Does running 42 Lakeland fells in less than 24 hours really bring ‘serenity’?
‘We continue to grapple as a species,’ writes Carl Morris, ‘with a knotty philosophical divide between anthropocentric and biocentric approaches to the natural world. Our bodies are both transcendent – seemingly beyond nature and capable of rationalised enhancement – but also immanent – that is within nature and therefore subject to the same frailties and limitations.’ What is he addressing? Space travel? Diving to the bottom of the Mariana Trench without oxygen? Not quite. He is talking about the process of human locomotion. He is talking about running. Stay with me. Books about running can be as dull as a ten-mile road race in the Illinois flatlands, and I say
