On Thursday night I couldn’t sleep, waking up every hour or so in a cold sweat. Just signing up for a race over a year away had cracked my ability to sleep. Well not just any race but the Marathon des Sables, the toughest footrace in the world. What does the Marathon des Sables entail … Continue reading Why I’m Running the Marathon des Sables
When I was 16 one of my best friends ran the London Marathon, it was my first contact with endurance running. That medal he brought back was like an emulate, giving him legendary status around school. In that instant I knew I wanted to be a runner, even though I was to do nothing about … Continue reading Am I a Runner?
This year I had one clear goal: run a sub four and a half hour marathon. I missed it by eleven minutes. I failed. It was one of the reasons it took me so long to put the Queenstown Marathon story up on the blog because it was my final marathon of the year and … Continue reading I Failed.
With almost 3,000 feet of elevation gain, very challenging terrain and being exposed to all the elements of wet and windy Wales the Snowdonia Marathon is regularly called the toughest marathon in the UK. Regardless, I chose this race as my tenth marathon. Why? Because despite all the reasons I shouldn't have done it I … Continue reading Running the UK’s Toughest Marathon
Hours after the volunteers had gone home and the finishing line packed away for another year, I stood on a rooftop drinking a cocktail. Darkness had long taken away the humid sun and as I over looked Millennium Park (where the Chicago Marathon had started and finished) sipping the last dregs of my Old Fashioned … Continue reading Why I Keep Running – My Chicago Marathon
You’ve received that coveted ‘you’re in’ magazine for the London Marathon this week, now what? I have collected a few, very simple pieces of advice for those of you currently looking at the summit of the London Marathon from basecamp and thinking I just can’t do that. It will be a day that will change … Continue reading So you’re going to run a marathon…
Rome was the rain, London was being the Samaritan and Edinburgh was my stomach. Every marathon so far this year had in one way or another hampered my attempt at improving the time I had set in San Francisco, which was four marathons and over 14 months ago. That streak of unsuccessful attempts twinned with … Continue reading Always Forward – My Berlin Marathon
As you could probably tell by reading my last blog post, I have begun to panic about my lack of marathon preparation. It’s been causing sleepless nights and visions of those fatal three letters; DNF. The running I was doing was purely fuelled by those feelings and was as such joyless. Putting in the miles … Continue reading Running through Puddles
With under a month to go until my four marathons in less than two months challenge begins I find myself woefully unprepared. With a deluge of weddings, music festivals and holidays my marathon training took a backseat and real life, wonderfully, took the wheel. With no races booked in from the start of July onwards … Continue reading Staying Focused.
I realised today that my blogging has been somewhat lax of late. With a week spent in the Isle of Skye and trips to Yorkshire and Belfast over the past few weeks means I have very little to report on the running front because I have little time to actually go running. But there is … Continue reading I Got Published
