-
Wrekenton XC
A Northern England cross-country running event, it is said, is not official unless held 1) under an ominous sky and 2) either in the 2a) wake of, or 2b) midst of, a rainshower.
So it is at Wrekenton in Gateshead, where a thousand-odd people gather to run laps round a series of undulating fields, winding cinder tracks, and boggy trails, for fun & profit. Mostly for fun. Among them (but by no means expecting to finish foremost): yours truly, decked in a brand-spanking race vest in Elvet Striders purple and green, eyeing the clart1 ahead with anticipation.
I'm standing near the starting line, in a crowd of some 500 other men. In our club vests, we look a little bit like a big rainbow-patchwork animal with a thousand legs (and schizoid taste in footwear). The grass beneath my feet has been trodden flat; the loose mud underneath squishes. Plenty of clay in the mud, here, which means plenty of opportunity for slippage going up- or downhill.
Cross-country, in this part of the country anyway, is a remarkably democratic sport. The chief obstacle in participating is an aversion to clart. If you can get over that—or if, like me, you relish an excuse for puddle-splodging—then the North East Harrier League extends to you its open arms. Entry fees are nominal and distances are manageable: three laps of a two-mile circuit. Runners of all stripes are to be found here, from the impressively athletic to graduates of couch-to-5k programs to octogenarians whose running careers started in leather spikes. Probably running the same events as they do today—the other thing about cross-country is that it has a storied past.
When the starting gun goes off, the murmur of chat around me evaporates instantly, as if someone's dropped the Crowd Noise slider to zero. At road events, the sound of a start is the stochastic patter of hundreds of feet, but on the soft grass we move with almost no sound at all. A couple of folks around me puff a bit as we climb a short hill. Clay squidges under our feet. I slip but catch my balance. I'm focused on running slowly. I know that if I run as fast as I'd like to, I will be toast by the third lap. If I treat the first lap as a warm up—learning the course, navigating the crowd, admiring the colours on other club vests—then I'll have the upper hand later in the race when we've thinned out. Plus, I won't look like I'm melting in photographs, which I have a habit of doing.
We wind around the top of the hill and drop down the far side in a long, gradual descent over open, uneven ground. I try to be as light on my feet as possible. Tuck under some trees at a couple of sharp bends as the trail starts to rise again, through a gate.
At about this point, the first of the medium-pack runners start to pass us. In cross-country, runners are sorted into a slow pack, a medium pack, and a fast pack. The slow pack starts first, and then the medium pack after a couple of minutes, and the fast pack another few minutes later. In this way, fast runners are forced to fight their way through the (ostensibly) slower runners ahead. At each race, the top 10% are promoted to the pack above. When the first medium-pack runner comes racing through, dodging elbows and excursing briefly into a hedgerow, a big lad ahead of me shouts, "Show-off!"
When medium- and eventually fast-pack Striders pass me, I try to make a point of giving them a well done by name. I've long underestimated the motivational power of someone shouting your name while you're in extremis.
As we make our way back towards the start line, I can see a long string of colourful runners ahead of me cutting right, then left up a switchbacked gravel track. I briefly consider getting my phone out to take a picture, but almost slide into the back of the runner in front and think better of it. Before I know it, I'm climbing the hill myself, grateful for the grip of the loose gravel. I crest the hill and drop down the bank probably a little more enthusiastically than is strictly safe, then onto a long, straight embankment into a hairpin to close out the first lap.
I check in with myself on the front straight. I'm not breathing too heavily; my left foot, which had been a little sore during my warm-up, is feeling nice and loose. There's a bit of a gap to the runner in front. The sun briefly emerges from between the clouds. I wriggle my phone out from my running belt and take a picture.
The second lap is, predictably, more of the same. At the top of the first hill I look up and around me. You can see all the way over Gateshead and out to South Shields from here. The North Sea beyond, in the haze. It disappears over the tops of hedges and residential sprawl as I descend. The track has become at this point significantly more treacherous, clart-wise. I'm moving a bit faster, now, and still feeling alright. I've picked up the pace and I'm trading places with a man in a Newton Aycliffe vest. I pass him on the climbs but he passes me back on the flats. On the descent just before the end of the lap, I hurl myself (only a lil recklessly) towards the bottom to try and break loose. He doesn't pass me again, but I'm not sure whether I ever actually drop him. Looking back—looking anywhere but at the increasingly muddy ground—chances immediate, clarty Peril.
