Running goals are like false summits, this may seem like a weird analogy but bear with me. You spend years climbing towards that time goal, eyes transfixed, and yet when you finally run under that certain time instantly you begin imagining if you could go faster and that next false summit edges through the cloud … Continue reading Two Marathons, Two Tales of Falling Short
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
After the London Marathon has been packed away for another year and people begin to drift back to their daily lives, slightly chaffed, a strange thing starts to happen: medals from the iconic race start to appear on eBay. I’ve always found this very bizarre, why sell and crucially why buy something earned through sweat, pain and … Continue reading Selling My London Marathon Medal
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
Unsurprisingly my first ever product review on my site is coffee. I decided to review some of the products offered by TrueStart Performance Coffee after meeting them at The Running Show in January. I loved the enthusiasm they had for their products and how over the moon they were to be shortlisted for a Running … Continue reading Product Review – TrueStart Coffee
On the eve of every January 1st, I scribble on a post-it my aims for that new year about to burst into life with fireworks and fizz. The note, passive aggressively towards my future self, then gets stuck to my fridge. That way every time I buy something I shouldn't have (no doubt chocolate) and … Continue reading Running Resolutions
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.
Sometimes in life you have to take that leap of faith. A metaphorical stumble into the unknown, blindingly hoping. As I stood on the edge of a bridge in New Zealand about to take a literal leap, with nothing but bungee rope to stop me from plunging to my death, I couldn’t help but think … Continue reading Leap of Faith – My Queenstown Marathon