Fleeing the Runners

& why I'm looking at houses in Devon

As is the case every Saturday morning, the dogs and I have just narrowly survived being trampled. If you have never had the opportunity to attend nor encounter a ‘Park Run’ yourself allow me to explain.

Each Saturday morning just before 9am, thousands of white-as-the-salt-flats M&A lawyers, junior fund managers, and marketing and communications officers gather together in parks across London. At 9am they jog together in a circle.

[ Wild Dartmoor pony having a peaceful drink, 6 February 2025, photograph by me. You might think a hoard of wild ponies were a greater trampling threat but no ]

Along the course are volunteers in high-vis vests who - unpaid - get up early on Saturday in order to stand in the middle of a pavement holding a sign saying ‘this way’ or ‘half way point’ and shout ‘KEEP GOING’ and ‘WELL DONE’ at this torrent of sweaty strangers. They do this in all weathers. I wish someone would make a documentary about them - who are these people who are willing to spend their weekend this way? What motivates them?

This has long been the case on Clapham Common where the pups and I usually take our walks. Then, tragically, a few months ago a sign went up to ‘consult with the community’ about a Park Run on Battersea Park. I forgot to write in with my objection as, I assume, did millions of others, because now both parks are similarly afflicted with these gasping, trotting masses. Nowhere is safe.

[ Views for miles, Dartmoor, 6 February 2025, photograph by me. Not a tech bro in sight ]

If it is not yet clear, I loathe Park Run. I’m sure as individuals each member is a class act (my ex-boyfriend is one and is - of course - divine (as if I would date anyone not excellent) and some of you reading may well be, too) but as a collective I hate them.

It isn’t just the toxic exercise culture, the camel-backpack-water things, the mass of lycra’d legs and the corresponding camel-toes, the fact that - to a person - they are each a carbon copy of the next so that (particularly immediately post-break up) it seems that thousands of ex-boyfriends are all rushing at me at once.

It isn’t just that if you time your arrival wrong at the Pear Tree (either Clapham Common or Battersea Park) or any other nearby caffeine dispensary, you have to queue for an hour for a Saturday morning latte, swamped by the damp, foggy smell of one thousand post-run armpits.

[ View from my AirBnB, 6 February 2025, photograph by me ]

It isn’t just the Strava-obsessed, tracker-strapped, unselfconciousness of the runners gathered in groups in the middle of pavements, clogging up cafe tables, spilling out of any nearby brunch spots, chatting ruddy-cheeked about their PBs.

It isn’t just the pervading sense of smugness, the self-satisfaction of the group which - if it could be harnessed - could power a city the size of Hong Kong for at least one low-usage day.

It is that their misguided sense of ‘community’ means the only peaceful places in London are ruined.

There is no real community here, though participants would I’m sure disagree. But they don’t talk to each other, beyond talking to those they already know, gasping out conversations about the guy that just ghosted them as they careen ‘round the bandstand, tripping thoughtlessly over unsuspecting small dogs.

[ Sunset over Dartmoor, 6 February 2025, photograph by me ]

My Saturday morning dog walk is the highlight of my week. If you were to ctrl-A-delete the Park Runners, the only people up and out in London parks come rain or shine are the dog walkers. To a person, they are happy to be there. As I’ve said, dog people are the best people, and they’ll chirp a ‘good morning’ while their dogs and mine roll around in mud together, sniff each others hinders, and generally pal around.

We’re all just happy to have a peaceful potter. No jostling, no competing, just a peaceful walk to shake off the working week and to welcome the weekend. A time to hang out and play with our four-legged buddies. If you’re lucky, it might even be quiet enough to enjoy bird song, parks being one of the few places in London with sufficient vegetative protection for a bird population to thrive.

[ Dogs on Tor, 6 February 2025, photograph by me ]

Any hope of such a moment of peace is destroyed by the huffing, thumping and gasping, the megaphone-wailing shrieks of encouragement from marshals, and the sound - far away - of a hundred knee surgeons rubbing their hands and sharpening their scalpels. As a tax payer, I would like to be able to opt out of the cost of any Park Run-related, NHS-funded tendon surgeries. Alas.

This morning’s walk was thusly ruined. And having been driven out of the park and back onto the pavements of Battersea, the next thing I saw was a used condom in the middle of my path. Neatly tied at one end, it lay strewn.

Then, returning to my car I found I had been wedged in by some lunatic who had left about 5cm of air between our bumpers. The front of their car was smashed up, and they were half parked on a double-yellow. What more information do you need to know that this person is terrible? Trying to extract myself, I reenacted that scene from Austin Powers where he tries to turn the cart in the corridor.

[ Jail this psychopath. 8 February 2025, photograph by me ]

Now - disclaimer / TMI - it is the first day of my period today, and that may have something to do with my next-level fury on this miserable morning. But it is worse for being my first morning back in London after a few days in Devon, staying among the magical druid-rocks of Dartmoor.

I went down to look at a house for rent. It was perfect in every way, save that (in the end) the owners only want a tenant in for five months. Given it is completely unfurnished (without even its white goods) this makes it an entirely impractical proposition. Another trip wasted.

I went down to view another house a couple of months ago. A fabulous, tiny, ancient one-bedroom hunting lodge with views like you wouldn’t believe. Unfortunately, the owners had taken the ‘hunting lodge’ brief to it’s extreme but logical thematic end, and the whole place was filled with taxidermy. Floor to ceiling, table tops, window sills - every inch of the place was speckled with glass eyes staring forlornly. A once-fearsome fox glanced the way to the downstairs loo. A once-majestic water buffalo nodded you to the sofa in the living room. A once-in-tact impala nearly impaled you on the way to the front door.

[ Taxidermy stout (?) musketeer, carefully anonymised family photograph and dead flies, 1 November 2024, photograph by me ]

After a brief exchange of emails, the owners said they would (reluctantly) consider moving the heads into storage but otherwise considered that their taste in interiors was excellent and wished for the house to be left as was.

The trouble with short lets is that they do need to be sort of… ready. I mean, at the point at which one is viewing a short-let property ideally one is not already half way through the advertised six-month lease. Of course life often doesn’t work out this way, and certainly in so far as the rental market in Dartmoor is concerned professionally slick operations are not a priority. And that is partly why I love it there.

I have told you before about my desire to run away to the hills of Devon. Well now an actual plan is forming. I also told you (in a post that I had to take down - a lawyer/reader/friend warned that I had shared too much about a case I was involved in) that I’m a born and raised Londoner who has grown sick of the place. As such, a short-let seemed like the best way to dip a toe in without wholesale up and selling my home and moving to Devon.

[ Heavenly Dartmoor Airbnb, more details to follow for paid pals coming soon… 5 February 2025, photograph by me ]

The place I saw this week was heaven on earth because not only was it in the perfect location but it had a greenhouse. Of course, gardening in a place for six months would already have been a push. Gardening in a place for four and half months is hardly worth doing, even with a greenhouse. As a result of these two abortive attempts to find a short let, I concede that I need to commit to a longer-term dipped toe. Less of a ‘dip’ and more of a ‘linger’. So I will turn my attention to searching for a 12-month lease.

All I really want, is to be able to head out for a peaceful morning walk. To have space, and bird song. To be surrounded by beauty, not shouting at Bella not to eat a used condom. I want a proper garden to garden, with a lawn to loll and read without being at risk of a conk on the head with a football / frisbee / beer bottle. I want to potter with the dogs without having to face down a hoard of wheezing guys who ‘work at a start-up’ and girls sweating off their carefully applied make up, all expelling their various bodily fluids into the air with careless abandon.