By the third lap I'm breathing more heavily and the hills are putting a serious damper on my ambitions for pace. My legs feel a little wobbly and I no longer have the bravery for hooning the descents. My pace drops off a little but my watch is still reading numbers I'm generally pleased with, so morale is high. I pass a couple of folks on the last hill. Striders who'd participated in an earlier race line the trail and shout my name as I go past. I put on a burst of speed, or try to crack wise if speed bursts are off the table. I slip in the mud again, but avoid tumbling. I weave back and forth across the trail, searching for stubborn clods of grass on which my parkrunning shoes can find purchase. I try to squeeze out the last bit of pace as the final kilometre closes in, but I suspect that other runners are doing the same. The gaps between us fluctuate.
I catch up with another Strider right at the very end. Between us, a Durham City Harrier in electric orange. He notices us and breaks into a sprint that neither of us can keep pace with. I wonder where he found all of that traction. My arms splay as I try to keep balance and momentum. The other Strider beats me by a second or two. I stumble into the little finish corral and clasp hands with those who finish around me.
Then we went out and get beers in lovely, picturesque Durham. - Mud, especially when applied to the body in the throes of outdoor pursuits, or otherwise when farming; chiefly Northern British.↩︎
Previous
Dropping CI/CD with GitHub Actions and going back to deploying my website by hand. It's artisan!
Archive
2023
September 2023
-
Manual deploys
19 -
Fujichia
18 -
Downhill mile
13 -
Alton Towers
11A trip to the United Kingdom's answer to Disney World.
-
Tommy the turtle
8 -
The Idiot
8 -
Colour mode
6 -
Oppenheimer
2 -
Wolsingham Show
2 -
Websites are fine
1
August 2023
-
Close to the Machine
31 -
Run a 5k in 21:40
30 -
Uncanny Valley
27 -
Ghyll's favourite album
26 -
Blood donation
25 -
The Wager
21 -
Big Lime triathlon
20A proper post about doing a triathlon: how it felt, what I did, and who couldn't get my name right at the end.
-
Birnam Wood
17 -
Eragon
14 -
Weeknotes 7 August
13Quiet one round our end.
-
Lenin's Tomb
9
July 2023
-
Weeknotes 24 July
30Living exhausted in the shadow of the Castle Howard triathlon.
-
Chance at Durham Fringe
30 -
The Passenger
28 -
Weeknotes 17 July
23Joining a running club, attending Middlesbrough Front End, getting my bike tuned up, competing in a triathlon
-
The Book of Goose
15 -
Weeknotes 2 July
9A busier week than usual: a spa day, a cold, a trip to Scotland, a dip in a reservoir, a walk up Worm Hill.
-
Why Nations Fail
9 -
Fiat Topolino
6 -
Weeknotes 26 June 2023
2Doing way more running, cycling, and swimming than I ever thought I would. Also: getting back on the motorbike!
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
-
March 2023
31A long month of nothing, waiting for my hand to fix itself.
-
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
30 -
The First Circle
28 -
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
15 -
Ninth House
12 -
Life and Fate
8
February 2023
January 2023
-
January 2023
31Got a bit of momentum behind us on what feels like the darkest month of the year, astronomy be damned.
-
Databases in 2023
31 -
AI consciousness
27 -
Sea of Tranquility
19 -
Wittgenstein's Mistress
17 -
Gettin handy
14 -
Last.fm Year in Music
12 -
The Housekeeper and the Professor
9 -
We Need To Talk
7 -
The Diary of Samuel Pepys
3 -
JR
2
2022
December 2022
-
2022
312022 was a year of real highs and lows. We got a dog, climbed a bunch of mountains, learned to ride a motorcycle, re-learned how to ride a bicycle, travelled to Europe, travelled to the United States, read a whole bunch, and wasted a buttload of time.
