Four weird things I have experienced when running in the English Lake District. The last one completely freaked me out.

Running in the Lake District requires resilience, equipment and strong navigational skills but it is truly a beautiful place to explore on foot.

I moved to Kendal in 2018. The village resides at the south-eastern end of the Lake District and boasts an exciting fell-running¹ and outdoors scene. Since then I have logged over 1000 miles of running and done my best to explore the rugged hills and trails.

The number of breath-taking views are too many to list here, but occasionally I see odd things while running that stick in my mind for months afterward.

Here are 4 weird things I have experienced when running in the Lake District:

1.Rogue waves on Low Water.

In July 2020 I ran a circuit starting and ending in the village of Coniston. As is typical of Lake District running, the route was very hilly. It also took in the mysterious old slate mines and empty caverns that are so typical of this area.

Also on the route were two bodies of water. Low water, the smaller of the two, sits just below Old Man of Coniston (803 metres) and another larger one, Levers Water.

As I ran from Brim Fell (796 metres) to the Old Man I noticed a very strange phenomenon occurring on the surface of Low Water below.

Wind currents were blasting the lake and sending currents out from its centre, as if a helicopter were trying to land. But there was no helicopter.

It caused me to stop in my tracks, as if an alien craft were hovering just above the surface of the water. The visual effect was ghostly and beautiful and showed no sign of stopping as I hopped over the brow of the next hill and lost my line of sight.

2.Rain as strong as a waterfall.

On the same route, the wind picked up considerably as we approached Old Man of Coniston and with it came horizontal rain. The gusts of precipitation became so strong that they saturated my clothing and stung the exposed skin of my right ear.

The sound of the wind was almost unbearable until I ducked under an outcrop of rock, whereupon it stopped. I hid out of sight of the wind and rain in relative peace and quiet for a minute or so. In front of me, beyond the shelter I had found, I could hear and see the storm. It was like a a horizontal waterfall six feet ahead of me. I could almost reach out and touch the wall of water. Though the sound it made was distant, I knew that if I were to step forward I would be enveloped.

I took a breath and stepped into the storm and eventually reached the foot of the mountain. My waiting car had never felt so warm.

3.Footsteps following me in the dark.

My local running route is a 5.5 mile trail along Scout Scar. It’s a hill where cows and walkers share a vast network of trails. The running is easy, but can be technical in places. The paths are rocky and tend to become muddy after a lot of rain.

I have been running the trails on Scout Scar for a couple of years now, but only recently started running them at night. There shouldn’t be any difference, you say?

Well night-running was a big challenge for me, in the beginning. In London my night running was in urban areas and poor lighting was never an issue. Running round Regents Park or Hyde Park at night was sometimes as busy as during the day. But coming out here, with less light pollution and higher humidity, it was a different kettle of fish.

I recently became more confident running in pitch black, with my head torch otherwise lighting the mist ahead of me. As long as I had a lighthearted podcast episode to listen to I could remind myself that the eyes staring into my head torch were just sheep, and not alien life forms.

One night the rain was particularly heavy. The wind was picking up, and my head torch preferred to illuminate the rainfall in front of eyes rather than the path beneath my feet.

As I picked up the pace up the side of the hill I became aware of a second pair of footsteps echoing after mine. My blood ran immediately cold. I stopped and looked behind me. Nothing.

I started running again and, just like before, began to hear the faint thud of someone else’s boots ringing out behind the sound of my podcast.

I stopped again and took out my headphones. My heart kept a fast rhythm as I held my breath to hear it again.

I continued on and heard nothing more. After a while I found it more comforting to forgo the headphones and listen to my environment.

Trying to shut out the night using headphones seemed to have the opposite effect. It made me fearful that I was missing the sound of an imminent attack, or the shouts of someone giving chase.

Yes, I know, I’m a grown man. But it took some getting used to.

I haven’t heard the footsteps since.

4.A contorted woman.

This is without a doubt the weirdest experience running in my new surroundings in Kendal.

At the end of an evening run on Scout Scar I had all but lost the light as I returned to the housing estate near my home.

Darkness was permeated by yellow street lamps and my running shoes echoed against the house either side of the steep hill down into the village.

As I neared the foot of the road, with the intention of turning right, my way was blocked by the figure of a female.

She was late 30s, early 40sa and very slim with dark hair to her waist. She stood just off the pavement, in the gutter of the road.

Though her feet were pointing away from me, her eyes were locked with mine. This meant she had to be facing the entirely opposite direction to the way she was standing.

Her head was twisted round, and at an angle. And she stared straight at me, as though in shock.

The sight of this strange looking woman, alone in the night, gave me a decent push of adrenaline and I continued past her, muttering ‘alright?’. I’m British so I wouldn’t presume to ignore even a spectre of the night.

Very strange.

Anyway, I know this is an odd list. Especially considering the amazing places I’ve run, including some of the tallest mountains in England. Perhaps I’ll write about some of those in future.

¹A fell is a term meaning ‘hill’ in the North of England. Fell running is thus the masochistic outdoor pursuit of running up and down fells.