Â鶹ԼÅÄ

This feature focuses on two friends, neuroscientists and ultra-runners - Matthias Ekman (German) and Laurence O'Dwyer (an award-winning Irish poet). It's a meditation on ultrarunning through interview, poetry, location recordings, sound and music.

This programme weaves specially commissioned poems (Laurence O'Dwyer) and music that chart the pain and elation of running. It explores Larry’s endurance, physical deterioration and injury alongside Matthias’s personal determination to become the fastest known runner on the 800km route, the Haute Route Pyrénées.

Producer Zoë Comyns weaves location recordings, amateur archive phone recordings, interviews, poetry and tracked runs.

With original compositions by Ruth Kennington, many musical sequences were performed live using real-time generation and manipulation of audio that responded to Laurence and Matthias’s stories. Longer composition and looped components relay the repetition of ultrarunning and mimics how the mind works as the runners spend long periods on their own in dangerous and remote locations.

Each sound carries with it the resilience and propulsion of the long-distance runner. It charts how predictive brain studies in the lab might be applied out on the trail, how your mind ‘pre-plays’ the terrain, anticipating where to place your feet at speed over long distances.

With thanks to Regan Hutchins, Kevin Brew and Ronan Kelly.

Produced by Zoë Comyns
Original music and sound design by Ruth Kennington
HRP archive recordings Matthias Ekman.

The Racing Mind is a New Normal Culture production for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3