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The world and Commonwealth Games champ explains how he feel in love with trails more than 40 years ago
It’s April 1980 and I’m running up the gently inclining 9th street in Boulder, Colorado, wondering how on earth altitude training can be good for you. My first serious attempts to extract oxygen from the miserly air at 5500ft have left me with a stride length which could be measured with an old school ruler and a rasping noise not normally associated with a so-called elite athlete. Just as I’m about to turn around and ease my way back down the hill, the house line ends and the Flatirons loom large ahead of me as I enter Chautauqua Park. The foothills of the Rocky Mountains have their own imposing presence, accentuated by the dark, straight slopes that give them their name, but ahead of me a winding yellow trail entices you to advance towards them like some ribbon pulling you up the hill.
This is how my first bona fide trail run began. Breathing hard, miniscule steps, but turning back seemed like an opportunity missed so my substantial nose led the way and the rest followed. The trail was tricky underfoot but it encouraged me to lift my head and take in the surroundings. Wooded slopes gave way to boulder-strewn meadows with the tranquillity broken only by my breathing.
Having already run countless miles on the paved streets and uneven tarmac of South Tyneside this was a revelationary experience which instilled in me a love of seeking out the path less trodden. It’s been a long time since the relentless ticking of a stopwatch to provide context to my runs, in fact I have genuinely been on runs more recently where creeping darkness was the only determinant of how far to run. I still enjoy exploring the streets of unfamiliar cities but, like an increasing number of runners, it’s the escapism and freedom of trail running that provides a stimulus that I struggle to replicate elsewhere.
We all run for different reasons, but often the pursuit of yet another personal best or the quest to complete the latest challenge we set ourselves can get in the way of actually taking the time to slow down and enjoy the fact that running in our great outdoors is an uplifting episode in itself. Trails are a great way to explore our environment and allow us to be a little more in tune with putting one foot in front of the other, slowly or quickly, and re-charge the motivation battery which can at times appear to be leaking power. You just need to seek them out. They are often closer than you think.
Sometimes just the chance to divert off onto a path for a kilometre or two can re-invigorate a run or allow you to lift your head and look around. A towpath,
