some spare cash, you can donate to our fundraising efforts here.

Let's do this! Number 1 of 50: Charfield

Before we start, let me tell you what we're doing.

In 2019, my dad, Alan, died. He had a long illness and his wish at the end of his life was to be at home with the family. We were able to fulfil that wish with the extraordinary help of Pilgrims Hospices which provided some of the most compassionate, considerate and excellent care to Dad and to the family that I've ever experienced. 

To say thank you, my three siblings (Anna, Clare & Simon) and I have decided to set ourselves challenges this year to help raise funds for their valuable work. It's our family year of fundraising.

Many of you will be aware of my history with running. A glance back through the archive of this blog will give you a flavour of just how difficult I find it. My Twitter feed is regularly splashed with #haterunning and despite several years working with an excellent running coach whose strap line was 'run happy', I have never enjoyed it one little bit. I also always run alone, preferring to be slow and lumbering and miserable by my grumpy self. It embarrasses me to run with other people. 

So, to make a challenge hard enough to be fundraisable, it has to involve running. I have already done a half marathon and, even though I did triumph over a Care Bear on that occasion, I swore I'd never do another, or do a greater distance. I'm 50 in September and so we thought perhaps a good challenge would be to run 50 different 5km routes in 50 different parts of the country. So, that's what Steve and I are going to do. We hope that friends and family will join us on some of the runs. So it's a triple challenge: the running, the logistics and, possibly the hardest bit, the company. 

I enjoyed blogging my half marathon training last time, it kept me focused enabled me to reflect and it gave me an excuse to remind people of the fundraising element of the challenge, so I thought I'd do the same thing this time. A blog about the runs, the places and the people. 

So, without further ado...

Run 1 of 50: Charfield, Gloucestershire.

New Year's Day after a night out at The Plough in Charfield (appropriate really because it was Dad's local for many years) Steve and I were joined by our old friend Sam, one of the very best people, who was at primary school with Steve and secondary school with both of us, for 5k number one.

Steve, me and Sam about to set off

43 minutes and 14 seconds 🐢🐢🐢

I have  decided, in the spirit of openness, to share all the details of the runs I do, including the terribly slow time which is only partly affected by stopping to take photos and look at views. That way, you'll see that I really do find running hard going and appreciate my effort all the more. After all, if I could nip out and knock off a 5k in 20 minutes, where would the fun be? So, here's a screenshot of my Fitbit app for this run. And I should say that both Steve and Sam ran quite a bit faster than this!

My family lived in Charfield for 19 years - it's a village in Gloucestershire on the edge of the Cotswolds. Steve lived here too and his dad still does, so we visit reasonably often. Some parts of the village date back to the 13th Century, but the majority of it is built around the railway line. The station opened here on the original Bristol and Gloucester Railway line in 1844 and the buildings on both platforms were designed by Brunel (no wonder my dad, a lover of the  railways, was drawn here). The station became a victim of Beeching in 1965 and pretty much ever since there have been unsubstantiated rumours of a great reopening.

Charfield bloody Hill. From the top so you can't really see it

As a Fen dweller, I am particularly bad at hills and have vowed to factor more proper hills into this challenge. I chose a route that took in Charfield Hill, knowing it was a beast that would defeat me (it did) but wanting a difficult start to make the rest feel better. That worked and after walking 3/4 of Charfield hill, we ran almost all the rest. Steve ran it all, eating up the hill as tho he'd never been away.

The one interesting, rather grim,  piece of Charfield history is the fatal railway disaster that happened on October 13 1928  in which 16 people died, including two children whose remains were never claimed. There is a memorial to the dead at St James' church, a beautiful old church originally built in the 13th Century with wonderful views that we ran past. 

St James's Church, Charfield

Local folklore maintains that on the anniversary of the rail crash each year a mysterious woman in a chauffeured car would come to the village in the early hours, stop on the railway bridge and then leave flowers on the grave. She was rumoured to be some kind of royal or aristocrat who couldn't claim the children because it would have created a terrible scandal...I never met anyone who has actually seen the woman, but regardless of whether she existed or not, it's a sad tale of two children that nobody felt able to claim.

View from the top of the easy hill

Down about a kilometer of very smelly farm hill and then back up on the other side to more lovely views (despite the fairly dim weather) at the top of a smaller hill that I did manage to conquer and we were soon on the home straight, back into the village. At this point, Sam's endorphins kicked in and she became unbearably cheerful. I didn't reach quite Sam's levels of singing. dancing, leaping about joy, but did have to admit it was quite fun to mess around with a good friend, even if you have to do it while running.

Charfield Primary School past pupils

There was just time before we finished to check out Charfield Primary School where Steve and Sam first met. I think they were in a school production of Aladdin together once.







So, there is it. The first of our 50 5kms. My hips hurt by the end, but I got round and ran the vast majority of it. We now have more than 20 suggestions of other runs to do and I'm actually looking forward to the next one.

Please tell us if you'd like to join us, especially if you have a favourite 5km route that we can run with you. And, if you have some spare cash, please consider supporting our fundraising efforts.