Last B2B weekend before the taper — 16km in Glen of the Downs, and a 6am rave at the Octagon that vanished without a trace by 7:30.
Five a.m., coffee, the phone’s cold light, the same doomscroll every runner knows, then out the door at six because the legs don’t care what the news said.
First lost soul at the treeline, then another, then a third, wandering like satellites fallen out of orbit — too many strangers, I thought, for a Saturday wood.
Then the bass arrived before the bodies did, a heartbeat coming up through the roots, louder with every switchback, until there, at the Octagon — banqueting hall, 1766, built for a banker’s parties, a mechanical panther once rigged to startle guests — fifty people giving it socks to a beat only the trees had asked for, at six in the morning, gloriously undeterred.
Everyone friendly. Everyone a little elsewhere. I ran on, because that’s what a long run is — you notice the miracle and keep moving.
Two hours later, coming back the same way, half past seven: nothing. No thump, no crowd, not one bottle in the heather, as if two hundred and sixty years of parties had finally taught this stone how to be left the way it was found.
Sixteen kilometres, just over two hours, last back-to-back before the taper starts. A rave, fully formed and fully gone, is plenty for a Saturday.
Inspired by Allen Ginsberg