Great fun on run with old pal Mark

In the last five years, I have become friends with so many people I’ve met on races – and they come from across the UK.

I’ve done my best to maintain contact with them throughout Covid-19, but only managed to see a few who live a short drive from me.

But this past week, now that we are allowed to stay over, I took the plunge and booked a hotel in Castleton – the heart of the beautiful Peak District – to meet my friend Mark.

I got to know him after reading his excellent book Running from Shadows. He describes being an ordinary guy taking on the daunting Marathon des Sables ultramarathon in the Sahara desert, and his account gave me invaluable confidence when I ran that race.

A couple of years later, purely by chance, I shared a tent with him while racing in Albania and we hit it off, so it was great to meet up with him again for a rather wet run in the

Derbyshire hills.

Afterwards, having my first pint in a pub for three months and staying in a hotel was a strange experience. Everyone did their best but one-way systems, no standing and tables far apart did make the atmosphere a bit awkward.

That’s where we all have a choice, of course. We can yearn for what it was like and moan about it – or embrace the current way of life.

It’s only by being tolerant and taking those tentative first steps that we will become comfortable going out again, and that’s something we all need to do, if able, for our own mental health and the health of the economy.

I hope you too take sensible advantage of the relaxing of the lockdown rules when you can, meet up with friends and family and start creating more positive memories.

Until next week,

Kev