or should that be ‘whilst’ trail running? Anyway, that trail list of things that are hell-bent on destroying your trail-hygge
Stinging nettles: the name says it all. They are the bastard-sons of the urticaceae family of weeds. Beat them to death or leave them at your peril. If you get stung, don’t scratch.
Thistles: prickly fuckers, sometimes hiding in between nettles or left to grow with abandon on reclaimed Cheshire brinelands. Widely found in Scotland.
Tree branches: the head high whippy ones, oft covered in spiky thorns I can’t see because I’m wearing some trendy new trucker cap from Patagonia that validates me as ‘an outdoorsy kind a guy’. At least the cap covers the scratches.
Logging roads: armed with invisible rocks, pot holes and ditches competing to face-plant unwary runners or eat a chunk out of my flesh or collar bone. They have done and I have the scars to prove it.
Bracken: I’m referring to the thick Lake District variety that can grow as tall as a house, that shouldn’t even be there ‘cos the fecking map said there was a path and Google Maps clearly has a dotted line right where I’m currently stumbling. It’s like children of the corn, but with bracken.
Brambles: cleverer than they look; they stretch over trails waiting for you to step on them. When the other foot slides underneath the bramble is locked, going nowhere, except painfully across the shin. If you see them, jump, because spiky and slidy are not mutually compatible words.
Buzzards: when they nest they get territorial and are prone to attacking anything in their vicinity posing a potential, actual or existential threat to offspring. Always wear a hard hat or avoid running any Strava segments referencing buzzards.
Stiles and gates: come in all different shapes and sizes. Some have planks missing and rusty nails poking out. Others have really strong spring mechanisms that can close quicker than tired shins can escape from.
Stones: who’d think that one medium-sized stone on a muddy track across a field next to Buttermere could be so vindictive. One internal knee scrub and six stitches later says otherwise.
Prickly broom: also known as spiny broom, thorny broom and fucking broom, is one of the wonderful types of flora you can expect to meet on your holiday run through Mediterranean hillside trails. A gorse-like bush but on steroids; it’s spring green spikes are bad enough, but by late Summer they have dried woody grey, something akin to what Rambo might use to make spring-loaded traps from, leaving shins and thighs looking less like legs and more like tic-tac-toe templates.
That | Trail | Run 