Barefoot Alaska

The temperature here has been around 0 degF (relatively warm for this time of the year) and there is, of course, snow on the ground. At a humidity of around 20% a shirt and padded jacket suffices for walks between buildings unlike in Ireland where, wearing this much, you might feel cold at 40 degF.

So far what running I have done has been on the treadmill (which I hate), but I have been experimenting with outdoors. It is several hundred metres from this house to a nearby building. Today I managed this distance barefoot. The key is that one's feet stay relatively dry in this climate.

Morning

Morning Alaska

Long time ago my father ran a DIY shop in Alresford and I was granted the task of re-modelling the shop window. Having recently learnt in school how to do a flat wash and possibly inspired by scenes from the film Oliver I decided to cut out a silhouetted city sky-line from ply-wood, paint it matt black, and place it in front of a colour-wash sky. Suitably lit by coloured flood-lights of course. And probably littered with a few choice DIY products in the foreground. It was a success, by which I mean I enjoyed doing it and liked the final product.

The sky this morning at Big Delta, Alaska brought back these memories.

Beta and Omega

Beta because this is my second run using my newly acquired Forerunner 15 running watch, many thanks to Kurt'n'Kate. Using GPS it tracks my route and such like. Here is its summary of my (barefoot) run this morning. Omega because I do not intend to keep posting my everyday running stats - unless they are of particular interest.

Winchester cathedral

Winchester cathedral

Winchester cathedral, notable for being one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and greatest overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe, and Jane Austin's burial place, and that we trooped there once a year for the Peter Symonds founder's day service as requested in his will dated 20 April 1586. On one occasion I did a tour of its interior and remember the various ages of the building being explained: the oldest parts being the transepts with Norman-style round arches. The tour included climbing hidden spiral staircases and walking along a gang-way above the nave ceiling and being able to peep through holes to the nave beneath. Based on a nave width of about 14m (see plan and picture below), I estimate those holes to be about 3" in diameter.

Jane Austin - in memory

Not that Jane Austin does much for me. I do not think I have read any of her novels.

Winchester cathedral plan showing different ages

This is actually Salisbury cathedral but a similar idea

Peep hole in Winchester cathedral's nave ceiling

Another memory from school days is being berated by a history master for not knowing more of my local heritage specifically about the cathedral. Strange how one has to go to a foreign city to get interested enough to check out all its history. In a similar way I was blissfully unaware that my hometown was (and presumably still is) the centre of watercress production in the UK.

Classic multivibrator circuit

Oh - and the electronics shop. In Market Lane between the High Street and the cathedral was a small shop displaying electrical wares in its window. Inside was hardly a space to stand between shelves of stuff and equipment waiting to be repaired or collected. The owner, an older man, would sell you just one resistor if that's all you wanted, or would help you chose parts from his stock to make a simple design you offered. Like a multivibrator. It was of course my favourite Winchester shop.

The Buttercross, High Street

Apart from the Cadena cafe near the Buttercross. My mother would sometimes treat us and we would typically order mushrooms or cod's roes on toast. And their coffee ice cream, served in a metal bowl, was magical.

Temporary roof scaffolding

Back to the subject, this year they have been restoring the roofing, an operation which entails removing all the lead, melting it down and recasting for re-use.

When the Normans built Winchester Cathedral the area was basically a swamp.  To provide a foundation they placed a multilayer platform of beech trees over the peat of the bog.  Essentially the cathedral was built on a large raft that “floated” on a layer of sponge like peat.

Sound II sculpture

Not surprisingly the crypt floods each winter and there is now a sculpture of a figure entitled Sound II, designed to stand in water.

William Walker saviour

William Walker was the man who saved Winchester cathedral from collapse due to the wooden foundations rotting. A leading diver of his day who had trained at Portsmouth's naval dockyard, he worked tirelessly from 1906 until 1911 supporting the cathedral using more than 25,000 bags of concrete, 115,000 concrete blocks and 900,000 bricks. He worked in almost complete darkness in the peaty water up to 5m above his head.

Gospel Oak between Winchester and Alresford

Just to the north of the A31 half way between Winchester and my hometown Alresford lies Hempage wood and somewhere therein (though I have never seen it) is the Gospel Oak. This is how the story goes:

"William the Conqueror granted Walkelin as many trees in Hempage Wood as he could fell in three days, wherewith to roof the nave. The bishop called together carpenters innumerable and swept off the whole wood of oak trees, leaving nothing standing there save the traditional 'Gospel Oak' under which St. Augustine is said to have preached. The bare stem of this ancient oak still stands, and by it yearly, when bounds were beaten, the parish priest used to read, till quite lately, the gospel for the day. The solid trees thus carried to Winchester are still to be seen in the roof of the nave above Wykeham's stone groining, and they are as sound as when they were first hoisted up more than eight centuries ago, in 1086." Next time William Rufus (son of above) visited he is believed to have said: Have I gone mad? Surely I had a most delightful wood near Winchester?

