A Fool’s Errand – Part Three

Grief, self-limiting, and what it means to keep moving.

Did you read A Fool’s Errand, Part One and Part Two? If not, I strongly suggest going back and familiarizing yourself with the story before diving into Part Three.

To read Part One, click here – To read Part Two, click here. LL

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“Wow. Your internal dialogue is really quite negative, have you noticed that?”

Yeah. I had, actually. In writing Part One and Part Two it occurred to me how much of that negative self-talk I had to edit out and cut from my drafts.

Fuck.

***

Viana do Castelo was the first time I saw other ‘pilgrims’. Normal, sensible looking pilgrims. The sort that start their day in the morning and walk 20km or so to their next albergue. Leisurely enjoying, rather than enduring.

Some of them called out as I passed them, “are you running all the way?” “Slow down man!”

I ran past two younger guys on bikes who pedalled harder to catch up, who asked what I was doing … and were blown away that my plan was to run the whole way.” I found myself racing them (yes, they were on bikes), and somehow smashed my GoPro in the process. Maybe I should have slowed down.

My next big landmark was the boat crossing at the border in Caminha. Around 25-30 km away. My boat to Spain was booked for 11:30am.

***

My best friend died recently. His passing has shaken a lot of deep shit up. In returning to this draft I realized that there were through lines between me deciding to do this run, and how I have lived my life to this point. The arresting shock of heart-breaking grief finally put some sort of clarity in my mind.

Today I found myself telling my beloved that I don’t believe she respects my thoughts, opinions, or the way I think. Is that true? Or is the real truth that I feel that way about myself?

What have I done with my life? What defines me?

I have lived a life of rich experiences— but achieved nothing.

Today, whilst leaving the house with a hundred things on my mind I ran over my 12 week old puppy with the car – by some miracle, she’s fine. Today I missed a memo that my son had a soccer game – he was gutted that I wasn’t there. I did manage to order a new dishwasher … albeit after months of being asked to do so, and multiple failed attempts later – is that an achievement?

I quit the corporate ladder that I had barely started to ascend for a life behind the lens – I never got my big magazine cover or gold-standard client. I commentated on a few big competitions and was relatively sought after … but I bailed on that before climbing joined the olympics and faded out of that scene. I never fully committed to training for a hard boulder or route or expedition when I climbed. I traveled with one of the best athletes in the sport and amounted to not much more than some fun memories, a couple of flings, and some cool photographs. I have never won a race, nor raced in a way I’ve been proud of — bowing out of competition without ever giving myself a proper chance. I bagged a few ‘low bar’ FKT’s that mean nothing. I tell myself that I’m an excellent DJ and that the big gigs will come, but still play the same venues to lukewarm crowds and hope for the best. I dug myself some pretty deep financial holes of which I’m still trying to find my way out of.

I do my best to be a good father. For years I have been healing the wounds of my own childhood in order to show up better for theirs. And yet still I find myself snapping back into old patterns, unearthing old energies.

I try to be a good partner. I did read the book. I went to some therapy sessions. Still, time and time again I go around the same cycle and spiral and show up in my mother-wounded-masculine … fragile at best. Not the man she wants or needs.

My pattern of self limiting is so fucking clear — with this run, I said the words I wanted to be true, “doing it for the journey”, “finishing is the goal”, etc. And yet the internal dialogue was inherently negative. I called the series A FOOLS ERRAND for fucks sake.

There is a part of me that doesn’t want to believe that it’s impossible to do the impossible, it’s a part of me that is grossly out of touch with reality – why do I think that I can defy all odds? Could I have got that magazine cover? Could I have been an Olympic commentator? Could I have won the race? Could I?

I have been told I am special, but I don’t allow myself to believe that, to fulfill it. Because I am grading myself against the impossible. Who the fuck can run hundreds of kilometers untrained, unprepared, unplanned, on a whim? Meghan offered that by not tempering my expectations of myself I am not allowing myself to reach my highest capacity; by not grounding in the reality of today, I am literally setting myself up to question the special that is actually there.

Self love? Now that’s a concept.

***

Trotting out of Viana do Castelo I had 80km under my belt (and a phenomenal avocado toast). Rest and light stretching meant my body felt totally different to how I had arrived. I was able to pick up the cadence again. I dispatched 10km at a reasonable clip … and then the sun rose that bit higher in the sky. Breakfast wore off. My body started to tighten up … again.

