The ginnel

I can still remember the first time I encountered this passageway: it was May 1997.

I'd started running - determinedly - the previous summer. Prior to that, I'd run a mile occasionally and hate every step but a chap I worked with convinced me to run with him once a week. He was a chubby fellow and I thought it would be all right but the first time we went out for a lunchtime run I had to stop three or four times for a rest while he jogged on the spot.

Anyway, after a long, hot, miserable summer of weekly runs, at Christmas I went out and did my first five mile run: twice the distance we started at. From there, it seemed to get easier to increase the distances and the following May I entered the Kirkby Lonsdale 12 mile race.

Of course, I wasn't treating it as a race; to me it was simply a test of endurance, especially as the furthest I'd run previously was nine and a half miles. On the day we all grouped outside the secondary school and then, as the race started, set off around town and then out to Kearstwick. We went over the private bridge on Underley Estate, out to Barbon, up the horribly steep hill, continued on to Barbon Beck, crossed the river and then came back the way we'd come.

As we ran from Keartswick back into Kirkby Lonsdale - and by "we" I mean me; everyone else was miles ahead - my legs started to feel very leaden. I knew the race would finish back at the school and I wondered which route up the hill we'd take. And then one of the marshals guided me onto Fairgarth. "This can't be right", I thought. "There's no way up to school from here." It was then that I first came face to face with the ginnel.

It might not look so steep in the photo but, blimey, it was tough to run up, not least because it gets steeper the further up you go. My legs were like jelly when I reached the top. But I crossed the finish line shortly before they dismantled it :-)

Post script
I'd never encountered the word "ginnel" before I moved to Cumbria, although I think it's used in Lancashire and Yorkshire, too. I means a passage or alleyway. At least, that's what I've deduced after twenty-four years.