It’s All About Learning How to Fall

Life’s a lot like running down a mountain

Last weekend, I went with a friend to the Brecon Beacons — a range of small mountains in Wales — to take part in a women-only fell running course.

Fell running, quite simply, is the art of running up and down mountains or steep hills. Usually this will be on unmarked paths and only rarely will there be any kind of route direction. It differs, thus, from trail running (which happens — yes! — on clearly marked trails, not necessarily on hills) and from road running, which speaks for itself.

Fell running is very different to most sorts of running. It is not about speed, form or pace. The joy of fell running comes from being out in nature, feeling the seasons turn around us, recognising how tiny and insignificant we are against the rugged landscape. Being present.

This sense of utter freedom in nature is what I love about it. It’s the same sort of pure joy I get from hiking, but it’s more exhilarating because of the sense of speed and the feeling of achievement. It is far more effortful, and that effort brings commensurate rewards.

It is also much more risky.

Trusting instincts and managing risk (running down mountains)

The majority of the course I did dealt with pointers on managing this risk, and particularly in relation to the hardest part of fell running, which is the downhill part. The uphills? Those endless craggy climbs that hurt your lungs and hamstrings? They’re the easy bit.

When you throw yourself down a mountain and begin to run on a descent, you cannot be fully in control. You just can’t. Physics, gravity — they won’t allow it. You will go faster and faster as the slope continues, and the ground on mountains is inevitably uneven and rocky, so you will need to decide with each step where your feet should go next.

Lose focus, or lose trust in yourself, and you will fall. Maybe all the way to the bottom.

Running downhill on rugged ground, then, is all about trust. It’s about trusting your eyes to communicate with your feet, so that you learn instinctively to pick the best spots for them as you fly downhill. It’s about trusting your body to keep itself balanced when you’re teetering at terrifying angles. It’s about trusting your feet to grab even the smallest amount of purchase so that you’re slightly steadied before leaping to the next step.

In essence, it’s about learning how to fall safely. To fall freely, but to keep some control to guide the process. And that’s what so much of life is about, isn’t it?

Trusting instincts and managing risk (running through life)

All of life is there, I realised. All summed up in the experience of fell running. The process is just the same. We start slowly; we have no idea what direction we will eventually take across the bumpy terrain of what’s ahead of us. We think we are in control, but there are steep hills to climb and there are always unexpected rocks to skin our knees and knuckles.

We reach glorious summits, we see beautiful panoramic vistas ahead of us, but there will always be a downhill over the next rise. A descent which requires our total focus. An enjoyable journey, but one which needs all of our attention to be fixed on staying stable and upright and deciding what to do next.

As we carry on and get better at the process, we develop more skill at anticipating which rain clouds will lead to storms, and which will maybe just hide the sun for a little while. We learn when to hide and when to press on.

We learn how deceptive a climb can be, and that sometimes the hardest struggles come on the gentlest inclines. We learn that falling is not the end of the world, and that we can get up again.

We get used, hopefully and in time, to trusting our own intuition and honing our focus inward so that in time we can place our feet lightly, just where they need to be.

When I descended the last fellside on that day of learning, I realised with relief that my body had learned to go with the flow of the descent. The instructor had told me to trust my instincts; I’d done what she said and now there I was, safe on flat ground again.

There’s a lot to be said for us all doing a bit more of this: in life, as well as on the hillsides. Jumping in feet first, appreciating the joy of nature all around us, and trusting in our instincts to guide us to the next safe landing.

Here’s another article inspired by my day of learning about fell running: