Isle Of Man-afters
9th September 2022
The Isle of Man is a beautiful place, as are most places once you move beyond the pale of humankind’s touch. The hills, heather, fern and gorse covered, would be very familiar to anyone from the UK or Ireland, although the constancy of the sea crashing into the cliffs far below you offers a different spin from inland hill walking. There is that additional touch that being on an Island brings. A feeling that everything is in easy reach, that all are connected and protected by the coastal barrier. With that, comes that indefinable island atmosphere and a commensurate relaxed attitude to things.
I suppose I should address the question I tasked myself with. Will abusing my legs, specifically, my knees and ankles – ligaments, muscles and tendons – for four days of hard miles improve or irradicate the tendonitis I suffer from?
While the answer is at first no, I have noticed some things. When I wake up at night there is no pain in my left ankle. The first weight bearing step doesn’t make me wince. The pain comes back pretty soon as I start to move around, but that small change is a very pleasant thing.
Undeniably, the pain levels increase as you push yourself up and down steep hills, but I found that it reached a peak and stayed there. If you can cope with that, you can eventually set it aside and have more of those glorious moments when you round a corner, and it is as if the whole world is laid out for you in all its beauty and majesty.
The next most important question is: will I go back to finish? At the moment I’m prevaricating. Did I enjoy myself enough to outweigh the pain? I think as I drive around over the next few days and look up at the hills at home, I might feel again that mystical draw that will drive me back before winter.
We’ll see.
23rd September 2022
Well I did come back and finish.
I imagine if you are used to the mountains of Mourne or the Lake District etc. this walk would be a doddle so, I have no advice for you because you are all adult humans who involve themselves in a strenuous hobby and know your mind.
I asked some questions of myself before this trip. Was it worth it? Would I do it again? Did I enjoy myself?
To answer the 2nd question first. No. Though if I find myself in the Isle of Man again, I will certainly be happy to revisit particular places or sections of the walk. Was it worth it? Yes. For many reasons, not least the rediscovery of a certain fitness and physical endurance. The other reasons are tied up with the answer to the 3rd question, the short answer to which is, yes and no. The pleasures during the walk itself were there but they were leavened with pain, grim and gritty moments when despair threatened to overwhelm me and not least, a bourgeoning fear of heights.
It is no secret that we fear more as we get older. This has no evolutionary basis, because we, at my age, are beyond any reasonable involvement with procreation. No. I suspect that this fear is related to our enhanced feelings of mortality. We revere life and in doing so we often cocoon and insulate ourselves from all and any hazards in an attempt to savour it for as long as possible. Becoming, in the process, incredibly risk averse. Of course, we delude ourselves, for death will seek us out no matter the protections we erect. Instead, we must force ourselves into situations that put us out of our comfort zone, that scare us and thrill us. That generate all those chemicals that govern our flight, fight reflexes. In doing so a certain aliveness returns. Perhaps, more precisely, we experience an existential enhancement, much more of that ‘knowing what it is to be human’, a tiny simulation of that once youthful, immortal, invulnerable essence.
Driving myself then, refusing to give in and forcing myself against my body’s wishes again and again, wasn’t often enjoyable (I could have trained harder but thought that my knees had a certain mileage left and was loathe to waste it on miles around the habitual). But sometimes in the middle of nowhere a feeling would come over me. I have called this a spiritual thing, but it is much more of a connectedness, a baseline Homo Sapiens affinity to the earth, to nature. A thing that has been in our genes for millions of years and something we suppress, without any conscious thought, every day of our lives. It is no surprise that more and more research suggests that the answer to many of our children’s mental problems is to put them closer to nature.
While lying in the bath, soaking my aches away, the pain is forgotten – at least its immediacy – and suffused with success and not a little pride, I can say I was flushed with joy. There were many momentary pleasures, not least the occasional animal companion for a time. The solitude and peace. The ‘wow’ moments when you round a corner or top a hill and the world in all its glory seems laid out before you. Then you a feel a desire, a smattering of rapport with those who first forsook the protection of the primordial fire and yearned to know, no matter the danger. Yearned to know what was over the next hill or around the next corner. There was also the re-found ability to just keep going when I deeply wanted to stop. That re-ignition of my will against my body’s physical desire for ease and succour is something that gives me great happiness, and something I have no intention of letting go of again.