Hand-drawn black ink sketch of a looping, cross-shaped design with the words run, with and perseverance, the numbers 3.1, 6.2, 13.1 and 26.2, and small hearts, drawn on lined paper.

Run with perseverance looping script design

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A black marker drawing on lined notebook paper shows a continuous looping line forming a cross-like shape with four loops. The words run, with, perseverance and Heb 12:1 are written in cursive script along the loops, and the numbers 3.1, 6.2, 13.1 and 26.2 appear inside them, each with small filled hearts. The linework is uniform and bold, and the design is shown in black and white only.

Lettering Script Cross Heart Scripture reference Number

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are still counting the lamp posts when the ferry horn sounds, and Mairi from the shop shouts across the harbour that the mainland runners are off the boat and wanting their numbers pinned. You had promised Ewan you would walk the first lap with him, not run it, and now your trainers are still wet from the slipway.

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The course is simple. Skerra has one road, and it goes round the island the way a bootlace goes round a finger. One circuit from the harbour past the chapel and back is 3.1 miles, and anyone who wants more simply goes round again until the numbers stop meaning anything. Ewan ran his first half marathon on this road the winter the school closed. He used to say the wind off the west side was the only honest coach the island had.

By the chapel bend the old man has gone quiet, and his breath is loud in the cold. He hands you the safety pin with its bent edge and says, go on, you've got the legs for the last stretch, the rest is only stubbornness. You take the pin. Somewhere behind you a woman with a red bib is counting down from ten, and the gulls lift off the wall in a sheet.

You run the final lap alone with the numbers flapping on your chest, 6.2, 13.1, 26.2, each one a little heavier than the last. At the harbour Ewan is sitting on an upturned creel with a flask. He raises it to you as you come round the bend, and that is the only finish line he has ever needed.