There are two moments that I say my running started; the first time I dragged my arse off the sofa and went out for a run and the Oxford Half in 2015. While it is hard to imagine a time when I wasn't running and blogging, I never actually wrote about my first half marathon as … Continue reading Running in my own Footprints
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
It's just halfway through my personal trainer session and I’m in the bathroom throwing up. In that moment, as I knelt on the hard cold floor with my head pounding I could feel my confidence slipping like sand through my fingers. I stayed in that position for ten minutes, silently pleading for the room to … Continue reading It’s ok to be breakable
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?
I used to be an expert at quitting anything involving physical activity. At school I would come up with any excuse to avoid exercise, if you could think up an ailment or appointment I used it: “inner ear problem” check, “dentist check up” done, “period” tried but failed as when I was a kid I didn’t … Continue reading 10 Ways to Excuse Proof Yourself
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.
10,938 days. That’s how many days I have been alive. In a tiny fraction of those collected minutes and hours, I’ve run. Run to catch buses, sprinted away from monkeys in India, dashed to get to the front of the lunch queues at school but in ten of the thousands of days I’ve run marathons. … Continue reading 10,938 days. 10 Marathons.
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…