I told myself if I could keep up a reasonable pace I could make the 12:30 crossing, realizing the 11:30 that was no longer achievable, but my steady trot had now turned to more of a power hike, driven forward only by my poles and bullish stubbornness. Involuntary grunting noises and groans surprised me as they sporadically escaped from my mouth. This was deeper and more painful than an ache or niggle. I was really hurting.

My pace slowed further still, the sun baked me and the trail. My left calf felt more and more like a brick. I wasn’t even going to make the 1:30pm crossing … how was it that I was moving so slowly?

Limping woefully into Caminha I saw a mini-market on the roadside and ducked in, hopeful that I would find a miracle, or at least something to keep me moving. A pack of 6 sorbet popsicles, two almost-ripe peaches, and a bottle of room temp sparkling water was all I could muster in my deeply fatigued state … I offered popsicles to hikers on the street, nobody took me up on my offer. I ate all six with ease. The icy tang giving me the deepest brain freeze I’ve ever had.

I finally arrived at the boat dock at 14:04 … seventeen hours and forty nine minutes since leaving Porto. I had twenty six minutes until the next boat left for Spain. I lay on the pilgrims bench and closed my eyes, for twenty minutes, telling myself that I would make my decision after a brief moment of shut eye. My phone alarm woke me. I sat up sluggishly. The boat was docked, loading next to me. And without a second thought I stopped the activity timer on my watch.

No fucking way. I am done. So done. I thought to myself.

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Clockwise from top left: The best breakfast I ever did eat; pop-sick-le; Pilgrim's Bench; Fin.

***

I took off my shoes and socks and dropped my feet into the water. The cool of the Rio Minho was immediate and total. The boat had already disappeared from view. Spain was right there, on the other side. Close enough to swim to, entirely unreachable. I stared across the water.

I don’t know how long I sat there. Long enough for the water to stop feeling cold. Long enough to stop thinking about cadence and crossing times and how many kilometres were left. Long enough to just be a beaten-down man sitting at a rivers edge with desperately sore legs and no particular reason to move.

The Uber to the station took seven minutes. The Flixbus to Porto took an hour and thirty-ish minutes.

Seventeen hours and forty nine minutes of effort to arrive … and less than two hours to get back. I sat in the front seat of the bus and stared out of the window, trying to make sense of it. I couldn’t. I’d run all that way to escape a feeling, and yet there it was, sat right next to me. And it hadn’t even broken a sweat. The landscape flew by in reverse. All those kilometres … the cobbled streets, the airport perimeter, the beach, the Roman bridge, the forest trails, the shite espresso, the sunrise energy — all of it reduced to motorway, headrest and the rumbling hum of the engine.

I ran 110km. I did not run to Santiago de Compostela. Both of those things are true.

I am still not entirely sure which one matters more.

Writing this it dawned on me that stopping the watch is just another item on an ever-growing list. Another thing I started and didn’t finish. The magazine cover I never got. The Olympic commentary I shied away from. The races I never gave myself a chance in. A Fool’s Errand — I named it that before I’d even started. Maybe I always knew.

***

On March 12th, 2026, my best friend took his own life.

I’ve been sitting with that sentence for a while now, trying to find a way to write it that makes it easier to read. There isn’t one.

Tom was one of the people who knew me best. The cliché kind of friend where the conversation picks up exactly where it left off, every time, no matter how long it had been. He was a joy of a human, sparkly-eyed and beaming grin. I assumed Tom would always be there.

I was already returning to this draft when I found out. Already attempting to pull at the thread of wrapping up what this run meant, what the self-limiting meant, what any of it meant. And then suddenly I found myself sitting with a question I didn’t know how to hold.

What the fuck does any of this even matter?

I don’t have an answer.

Tom was my first running buddy. Our friendship was forged in climbing, but we ran to get fitter for our adventures on the crags of the Lake District and our sport trips to the continent. We would be up early several mornings per week, before the rest of the town was awake. Often in the pissing rain, in our short shorts and t-shirts, lungs bursting on the muddy fells behind Kendal. We would pause to do yoga in the woods, and then we’d keep running, faux racing each other back into town, laughing and yelping.

What I know is this: he is gone, and I am still here in a Tom-shaped-vacuum.

The thing I always knew is that this run was always much more than a run. I didn’t make it to Santiago, I stopped the watch, took off my shoes, and put my feet in the river at the edge of a country. I believed in the impossible, and then remembered it was impossible.

I don’t know if this makes me a fool. I don’t know if it makes me special. I don’t know if I have ever got close to what I was capable of, or if I ever will. I don’t know if I’ve been running in the wrong direction my whole life, or if there even is a wrong direction.

But I am still here. I kept moving. And for now, that has to be enough.