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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Clearly a stonechat |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
