Barefoot runner Anna McNuff tackled the terrain of Coatbridge and Airdrie as she travelled through Monklands on her unique 2620-mile adventure across Britain.
The adventurer’s route took her through the towns during the seventh week of her five-month Barefoot Britain challenge, which will see her run the equivalent of 100 marathons through the length and breadth of the country – all completely barefoot.
Anna, who is completing the barefoot run in her role as an ambassador for Girlguiding, headed east from Glasgow with her route taking her through Drumpellier country park, Blairhill and both Coatbridge and Airdrie town centres.
She then continued the run after an overnight stop, again putting her best foot forward in Airdrie and following roads and cycle routes into neighbouring West Lothian and then onto Edinburgh.
Anna spoke to the Advertiser in Coatbridge during a short pause in the 13-mile Glasgow to Airdrie leg of her challenge – accompanied by a group of enthusiastic runners who have been following her progress on social media and took up her invitation to join in with the challenge.
She said: “It’s been an awesome day and has flown by; the route has been reasonably quiet and it’s been one of the easier days for a while, especially as it’s so nice to run along with people.
“This has been one of the biggest groups to come along and run with me, and 90 per cent of those who started out at the beginning in George Square in Glasgow have stayed with me right to the end of the run, which is great.
“We started running on the Seven Lochs trail, and running at Hogganfield was really quite gravelly; and then continued along the route through the park, along cycle paths and beside the main roads.
“In this area it’s been a pretty decent mixture of running on grass and on tarmac, and I’m always grateful to have people with local knowledge of good paths and routes to follow, like cycle network paths or country and back roads.
“This is my first time in Coatbridge or Airdrie; I’ve been to Glasgow before but this is my first time running in this area.
“It’s a proper adventure and it’s nice to see new places – and it’s a really nice feeling to be joined by such a lot of smiling faces.”
Barefoot Britain is the latest in the adventurer, speaker and author’s long line of epic challenges; with her previous projects including cycling both the Andes and America’s 50 states, running the length of New Zealand, and swimming both the Dalmatian coastline in Croatia and around the British Virgin Islands.
She prepared for her current outing by running barefoot in this year’s London marathon, finishing in three hours and 44 minutes.
Now nearly two months into her new 100-marathon project, her bare feet are still happily carrying her along on each of her very different miles of varying underfoot surfaces.
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Anna said: “It’s going well and my feet are in good condition – now I just have some skin which is a little bit thicker on the soles of my feet, but they’re still really soft and supple.
“People do a double take when they see me in my bare feet– they look at the other runners who are around me and then just say, ‘what on earth?!’ or might even shout something like, ‘you’ve lost your shoes!’ which I’ve had a few times!
“They’ll stop to see what I’m doing and can’t believe it, but people think it’s brilliant and are very encouraging and wish me well.”
She said: “I had the idea of running barefoot come into my head and then kept thinking about it; the idea had got into my mind and I wanted to try it and see what was possible.
“Every day is different and some things about doing a challenge like this will be uncontrollable, so I just have to take one day at a time, see what happens and keep moving forward.”
The Girlguiding ambassador also met up with Rainbows, Brownies and Guides from Girlguiding North Lanarkshire earlier in her journey to inspire them with her tales of adventure and encouraging them to follow their own challenges.
She told the Advertiser: “I’m doing this purely for the challenge.
“I’m talking to Girlguiding units about adventure, confidence, growing and surprising yourself; and I felt that if I’m talking to girls about that, I have to be on a journey myself.
“I’m talking to them about going out there, having adventures and doing things that scare them, and I want to encourage these girls and young women to do that and to be themselves.”
She added: “The variety of scenery across Scotland is brilliant and has been one of the best things about the runs I’ve done so far.
“The coastline in Aberdeenshire is beautiful, I’d never seen the Cairngorms before; and then I came into Glasgow and started seeing motorways, which was a bit of an adjustment having started out in Shetland last month.
“It’s really hard and there’s a long way to go yet, before I’m due to finish in London in November, but it’s definitely the right level of challenge for me – it pushes me right to the limit.”
