Field Journal

Written by: Daniel Neilson // Photography: John Summerton // Film: Summit Fever Media
Produced in Partnership with HOKA and Ellis Brigham

For endurance athlete and writer Jenny Tough, the long run isn’t about distance; it’s about courage, stillness, and backing yourself when it matters most. In this series for HOKA, we join her for a training run in the Cairngorms, the mountains she now calls home.

For Jenny Tough, the long run has always meant more than miles. ‘I ran across six different mountain ranges, solo and unsupported,’ Jenny says. ‘They were really big learning experiences. I think everyone focuses on the physicality of those. Some of them took 25 days, carrying all my own equipment, but it was really about the mental and emotional process. The biggest thing I had to learn was to just be brave enough to take on really big challenges all by myself.’

We meet Jenny at Nevisport in Aviemore. Jenny is Canadian, but it’s this Scottish mountain town she now calls home, living among some of the highest mountains in Britain. It’s the perfect training ground for the type of challenges Jenny, a professional athlete, participates in: running very long distances across mountain ranges, as chronicled in her book Solo: What running across mountains taught me about life, as well as ultra bikepacking races, including becoming the two-time first woman in the Silk Road Mountain Race and first woman in the inaugural Atlas Mountain Race, considered two of the most challenging off-road bike races.

After picking up a pair of the new Hoka Mafate 5 trail running shoes, ‘designed for the long run’, she takes us into the foothills of the Cairngorms to show us the beautiful training trails on her doorstep. We start at Uath Lochan, a dark, peaty Lochan that was once covered by the Strathspey Glacier. The lochan is a ‘kettle hole’, a dip in the land caused when a deposit of ice melted. It’s hard to imagine on the day we arrive. Although squally at the top of the huge Cairngorm giants above us, most prominently the Munro Sgòr Gaoith, it was warm and close on this August day. Dragonflies and damselflies flittered across the lilies, and the shhh of the sway Scots pines in the wind dominated the aural environment.

Many of the trees here are ancient, part of the old-growth Caledonian Forest. Jenny lightly springs around these wide trails, carrying the running poles in hand, ready to place down on the ascents and descents, and splashing through the shallow streams.

Although today, accompanied by a photographer and filmmaker, Jenny often runs alone, solo as her book would have it. She later tells us: ‘Being alone in really big natural environments can bring a lot of connection to the earth as well as connection to yourself. You’re void of all distractions that modern life would bring you. I find a lot of joy in quiet moments.’

‘The Cairngorms is one of my favourite places in the world. The trails here are just really beautiful, and because you’re under the forest, you kind of get that shinrin-yoku – forest bathing. The trees also protect you from the weather.

‘Everyone thinks that the weather in Scotland is awful, but actually, here, when you’re deep in the forest, you’re cocooned and held safely by the forest. It’s a really immersive, quiet and stunning experience. I’m just so lucky to live in a National Park such as this.’

We spend a few hours on the trails, exploring the forests, and this part of the Cairngorms before heading back into Aviemore to grab a coffee.

Jenny’s mountain project, documented in Solo, saw Jenny run across six mountain ranges on six continents: the Tien Shan, Asia, the High Atlas, Africa, the Bolivian Andes, South America, the Southern Alps, Oceania, the Canadian Rockies, North America, and the Transylvanian Alps in Europe. And by bike, she has explored more than 40 countries on two wheels, most recently in Oman, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

We asked, just how do you begin to prepare for these adventures? Whenever someone tells me that they’re dreaming of big solo adventures, but they’re scared to start, the biggest advice I’d give is not about kit or training. It’s just about that self-belief and being brave enough to back yourself and say, “I’m going to do this and I can do this”, and then actually start.’

For women, there is even more of a barrier. ‘Trail running could be a lot more inclusive for women,’ Jenny says. ‘We’ve seen huge leaps and bounds over the past years, but I think in the media and what we see and experience of trail running could be changed really easily. We just need to hear from different voices, different bodies, different types of running, and running for different reasons. We need to hear different stories.’

For Jenny, the long run is both a personal journey and a call for others to take part – to back themselves, to seek connection, and to discover what the trail has to teach.

For more details on the Mafate 5s, visit ellisbrigham.com