I have a manager, he/she sits inside my head. When I wrote a couple a days ago about the facets of my personality that I presented to the world, or at least thought I presented to the world it is the manager who ‘manages’ that process. His/her purpose is to manage the cauldron of emotions that live inside my head.Now this is obviously an internal construct but the first time I really acknowledged it was with my current therapist. After our first session I was asked to draw my psyche/mind/personality, I can’t remember the exact words. Anyway what I drew were several silos representing those facets, below them was a foundation of emotions that I drew in black and above them was this manager who ‘managed’ everything below. When I would met someone it was the manager who worked out who to present, as the conversation evolved then a different silo was involved and the bizarre thing was that I knew I was doing this. The silos were in various colours and the manager in grey. Everything was about presenting as normal a face to the world and sealing that black element in as much concrete as possible. The problem was/is that however much concrete you wrap around them they will always break through. To use a relevant Cumbrian analogy it is like burying nuclear waste under the bedrock of the Lake District and hope that everything will be OK in the future. Unfortunately nuclear waste and emotions have a very long half life and are equally destructive.

Day 22 – 80 mins

Gill has headed back to London, the weather is looking good and I am itching to go for a longer run so I do. I decide to visit the Helm, I haven’t been up there for a run for about 3 months so it is a good time to revisit. I take a pretty direct route and as I get to the station, I consider a shortcut through the station but that means you just keep heading uphill so I take the long route that gives me a rest from the ascent for a couple of hundred yards. Twenty minutes in and I am on the small road that runs below the Helm and I head offroad and up the The Helm itself. Most of the people who come to the Helm tend to stay on the Kendal side of the wall. You get great views over Kendal and at the far end the Kent estuary but if you go to the other side of the wall, then you have a playground of slopes, humps, small lakettes, wild ponies and a big dose of solitude. I just run round, up, down, contouring across the slopes but I know that I am heading for my favourite tree. I love this tree, it’s dead, stunted, broken but it has a prominent position looking out over the surrounding countryside. I notice some more branches lying on the ground close to the tree I wander whether this is natures doing but I suspect human intervention which is sad. I take a long slow route to the trig point on the western edge and then drop down to the road. I cross over the main road and drop down in to Natland past the church and I turn left. I am looking for a little road that heads to a couple of farms, where the road and footpaths split I have always gone left but today I head right for an explore. I take an old path round the edge of the farm and then I am signposted back in to the farm, I am running through cow slurry, smelly and slippy. I can’t find the path out so I just leap over a gate and head down to the canal which I follow until I get to the Natland – Prizet road, I drop down to the river, cross the bridge and follow the footpath alongside the river, then through Scroggs Wood, I turn off the path and in to the estate to avoid the run past the sewage plant which is literally, a crap way to finish a run. I am home, relaxed, chilled and sorted. This is why I run.

The Sentinel – The Helm