“Are you lost, son?” a woman shouts from her doorstep as I run past, reach the end of the street, turn around and look at a map. It’s a common question these days, especially in the dead-end streets where the only course of action is a swift about-turn at the end of the road.
“No, I’m alright, thanks,” I reply, moving towards her to explain why I actually intended to run all the way up this street just to get to a fence. The cul de sacs are the worst - running all the way up a street to run all the way back down again, but they regularly start off conversations like this one, which is sort of the point of this whole adventure.
About a year ago, to explain, I started to run every single one of Glasgow’s 6,112 streets.
Staying fit during Covid: 5 ways to overcome your fitness excuses
Covid: Is PE the most important school subject of all?
Challenge: ‘Our schools gave us the strength to row the Atlantic’
More from Michael Shanks: When a student votes, you know you’ve had an impact
Faced with the first Covid lockdown, and a government that sanctioned exercise as one of the only reasons to leave your house, I decided I somehow needed to really do something productive with each session. I came across an athlete from the States, Rickey Gates, who had run every single street in San Francisco, and I thought, “How hard can it be?”
Running along every street in Glasgow
So I set off running every street in my local community, then building out into next-door neighbourhoods. More than just exercise, though, it’s a chance to get to know my adopted city of Glasgow much better.
And what began as an excuse to use up my one permitted outdoor exercise a day became much more.
I found myself fascinated by lanes just around the corner from where I’ve lived for a decade that I’ve never been down. Streets that connected to other streets that I’ve driven right past for years. Every nook and cranny - hidden little parks and bits of old rivers that pop up from tunnels here and there.
I wanted to understand why the streets were named the way they were or what was there long before now. It became an adventure not just to run everywhere but to understand the very city I live in, a place I superficially called home without ever really seeing most of it.
I started to strike up conversations with people I came across in their gardens or waiting at bus stops. I explained what I was doing and asked them about their community. What changes had they witnessed over the years? The responses have been fascinating and are the basis of a book I’m writing about a people’s history of Glasgow’s streets - not another version of the same Glasgow history focused on the great men of old, or the industry that catapulted the city into the history books, but the ordinary people who are the backbone of the dear green place. People, after all, make Glasgow.
Now that I’ve run more than three-quarters of the city, clocking up some 1,584 km (or 984 miles), I can reflect on how diverse Glasgow is, and how much it has changed and is continuing to change. The question I always get asked is “what areas have you run through faster to get out of quickly?” and I can honestly say there really haven’t been any.
I’m not naïve - Glasgow is a city still suffering from poverty and poor housing, and a lot of people have been left behind by economic change and gentrification, but it’s also a city with strong communities and resilient people doing their best to make their community better.
I’ve got 1,500 streets left to go and I hope a lot more conversations still to have. Why not get out and explore your community? You could start by running every street in your neighbourhood - who knows where it’ll lead you?
Michael Shanks is a modern studies teacher at Park Mains High School in Erskine, Renfrewshire, in Scotland. You can follow his progress and send messages here.