Gospel Oak ~ 1920

Walkelin began work on a new cathedral church, the current Winchester Cathedral, in 1079. His transepts and crypt, though little else, are retained in the present building. The new cathedral was completed in 1093. Walkelin had caused its tower to be made as it is still to be seen (At the annalist's time, though the present tower is a later Norman construction).

Why were the mighty cathedral built? Ken Follett, author of  The Pillars of the Earth, says "But I come back again and again to the people who built the cathedrals. Those men and women were by modern standards, poor and ignorant. They lived in wooden huts and slept on the floor. Yet they created the most beautiful and awesome buildings the world has ever known. Human beings have the capacity to rise above mundane circumstances and touch the eternal."

The pictures in this post are not my own.

The last temptation of Christ

Winchester Royal County Hospital was where I was born, where at age 6 my tonsils were removed and where my mother took me for speech therapy.

Winchester Royal County Hospital

We have just finished our annual convention - for those of you unfamiliar with such things think lots of long sermons strung together with praise and good food. True, some of this "word" touched me but, frankly, some did not. What I mean is - I sit there for over an hour and think - what was all that about? Mind you, I have not heard anyone else here admit such defeat: what I am hearing is that it was all wonderful. But then neither have I let on except herewith and to Ali. Surely needless verbosity is not implicit in "it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe"? For one who speaks little I wonder why it has to take so long to convey what is often such a simple message.

When I was small they said I was slow to talk and got along by pointing and grunting whenever I wanted something. They said I was lazy. Hence the speech therapy. Since then I've come a long way but still can find speaking difficult. I don't think ahead fast enough so I loose out in arguments and need notes if speaking publicly. As a result I tend to give up and too easily leave it to the many others with louder voices.

I can identify with my namesake who, when a university gave him an honorary doctorate, said "I cannot find the words to thank you, but if there was an organ here I could thank you". This man was similarly inept with words and social skills.

There is immense pressure to conform to the norm and yet the same person found the freedom to say "He is Brahms, and my profound respect. But I am myself and I prefer my own stuff" and "They want me to compose in a different way; I could, but I must not. Out of thousands, God gave talent to me. One day, I shall have to give an account of myself. How would the Father in Heaven judge me if I followed others and not Him?" If only I had the guts to accept my lot - but, hang on, I do accept it else why this post? - if only the louder others could accept that some of us are not so articulate as they are...

There is similar social pressure to wear shoes. In theory I go along with this "I cannot tell a lie, it's the sensuality, the physical sensation, the pure pleasure of it, combined with not only a sense of liberation and freedom, but I have also recently embraced the nonconforming aspect of it." But during the convention I got tired of people looking down at my feet and making comments. Even when wearing sandals I was asked were my feet cold? I wasn't quick enough to parry (see above) but afterwards thought I should have asked why neither of us was wearing gloves or balaclava.

Paul McCartney said "I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird."

And "Steve Jobs' message through his barefoot habit is that he is different and that he is not stuck in the system like others. I have read somewhere that Steve Jobs went to do an important deal without his shoes and that this annoyed the person he was meeting so much."

I'm halfway through reading the controversial historical novel The Last Temptation of Christ. Though unashamedly inaccurate, it conveys rather well the struggles Jesus must have gone through to resist the temptations of the flesh, although the English translation leaves much to be desired. It portrays a very human Jesus even if somewhat stereotyped. I can identify a bit with this sort of holiness because I, too, am human.

If, then you or I "through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" - if then you or I ever managed to do this mortify thing, would any of our colourful character be left? Are my peculiarities posited in my flesh? Surely it ought not leave us void, as if "Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in and longed for? Or as if the sun rose one day and were a black sun. Or as if you drank water and it were dry water"? And yet we Christian folk continually bandy about this mortifying yet never achieving it, seemingly ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

For me, if only it could be that "this poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." 

Mediocre

"Well, sir," said the Cabby very slowly, "a chap don't exactly know till he's been tried. I dare say I might turn out ever such a soft 'un. Never did no fighting except with my fists. I'd try -that is, I 'ope I'd try - to do my bit."

Mediocre - adj. of only average quality; not very good.

Thus, by definition, most people are mediocre. Me too. "He's putting himself down again", I hear you say or, "talking about himself again"... Well, it is my blog and you do not have to read it. Anyway I am just saying what's true. I might be a jack of all trades but I am master of none. I think my dad was much the same so maybe he's to blame.

