The Land of Stones and Bones

The dead have always gathered on these hills.

In 2009, archaeologists unearthed fifty-four headless Vikings - bodies cast haphazardly in one pile, skulls neatly stacked in another, a few inexplicably missing. Executed a millennium ago and dumped in a Roman quarry, they lie right beside the path.

The Land of Stones and Bones is the story of a 102 kilometre run across Dorset on a progressively darkening day in October. It is a journey across the barrow lined Ridgeway, up and down the rollercoaster hills of Lulworth and Flower’s Barrow, twice through the shadow of Corfe Castle’s historic ruins. A trek to both the southernmost and highest point in Purbeck, through a night lit only by head torch, and a negotiation of the frankly offensive steps at Emmet’s Hill.

This was my first ever 100k race. After two DNFs and a year best forgotten, it was also something else entirely.

The landscape of Dorset has been dealing with the dead for five thousand years.

One more runner was hardly going to trouble it.