-
Arc browser vs. Safari
17 -
Training AI
13 -
Waiting for AI
12 -
Andor
11 -
Italics in Fira
6 -
Short-form blogging
5 -
Nausea
5 -
Farewell, Twitter
3 -
View transitions with video
1
November 2022
-
November 2022
30A show in Manchester, a couple of walks, a motorbike accident, a new bicycle, and a whole lotta stumbling around in the dark.
-
Personal website design archetypes
21 -
Launch
19 -
The Mountain Goats
19 -
On Mastodon
15 -
Server-sent events
12 -
Sustainable web development
11 -
CSS nesting
9
October 2022
-
October 2022
31That's October done and dusted. A bit of general upheaval but we all made it through in one piece. I went to a conference!
-
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
28 -
Next.js 13
27 -
The Stranger
24 -
The Sparrow
22 -
Bon Iver
19 -
2015 Gokibiru 30K trail run
18 -
Destroyer
13 -
The web is good now
11 -
A few more words on writing
10 -
I Am a Strange Loop
5 -
Notes on "26 things"
1
September 2022
-
September 2022
30The weather's finally turned, so I've got to choose my days out strategically or spend the next 5 months soaked through.
-
Looking back
29 -
Old solutions, new tricks
28 -
Effective design
22 -
Global variables
14 -
Page weight matters
12 -
JS1024
11 -
New speakers
10 -
LiebeHeide
10 -
August 2022
3A month of slow meandering back towards a sense of normalcy, with plenty of two-wheeled conveyance and first steps out in the wide world.
August 2022
-
Bad coffee
29 -
Blurry gradient blobs pt. 2
26 -
Die With Zero
24 -
Replacements for social media
23 -
Converging on peak gradient
19 -
Polyphasic sleep
18 -
Hard problems in the browser
17 -
Hot weather
16 -
Austerlitz
15 -
Fun w/ hsl pt. 2
15 -
Blog v4
12 -
Microsoft Fluent Emoji
11 -
Meta's in-app browser tracking
10 -
Play.gl
9 -
Cache busting with GitHub Actions
8 -
Blogging on JS frameworks
6 -
Fun with hsl()
5 -
WebDriver
3 -
Broken luxury goods
3 -
July 2022
2July was exhausting and overwhelming—from weather to life events to sheer lack of sleep—and I’m glad that it’s over.
July 2022
-
The Call of the Wild
30 -
Red Rising
27 -
Writing about writing
27 -
Between the World and Me
21 -
No Fixed Abode: A Long Walk to the Dome
7 -
June 2022
1A full month: catching COVID, going to Riga, getting back out on my bike, & thinking long & hard about what I want to do next.
June 2022
-
The Remains of the Day
30 -
Front-end web development
23 -
The Plot Against America
17 -
Almost no CSS
15 -
GPT-3 greentexts
15 -
jdan's hashart
14 -
React in 2022
12 -
Slaughterhouse-Five
11 -
Klara and the Sun
10 -
Durham to Bournmoor
9 -
Crossroads
8 -
Strava privacy controls
3 -
Remix first impressions
3 -
May 2022
1Busy month: lots of long weekends, lots of driving, sun's back out, bring on the summer already.
-
Back to the server
1
May 2022
-
Conference cost
26 -
Proton.me
25 -
Shared Element Transitions
22 -
Censorship
22 -
A short review of CraftCMS
21A quick look back on how CraftCMS is working out for me, after a few months of using it.
-
Men I Trust
19 -
Manchester
19 -
Constraint Validation API
18 -
Form input inconsistencies
17 -
Tyler Angert's Stream
16 -
Killing usbd
15 -
Every Noise at Once
11 -
103 bits of advice
10 -
Lincoln in the Bardo
5 -
No One Is Talking About This
4 -
:target navigation
3 -
SpaceX docking simulator
3 -
Willington to Durham
2 -
April 2022
1April 2022 was a busy one: plenty done online and plenty done outdoors. Now if they could all be quite this way, I'd be well pleased.
April 2022
-
Bishop Auckland to Willington
29 -
Linear
27 -
Libraries over browser features
27 -
GraphQL & HTTP responses
23 -
IFTTT
20 -
Speedlify
19 -
Escomb to Bishop Auckland
17 -
90s web
15 -
Bleeding Edge
14 -
Go, Laravel, Rails
11 -
March 2022
5March was a difficult month, and I'm glad to put it behind me.