I love (some) music but my understanding, repertoire and ability is very limited.

I love good food and even once cooked a meal in a startup restaurant. But maybe because I don't like stuff one is meant to like (under-cooked cow, sea-bugs, broccoli, olives...) I could never become a chef.

I love making or mending things but I don't have the patience to become a craftsman.

I enjoy running and the solitude and time with God it affords, this being the only "sport" I have ever found remotely enjoyable let alone been able to do. But even at school I clocked in only average in the annual cross country race, and nowadays youngsters whiz past me on foot or bike.

True, I excelled in Physics and Maths at school, left Oxford with honours and a got prestigious engineering job but even there my abilities were eclipsed by that of some of peers.

Since then I've earnt a living doing contract design work but I'm not rich yet. And I thought I was good at programming until I read about SOLID.

I thank God for my four wonderful children and what they have achieved, each experts in their field, but, although I meant well, I cannot take credit and sometimes I cringe when I look back.

I get involved in our local church out of what I hope is a right desire but only God knows how effective this is for I don't see much evidence.

Not that I'm complaining, being happy enough to let the world go by. Maybe if I had persevered at music, or tackled post graduate work at Oxford, or not resigned from the BBC, or had a few more children to practice parenthood on, or gone to seminary to become a preacher...

I wonder - is it OK to be only of average quality and not very good at anything at all?

American football coach George Allen noted that "most men succeed because they are determined to". Sure - I'm not giving up yet!

Something inside reminds me that "Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, 'You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.' Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions."

Miracle of Life

The most complex object on earth

Imagine you are a Martian reading about human life, with no previous knowledge. You read about how a human is created. A male human inserts a protuberance into a hole in the female or "mother" and, as a result of a tiny "cell" in fluid he ejects joining another cell inside the mother, a tiny version of a human or "baby" is formed. This baby grows in a sac of fluid inside the mother and yet, in later life, the baby would die if immersed. After about nine months the baby has become a fully formed but miniature human and is forcefully ejected through the same, now stretched, hole which process is very painful to the mother.

Within this miniature human's frame, formed from two parent cells, is the most complex object on earth.

"Tell me another" you, the Martian, say, "you're kidding me!". And yet we take this unlikely miracle for granted. I wonder what other miracles we fail to accept because they are similarly unlikely?

New Frontiers

No, not the church genre. Just that this morning I ran about 9 miles barefoot in the dark and in the rain. I started out at 6 a.m. and it was raining moderately all the time. Of course it was not totally dark - quite enough light to run by. And the weather was mild. A Gardai stopped and asked if I was doing extreme training. The hot shower on getting back home was exhilarating!

Ruby Run 3

Ruby Route Three

Having run so far a couple of days back I figured this final run should be more moderate. But how could I visit Willand and not run along the Culm water meadows? So I did, but not all the way to Culmstock this time. I set out shortly after 6 a.m. again so it was dark. This time my total distance was a mere 9.82 miles, average speed 5.15 mph (5.76 moving), maximum elevation 138m, minimum 68m. Not sure I trust those elevation stats though.

Conjunction along the Uffculme Straight

The Jupiter-Venus-Mars conjunction was best on 26th October (the date of my previous run) but it was too cloudy then. This time (the 28th) I got at least a glimpse though could not make out the dimmer Mars. A smart-phone camera is not the best instrument for astronomic photos but I least I tried and the two brighter planets are at least visible.

Dawn at Coldharbour

Coldharbour Mill in street-lamp glow

Moon over the river Culm

Morning glory - Venus is just visible

The blessèd Culm water meadows shrouded in mist

Amazingly I met a person out walking their dog along the river in the dark. We passed as ships in the night (it was virtually). It was a wet and a tad cold under foot and this clinched my decision to leave the river side at Five Fords and make a circuitous route back home.

Mist on the way back

Tiverton Parkway railway station

And back along the cycle-way that joins the station to Willand. There used to be a train station at Willand but they moved it a couple of miles north to its present location - one wonders at the logic of this.

Crossing the M5

We travelled home later the same morning. If I get back to Willand again what more can I explore? Whilst researching the Blackdown Hills as background to these posts I happened upon the following:

Culmstock Beacon

This is a "Stone structure built in 1588 to support a wooden pole and fire basket(s). Fire(s) would be lit as a signal that the Spanish Armada had been sighted. Of the chain of beacon sites across Southern England, this is the only remaining stone structure. Sounds interesting enough to make the effort. Since my previous run to Culmstock was 11.5 miles round trip I guess including the tower would take it up to about 15 miles and some serious up-hill but I know now this is possible.

