Dave Goes West
Dave Goes West
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
“Everyone knew who Loud Dave was,” remembers Chris Jones. “A man who would greet near-strangers with ‘EEEEHH, MY MAIN MAN!’ from the other side of the street, headbutt potatoes at parties, and generally act as a social nucleus to an active tornado.”
Loud Dave (aka Dave Cook) is Still Quite Loud, as it goes, and the central figure in Dave Goes West, an independent film charting a fundraising challenge to run 10 marathons in 10 days up the coast of Western Ireland from Dingle to Croagh Patrick – a defiantly un-serious piece of entertainment, ideal for these lockdown days, reminding us of the joy and pain that only marathons provide.
The charming, often completely hilarious mini-documentary follows Dave through both glorious and incredibly bleak coastal scenery as he grinds out the kilometres, laughs a lot, hangs out with a three-legged goat and occasionally remembers to stretch. But while Dave may have his name in the title, this movie is very much a team effort. Chris joined Dave for much of the running, director Joe O’Connor and Ike Walker shot the footage and Ike’s brother Sam was producer.
They’ve all been mates for years and it’s their obvious trust and shared friendship that gives this film its heart. Whether bashing through the miles or drinking Guinness in a hardware store-cum-pub, they’re always having a laugh… even when Dave and Chris’s marathon-addled bodies are not.
“Perhaps we all know a Dave – a reminder of the sheer joy running can bring”
But what made Dave – arguably not your classic “athlete” – even consider embarking on such an arduous journey? Like the Wind never likes to be predictable, so we asked everyone in the movie who isn’t called Dave what it was like to make the film and experience the highs, lows and many, many laughs of 10 back-to-back marathons.
“I first met Dave at a party in Sheffield,” Joe tells us. “We got very drunk and talked for a long time. At some point I agreed to go to south-east Asia with him to make a documentary about a cycle trip he was preparing for. When I woke up the following afternoon, I vaguely remembered the conversation and put it down as one of those drunk, overexcited chats one sometimes has at parties. Later that same day he messaged me asking if I was still up for it. I guess that’s how all this began.”
Yes, we should probably mention that this isn’t the first challenging escapade Dave and co have undertaken: they’re veterans of multi-thousand-kilometre cycle rides in Asia, Australia, Africa and from Land’s End to John O’Groats, but this was the group’s first foray into running. “Who wouldn’t want to film a man trying to run 10 marathons up the beautiful west coast of Ireland?” jokes Ike. Chris says: “I always said I’d get involved if he wanted to run somewhere. I was pretty surprised when he actually did!”
DAVE GOES WEST
Watching the film, it’s plain to see Dave is putting in a massive effort to complete some of his runs – mostly accompanied by Chris – but beyond the bleeding nipples and personal endeavour, it’s the camaraderie of the lads that brings colour to each day. This isn’t abrasive, blokey humour – they find laughter in their slightly odd day-to-day existence. “Every day was totally hilarious in some way,” says Joe. “On the whole, the trip had a lot of manic energy and even fairly mundane things seemed really funny for some reason. I think I was mostly at the brink of breaking down into hysterical laughter when we were hanging out with Gogo, the three-legged goat.”
The film doesn’t fall into the trap – in which many runners have found themselves at some point – of taking the whole sport far too seriously. “One thing we wanted to avoid when making Dave Goes West was it being too serious,” says Sam. “Luckily, with Dave as our subject, that wasn’t an issue!”
Besides Dave and co, the other star of the film is the amazing scenery – a varied and spectacular backdrop, whether glistening water or rugged rocks. Many of the team agree that the Cliffs of Moher were particularly memorable. Chris takes us back there: “With steel-green Atlantic waves crashing to one side and horses racing me down through the meadow on the other… that was timeless.”
Ike adds: “We’d all somehow got separated on the road, so we made our way over to the cliffs through the fields and along this sketchy, muddy path that runs right along top of the cliffs in ones and twos.
“Dave and Chris ran along the muddy little track that is literally right on the edge of the cliffs and Sam somehow followed behind them, taking pictures while riding. The cliffs are 150m high and there’s no fence at the edge for a lot of it, so you can stand with your toes on the edge and look straight down to the sea. It’s so high that your brain can’t really compute it.”
Joe highlights the landscape near Galway known as the Burren. “It’s one of the most striking places in the world,” he says. “Weird and wonderful patterns in the exposed limestone as far as the eye can see. It’s really otherworldly.”
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So what further challenges await Dave and co? “We’d like to run the route of Pheidippides,” says Chris. “He ran from Athens to Sparta, to get some Spartans to pulverise the Persians. That’s more like 150 miles of Greek history. We might even do it in sandals. Anything is possible.”
Perhaps we all know a Dave – a reminder of the sheer joy running can bring, and the determination it sometimes requires. Oh, and we did talk to Dave. It somehow didn’t seem fair not to. “I actually do really enjoy running,” he tells us. Phew. That’s all right, then.
Like the Wind is a quarterly print magazine dedicated to exploring the culture, history and social issues endemic to the world of running.
Sam Walker is an outdoor photographer/camera operator and an advocate of wild places and wild ideas.
Puzzleglass is an independent documentary production company based in Sheffield, which makes positive, life-affirming films that promote amazing people and ideas.