Doing the best that I can, at writing, running and living
When it’s a fast flat course and offering a tidy sum of prize money, you’re going to entice some cracking runners. For this race in Wrexham, there was the likes of Marc Scott, a former Olympian (28:27), and Omar Ahmed, who I’d once seen in the Chester 10K, when he and Jonny Mellor were duking… Continue reading Helena Tipping 10K
‘Under no circumstances,’ I stipulated to Vince, as we passed kilometre marker 94, ‘tell me that we’ve only got a Parkrun to go.’ We were on the last section of the Ridgeway, an ancient chalky trail path that runs from Wiltshire to Buckinghamshire for eighty-seven miles, although once upon a time, it had been more… Continue reading Race To The Stones – 50K
This week I have been in a state of slightly raised anxiety. My fingers have been automatically making internet enquiries of the forecast, every day, several times a day, for that area of Berkshire and Wiltshire where I’ll be doing my run this Sunday. The wind speed (quite gentle); the direction (headwind nearly all the… Continue reading Ultra Concerns
As much as you know you’re booked in for a race, when that envelope flutters down to the doormat with your bib number it feels more real. I still get butterflies for the big races when my number comes, and this one is the biggest I will probably do. There was a nice symmetry about… Continue reading Less Than Two Weeks To Go
I am a sucker for statistics, but I like to think that I’m not beholden to them. I use them to find patterns and correlations in a slightly more scientific manner than the augurys of old. At the beginning of March last year, I was able to complete a 20-mile race in three hours and… Continue reading Damned Lies And Statistics
‘Fell running’, I declared, whilst huffing along a rare bit of flat ground, ‘is the epitome of running.’ ‘Definitely’, agreed one of the Deestriders women who had joined me in being at the back of the pack. My legs were like mush after the second descent, and evidently my brain was too, if I was… Continue reading Hotfoot Up Famau Fell Race
I finally saw the kite on Sunday – I have decided it’s the same one that has been popping up in the sky for Angela and Anne to gawp at each day, as we always see it around five miles out from Hay. Its silhouetted shape considerately soared above the car’s right side this time… Continue reading Hay Festival – Part Three
Obviously, because we were here on a Saturday, I looked for the nearest Parkrun. ‘There’s one in Hay-on-Wye’ itself! You two can have a pootle around the town while I go run.’ Angela, our friend and instigator of this trip, did not look as excited as me, about leaving the house at 8.20am on her… Continue reading Hay Festival 2024 – Part Two
On Monday evening we managed to book a place to stay in Hay-on-Wye for a whole week next year. It was hours after we’d returned from the little town on the southeast borders of Wales, and it is a testament to the festival’s popularity that our booking was the last affordable (just about) place available… Continue reading Hay Festival 2024 – Part One
I think I have pulled a muscle in my left buttock. This didn’t happen while I was running the Chester Half Marathon on this sweltering Sunday. Nor did it happen while I painted the back fence between 11am and 3pm during the zenith of the sun’s powers on a sizzling Saturday. It happened while I… Continue reading Chester Half Marathon
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