Showing the beacon in relation to Culmstock

Ruby walk

There is such a social stigma attached to wearing shoes that, frankly, I have given up the battle and now habitually don them in many public places for example when shopping.  And so, the day after my 15 mile run, I found myself obliged to wear shoes and somehow pulled a muscle - when used to going barefoot can you believe that shoes can sometimes cause injury?  I had an odd half hour to myself whilst Ali was doing her habitual shopping in Tiverton so I set out to (briefly) explore an inviting looking grassy hillside and the Grand Western canal which terminates here. This exercise to double as a pulled-muscle test. By the end of the day my foot was better so did not stop the following day's run to be described in my next post.

The grassy hill in question is above the 'O' of "Tiverton"

Tiverton from the grassy hill

The Grand Western canal (visible on the right hand side of my map) originally ran from Taunton to Tiverton but today only an 11 mile section starting (or ending) in Tiverton remains open. The Tiverton canal basin has become somewhat commercialised with a floating coffee shop and car park charges. Neither interested me as a barefoot walker. What did interest me was that the canal here ends on the side of a reasonably steep hill, with attendant substantial buttressing on the lower side. One wonders what exactly had to be transported from Taunton to Tiverton and what they did with it once offloaded half way up this hillside.

The canal basin

Floating coffee shop

And so I duly returned to the Tesco carpark at the appointed 12:30.

Tiverton main drag

Ruby Run 2

Ruby Route Two

I love the wealth of footpath and bridle-way rights-of-way in England and they are even signposted. There is nothing to compare with this in Ireland, although in recent years a good attempt has been made to open up some longer distance way-marked paths such as the Wicklow Way. Although the immediate locale of Willand is relatively devoid of paths you do not have to run far to find them. My "holy grail" is to find barefoot friendly paths

The map is an OruxMaps screen-shot from my smart-phone. My track is marked in red. The GPS statistics were: total distance 15.46 miles, average speed 5.44 mph (5.84 moving), maximum altitude 293m, minimum 49m. This ranks as my longest recorded barefoot run.

I set out soon after 6 a.m. (the clocks had just changed it would have been 7 a.m.) on the same way as I had come back on my previous run. At Blackborough I took the uphill road pictured in my last post climbing up onto Blackborough Common.

This area is part of the Blackdown Hills as is evident from an old relief map from the Barthomolew 1/2" series. Willand is off the left edge of the map and about half way down. The Culm valley with its railway line (now closed and little trace left) is clearly visible. The M5 did not exist back then - its route roughly follows the railway line (main line to Exeter) at top left. You can click on this or any of the pictures to enlarge them.

Extract from Barthomolew 1:126,720 maps

Early morning in Kentisbeare

Kentisbeare

Having climbed the hill leaving Blackborough village behind

Blackborough Common

Blackborough Common

The road that might have taken me to Dulford

Inasmuch as I had a plan at all, it had been to follow this road to Dulford and thence home, but I turned left onto a footpath which followed the edge of the escarpment hoping to find what I thought on my map was a triangulation pillar and thus with a view, but it turned out to be only a spot height (marked "283" on the map). Since I was on holiday I figured I might as well see where this path would take me, and further along this path got my panoramic views even if they were a bit misty. The path was also exceedingly muddy but one of the advantages of running barefoot is that mud is no problem - it is even desirable. It is much easier to clean one's feet than shoes and mud between the toes feels so good.

View from North Hill

View from North Hill

My revised plan was now to descend via a track through Northill Farm but I could see this was going to be stony under foot - and then I saw a sign pointing to the left over a grassy field. Even though this would take me further away from home I could not resist such a temptation so over the style I climbed and luxuriated running through the cool wet grass. And this took me to the small village of Broadhembury.

Footpath over a field to Broadhembury

Looking back where I had run from

The field-path ended here

Ford at Broadhembury

The ford was a welcome surprise (along with footpaths and cherry bakewells I love fords) - all the more surprising because there was a bridge too and yet the ford obviously gets used. I stopped to wash all the Blackborough mud off my legs and feet, and then took a brief detour beyond the ford to check out the village and its church.

Broadhembury

slight detour to photo Broadhembury church

And then the long, long slog back home. Part of my return route followed the A373 as by now I was tiring of exploring. Running along a main road is not so much fun.

River Culm at Willand

And so I made it back home and was duly surprised to find I had topped 15 miles - yes I was tired but I could have gone further. Although I am still unsure whether I could do a marathon barefoot though.

And then there is Dean Karnazes the ultramarathon runner who has run 350 miles in 80 hours without sleep! But he doesn't run barefoot so maybe that makes all the difference...