Run Britain Day 87: From Grange to Ulverston (and a brewing breakdown)

My mood as I run around the coastline of Britain bounces like a yo-yo. And as the time has gone on, it feels like the string of that yoyo has become longer, but the quality of my yo-yoing has improved.

If that analogy isn’t clear, what I mean is that my moods have become more extreme and its taking less time for me to go from riding high to rock bottom.

I have also got better at feeling when that rock bottom is coming, partly because the running feels a lot harder when I’m approaching it.

Today, running was almost impossible. It wasn’t like the terrain was particularly hard (although it was windy). I just couldn’t get going. It really didn’t help that there was yet another depressing detour up to the top of the estuary - an estuary with a railway bridge over it. Or that the sky continued to be a miserable, never ending grey. I found myself looking for excuses to walk, by picking the most hilly and grassy pathways I could find.

By lunchtime I was done. I got on a train and went to the pub.

I love a pub. I love the atmosphere in a pub. I especially love it when it has a log burner. And I love having a pint.

I stopped drinking in April to prepare for Run Britain and also to help with my mental health. I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine on the odd occasion since then (not since I started running Britain) and in the summer, Amber and I did spent a fantastic weekend in a brewery. But I don’t think I have had a pint since then.

At the pub in Ulverston, I switched my phone off, ordered a pizza and spent an hour with my pint, pretending I wasn’t running the entire coastline of Britain on my own in the winter. It was a happy hour, but I would also say it was probably a low point of the mission so far.

I was very relived to be rescued by a friend. And enjoyed a lovely evening in the company of him and his family in Barrow. But when the yoyo is yo-yoing down, that bottom needs to be hit. And sure enough, day 88 started badly.