-
Witton-le-Wear to Escomb
3
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
-
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
28 -
No JS Wordle
27 -
Responsible JavaScript
23 -
RSS feed updates
23 -
Translate in Safari
22 -
The Lakes in winter
21 -
The World According to Garp
17 -
Around Swirl How
16 -
Grasmere Greenburn Valley Loop
15 -
Lynx browser
13 -
indicator-multiload
12 -
My first impressions of web3
10 -
Yewbarrow
9 -
Catbells & Maiden Moor
8 -
Exhalation
7 -
2021
1A look back at everything that I did (and didn't do) in 2021.
2021
December 2021
-
Books I read in 2021
31A list of all of the books that I read in 2021.
-
Geronimo's Story of His Life
28 -
CSS-Tricks End of Year Thoughts 2021
19 -
The Arrest
10 -
Review websites
10 -
Looking Glass AI
6
November 2021
-
In the Miso Soup
18 -
Make Ubuntu more like macOS
6There are plenty of Linux distributions that look like macOS, but most offer skin-deep changes and don't adhere to the ethos of macOS. These settings do, while allowing you to continue using the Gnome environment.
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
-
PGP encryption
21I can never remember quite how PGP encrpytion works (mostly because I never use it), so I'm writing it down here to refer back to when someone starts talking wonky crypto stuff at me.
-
Expressing/identifying
9A cohesive unified theory on the purpose of art rendered incoherent by being like really tired of a lot of things.
July 2021
-
Innovation in tech
10I'm extremely tired of the powerful in tech holding the rest of us hostage in the name of innovation.
June 2021
-
Thoughts on margins
5Some thoughts on how to use margins in CSS. Needlessly opinionated.
May 2021
-
On effectiveness
15Some meandering thoughts on what it means to be an effective person in a tech career.
-
TailwindCSS
8A bit of meta-commentary on Tailwind CSS' description: "Tailwind, like most CSS frameworks, solves a problem really well. Its supporters, on the other hand, are a pain.
April 2021
-
March 2021
4What I got up to in March 2021.
March 2021
-
Practical Go
26 -
札幌コンテンポラリー
22My favourite Vektroid album, only intermittently available on Bandcamp.
-
February 2021
6What I got up to in February 2021.
-
As Much JavaScript as Possible
1Some thoughts on JavaScript outside of the browser and its unpopularity in Big Tech.
January 2021
-
Recently: January
31What I want for the blog; thoughts on template builders; Cassie Evans on SVG animations; Supabase.
-
Ad Astra
21A tonally weird movie, with 1-dimensional characters, no plot development, and a truly awful script: 2/5.
-
Soul
20Everything they've said is true: Pixar is back in form. Beautiful and meaningful.
-
Metropolis (2001)
17As a romp through a visually-spectacular world, it's a fine film, but don't expect any poignant messages at the end.
-
Eugene Onegin
2 -
1998 space disaster movies
2No one made any good space movies in 1998, I'm pretty sure. Armageddon: 3/5 and Deep Impact: 2/5.
2020
December 2020
-
2020
31A quick overview of everything significant that happened in 2020.
-
WordPress in 2020
15In 2020, WordPress remains relevant and dynamic as ever. But it's still got a few pain points.
-
Recently: early December
8Bandcamp, RSS, and the Cleveland Way
October 2020
-
Foundation
31 -
Cleveland Way: Kildale Forest
25A short day trip along the Cleveland Way in Kildale in the North York Moors.
-
Midnight's Children
12 -
The Devil Wears Prada
10The very best totally messed up no-good flawed film I've watched in a while.
September 2020
-
Cleveland Way: Square Corner to Sneck Yate and back
20An account of a day trip along the Cleveland Way between Square Corner and Sneck Yate.
-
Recently: Early September
16The web isn't about me, Umami.is, application holotypes, and utility programs
-
Per-user data encryption
13How I built a user-password-based encryption system that even the database owner can't break.
August 2020
-
Recently: mid-August
27What I got up to mid-August 2020.
