Fine line black infinity symbol tattoo reading 13.1 and run in script on the upper back.

Infinity symbol with 13.1 and run script

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A thin black infinity symbol sits on the upper back, with the numerals 13.1 on the left loop and the word run in cursive script on the right. The linework is fine and even, filled in with solid black ink and no shading. The close photograph shows warm skin tones against dark hair and fabric at the edges of the frame.

Fine line Lettering Back Infinity symbol Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The stencil for the thirteen mile board had cracked straight through the middle of the 3, so I spent the first hour before dawn taping it back together on the bonnet of the van. Dad cut it in 1987 from an offcut of ply, and he never once let anyone else hold the knife. The board goes up at the far end of the sea road, where the course bends back on itself under the cliffs and runners stop trusting their legs.

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By seven the mist was lifting off the harbour and the first of the runners came past the pub, blowing like kettles. I stood by the board with a tin of white paint and a brush no wider than my thumb. Most of them gave me a nod or a grunt, but one lad in a yellow vest asked whether thirteen miles was really from here, or whether somebody had moved the line. I told him the line had never moved. The road just folds back on itself past the lighthouse, which is why we send everyone round twice.

Dad used to say the course was an infinity sign drawn in tarmac, two loops joined at the crossroads, and that you could run it forever if you were stubborn enough. He never ran it himself. He sat in the van with a flask and a crossword and shouted out the splits. The last thing he painted was the crossroads arrow, a shaky thing with its tail left open.

When the final runner had gone past and the cones were stacked, I found his old stencil under the seat, the one and the three still crisp at the edges. I painted the board one more time, slowly, and left the tail of the arrow open for whoever came next.