Viewed from a distance we could almost have passed for an amphibious commando unit on a dawn raid. The RIB in which we sped towards the shore was black and unmarked. The eight of us clung to the sides, hunched over, with the spray kicked up by the rubberised prow dousing our faces. Expectant eyes scanned the peaks that ringed the foreshore.

On closer inspection? Not so much. For one, we were armed with little more than trekking poles and far too many Fruit Gums. Our uniform was a gaudy lycra. When a Bon Jovi singalong spontaneously broke out as we arced into the silent, mountain-fringed bay, it was clear that – whatever else we were – we certainly weren’t a threat.

Truth be told, we were all suffering from a little cabin fever. The trip we were on had been badged as a “trail and sail” running adventure. Yet for the past half day it had been more of a “cruise and snooze”, as we’d made a spectacular if sedentary (and in some cases queasy) crossing from the mainland of northwest Norway to what even those unfailingly modest Norwegians will tell you, point blank, are the most beautiful islands in the world: Lofoten.

Now, with the Moondance – our 56ft expedition sailing yacht – safely anchored a short distance offshore we were going to get the chance to run it off. And we were itching to hit those vertiginous trails, lit by the endlessly fluctuating, stubbornly unyielding 24-hour daylight of a polar summer.

As a group, we were certainly a disparate bunch. Two running-club friends from Glasgow, Hua and John. Leeds-based finance manager Hannah, on whose unflagging enthusiasm we could probably have powered the outboard. Gav, a software expert from Oxfordshire and purveyor of Dad jokes and confectionary-based morale. And myself, an enthusiastic if undistinguished plodder. 

The non-UK contingent comprised two Texans: Brian, an erudite, 60-something environmental activist with a passing resemblance to Paul Newman. And a recovering addict named Moose.

That addiction was marathon running. The phlegmatic teacher’s increasingly impressive PBs for the distance were tattooed onto his calf, each landmark time inked out as a superior one had been achieved. But running for the sheer, damn pleasure of it was his new obsession and, in this, he had a kindred spirit in the eighth occupant of the RIB that morning, Pure Trails founder and running guide Charlie Knights. 

The 39-year-old started the company in 2019 to capitalise on a boom that the pandemic – with its resulting pivot towards exercise and the great outdoors – only served to turbocharge. Today, an estimated 20m people worldwide count themselves as trail or ultra (anything more than a marathon) runners, and there are some 25,000 trail races on offer, with a third of entrants women.

But racing, Knights was at pains to point out, is definitely not the Pure Trails way. “We think of our trips as journeys,” he tells me. “It’s not a competition. It’s a discovery.” And his long-planned, inaugural Lofoten tour wasn’t about to compromise on that no-one-gets-left-behind ethos.