-
Recently: early August
14What I got up to in early August 2020
-
Cross Fell
6Walking up to the source of the Tees and Cross Fell.
July 2020
-
The good, the bad, & the confusing JavaScript
28My entry in the canon of explanation for why JS developers always seem so tired
-
BEM + utilities: a hybrid methodology
16Yet another CSS methodology: one that works pretty well for me.
June 2020
May 2020
-
How to Read a Book
12 -
On good code
6Some thoughts on how to determine whether code is good.
April 2020
-
On life optimisation
18More navel-gazing about being an effective person.
February 2020
-
Shaving and the past
5I shaved my beard off and it made me all sorts of introspective for some reason.
January 2020
-
Pointy Serif Fonts
25Pointy fonts with really high stroke contrast are everywhere nowadays.
2019
December 2019
August 2019
-
Week of 22 July
8Algebraic effects, memoisation, and running a mile because GQ told me to.
July 2019
-
Week of 15 July
25A bunch of musing on the screen and the job as defining us as people.
-
Week of 8 July
18Canadian brand guidelines, error-resistant React apps, and a model of the Roman world.
April 2019
-
On things going well
1Things are going well.
2018
December 2018
-
Build a realtime database
22How to build a proof of concept for a realtime database, a la Firebase.
June 2018
-
Use SQLite with PHP
23They say you learn best when you try to teach someone else. So here I am, trying to teach... myself.
-
Deep Work
2
May 2018
-
Rails routing with slugs
26Use slugs for your Rails routes, rather than database primary keys.
-
Rails redirects with regex
17How to redirect routes with Rails, but only if they match a given regex.
-
16 May
16 -
1 May
1
April 2018
-
AJAX signup in WordPress
28How to build an AJAX signup page in WordPress.
-
24 April
24 -
18 April
18 -
17 April
17 -
13 April
13 -
April 12
12 -
April 11
11
2017
December 2017
-
Sharp Edge
4Climbing Sharp Edge on Blencathra in the northern Lake District.
November 2017
-
Publish a package for the Atom editor
25How to publish a package to the Atom text editor repository.
-
On wind
22
September 2017
-
Create a basic Express server
17How to create a basic Express server, with templates.
August 2017
-
System fonts
25A short bit about using the fonts that your users' computers come with.
June 2017
-
How password resets work
7A short post explaining how password resets work, mostly just to help me remember.
2016
February 2016
-
Naei-zan (那英山)
12Climbing Naei-zan in Kami-Furano by snowshoe with Sam and a couple of buddies.
-
Run a marathon
8What it's like to run the Abashiri Marathon in on 27 September 2015.
January 2016
-
Okirika-yama (冲里河山)
28Climbing Okirika-yama, just outside of Fukagawa, by ski in the wintertime.
-
Kitoushi-yama (鬼斗牛山)
20How to climb Kitoushi-yama, a small hill just north of Asahikawa, in the wintertime.
-
Abandoned bus in a field
19
2015
December 2015
-
Abandoned home
16Coming across an abandoned home. Nanowrimo 2015.
-
Send me a PDF
9Frustrated by Word documents that get mangled in email transit, a plea is issued for a simple PDF.
November 2015
-
Beach to town
18Walking from the beach into town. Nanowrimo 2015.
-
A rural Japanese elementary graduation
5A grade 6 graduation at Kaisei Elementary School.
2014
August 2014
-
Week 104
14A visit to Tsuru-no-yu at Nyuto Onsen in Akita Prefecture. I sit in a very hot bath far longer than is considered normal.
July 2014
-
Week 101
24Climbing Tomuraushi with Tony over two days and running out of water on what was maybe the best walk I've ever done.
April 2014
-
Attend the launch of a rocket
14I attended the launch of the Space Shuttle for STS-127 back in 2009.
2013
December 2013
-
Week 66
20My first real trip out to Shiretoko, touring of the Five Lakes district in the late fall.
November 2013
-
Week 65
20Climbing Yotei for the first time, alone in the early winter, and being absolutely floored by the beauty.
-
Week 64
6Twenty-fourth tour round the sun and I'm still enamoured of the autumn.
