Beyond Limits by Lowri Morgan

 

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First of all I should qualify this review with a disclaimer, both my wife and I are avid followers of Lowri Morgan's on S4C and have enjoyed all her endurance adventure specials.

 

This is truly an inspirational book, it will make want to grab your daps and head for the trails! My wife, who is a physcotherapist read this book before me and was fascinated by her thought process and emotions around the "positive" addiction of running. 

There are several tales of endurance and extreme running in this book, most notably the Amazon jungle ultra, the 6633 Ultra in the Arctic and the local Dragon's back ultra from north to south Wales along the mountainous spine of the country. 

There is the story of how she came to play rugby for Wales. 

There is extreme fatigue, busted knees, missing toe nails, hallucination, heart problems,  deprivation, separation, 30miles runs before breakfast, pain, agony, misery. There is the constant battle of mind and body. 

The body like a team of horses leading a carriage, with the mind as the carriage driver controlling, encouraging, pleading, whipping the horses ever forward, constantly and relentlessly forward. 

Sounds a bit grim? Far from it the further the struggle uphill the more magnificent the view from the top! This book is about soul soaring freedom running along sunlit mountain ranges. It's about being in the midst of outstanding nature wether it is the northern lights in the middle of nowhere in the Arctic totally on your own or  the stunning scenery of Lyn y Fan Fach. It is about that euphoric state of being connected to everything and everything connected to you. Some call it runners high some call it flow. 

After reading this book I think that this is Lowri's drug of choice and running is her means of ingestion.

She is also a TV presenter and writer and has a paired down writing style that delivers it meaning precisely  and efficiently but is always bang on. Here are few examples 

"I just don't want to be rubbish at life. I don't want to waste the opportunity I have been given to live a life full of adventure and possibility" says it all in 2 sentences. 

On having missed a checkpoint and deciding to turn around and return adding extra miles to the ultra she was running.

"Respect the integrity of my participation. It is my homage to honesty." This is beautifully written. I wish I spoke like Lowri writes.

My particular favourite line is when she talks about her running the highly self deprecating Lowri's says

" I'm an ordinary runner, running exceptional races" 

This is a hell of an inspiring book but then again Lowri Morgan is a hell of an inspiring person.