October 2013
-
Week 62
30Climbing Kogane-yama out west with Jordan, padding out the post with a bunch of rubbish about steep dropoffs
-
Week 61
7Running 10 kilometres in Okoppe.
-
Week 60
7Random stuff I overheard on The Bus in Honolulu.
-
Week 59
7Driving over Ukishima-toge on the way back from Asahikawa to Takinoue
September 2013
August 2013
-
Week 55
26Camping down south, at one of the welcome parties I think, coinciding with the Jigoku-matsuri in Noboribetsu.
-
Week 54
19Driving home from Tony's house in the rain.
-
Week 53
15Driving down south, visiting the Jozankei sex museum, sleeping in the Matsumae Michi-no-Eki parking lot
July 2013
-
Week 50
29Climbing Tokachi-dake with Emma and Oliver.
-
Week 49
16Climbing Teshio-dake with Tony and Oliver, visiting an abandoned school on the outskirts of Monbetsu.
-
Week 48
9Driving north from Asahikawa with the windows down.
-
Week 47
1A brief interlude at the top of the Nissho Pass, driving with Tony down to some event in the southwest.
June 2013
-
Week 45
20Returning to Shari after the abortive attempt the previous fall, a trio of Kiwis and I summit in glory.
-
Week 43
3The first day of summer, coming surprisingly late to northeastern Hokkaido.
May 2013
-
Week 40
13Oliver let me tag along on an excursion to see what was left of the rail line that used to run through Yubetsu.
-
Week 39
4I drove Penelope the AZ-Wagon around the whole perimeter of Hokkaido to see what else was out there.
April 2013
-
Week 36
17Tooling around Maruseppu in Penelope the AZ-Wagon.
-
Week 35
11Much ado about melting snow; the gang comes across a pair of abandoned cars.
-
Week 34
2The first days of spring are coming to Hokkaido.
March 2013
-
Week 31
12Coming back from Pippu, I am struck by the first blue sky I've seen in what feels like months.
-
Week 30
8A blizzard strikes Yubetsu.
February 2013
-
Week 29
26Skiing at Kurodake and my first visit to the Sounkyo Ice Festival.
-
Week 28
18A trip on the icebreaking ship Aurora to see the sea ice on the Sea of Okhotsk.
-
Week 27
13Back to Yamabiko-no-taki in wintertime to see the frozen waterfall.
-
Week 26
5In Iwamizawa, I experience my first (and thus far only) earthquake, and we drive home through thick snow.
January 2013
-
Week 25
28A bit about Hokkaido in the dark on a quiet evening.
-
Week 24
22Going out skiing at Piyashiri, trying to leave anxiety behind me.
-
Week 23
16A brief layover in Osaka on the way back from the States leads to some real soul-searching on trains.
2012
December 2012
-
Week 19
18Much ado about a bunch of snow. I guess I'm not used to quite this much snow.
-
Week 18
13The night of the rented Higashikawa cabin, and the emotional aftermath.
-
Week 17
3The days are approaching their shortest; winter is well & truly here & boy is it dark.
November 2012
-
Week 16
26The winter is starting to settle in. I celebrate American Thanksgiving with friends in Monbetsu.
-
Week 15
19In which the author rambles a little bit.
-
Week 14
12A belated Halloween party, home from which we took the low roads over the mountain passes.
-
Week 13
5More urbex at the Kampo-no-yado Sounkyo, a semi-destroyed hotel by the side of the road just outside of Kamikawa.
October 2012
-
Week 12
29Konomai, the first time I explored some abandoned infrastructure that marks so much of the face of Hokkaido.
-
Week 11
23The first abortive trip up Shari-dake, accompanied by a quartet of Kiwis, ending in a mad rush down the mountainside after hours of beating through the wilderness.
-
Week 10
15Yamabiko-no-taki, my first encounter with a higuma, a drive on a forest road, and karaoke with the Monbetsu folks.
-
Week 9
10A trip to Nitori, a night in Asahikawa, and a trip to Tenninkyo
-
Week 8
1Hauling Renyu on a mikoshi through Kamiyubetsu.
September 2012
August 2012
-
Week 3
29Arriving in Japan, Tokyo Orientation, the train up to Yubetsu, and my first days at work.