This race earned its place in my bucket list ever since seeing a YouTube video of the start a couple of years back. The image of a river of headtorch lightrails streaming up the climb out of Fuencaliente in the pre dawn sealed the deal for me there and then. I'm sitting on a bench in the town square, the finish gantry and podium backdrop the only props left from Saturday's carnival.  I'm trying …

There's a rich seam of races that abandon the traditional trimmings of medals and goody bags and are instead intent on stuffing more cake calories into you than you could burn off if you ran the event twice. That's just fine by me.  Mike Wells (also running today, in the 15-miler and a tutu) put me on to this one and I was keen to see how it compared to the plated lunch at the Woodhouse Challenge…

This was my first ultra a couple of years ago and now becomes the first ultra I've run twice. As I want to run everything and time is limited I don't think there will be many in that category.I re-read my post from 2013 just to see how naive I sounded and the answer was very.  Particularly about the food.  I questioned the supply of party snacks at the time but I've since got with the programme …

My Autumn marathon was intended to be Berlin but having run a whole bunch of ultras earlier in the year, not least 70 miles at Thunder Run, it was impossible to fit enough speedwork in to make a decent go of it.  I'd not paid the hotel bill and even half the flight cost was refundable and with basic maths working out that Florence could be paid for with the refund that became plan B.I've run Berl…

My 3rd and I think last road half marathon of 2014, this.  My home city (centre of the sporting world!) running from Vicky Park (Victoria Park, but you don't call it that here) out to roughly Syston and back on a different track.  It's broadly, and sometimes alongside, the River Soar.There's a marathon race too, bolting another half marathon loop from the 6 mile point of the half and a relay hal…

Hot on the heels of meeting the legend that is Roger Bannister at the Henley Literary Festival a short time ago came the chance to meet one of the finest trail runners in the World, Stevie Kremer.  She's racing the Mourne Skyline Mountain Trail Race this Saturday in the Republic and Ian Corless of TalkUltra fame (get in on the excellent podcasts if you've not already discovered them!) with Simon …

We were talking about downhill trail running technique during yesterday's chat with Stevie Kremer and Ian Corless mentioned a video that Greg Vollet made of Emelie Forsberg's (Queen of the descent) astonishing technique over difficult trail in New Zealand.I think this is just the most joyous piece of film - Ive lost count how many times I've played this now and I cannot help but bust out in a smil…

Transvulcania is still 7 months off but starting training yesterday seems like a good idea and I'm upping the hills, long runs and trails.  I should have been running Berlin today but I pulled that for lack of a hope in hell of a pb and decided on the spur of the moment run the Purbeck Hills from Swanage to Weymouth.  Not entirely sure where the idea came from.  I've only been to Swanage once b…

Despite being a techie in work terms (I build web sites and the like) I'm a complete luddite when to come to tech gear and the last to adopt any gadget.   Sports watches with any features beyond a stopwatch have been tried and consigned to the cupboard but all that has changed with my Ambit 2S.  I'm no expert on these things and this is not a review of the device but it does have the ability to…

I ran this marathon for the first time last year and had been looking forward to having another go at it.  Both times it's served as a long training run rather than a race but as I went out extremely slowly last year I was confident I'd go faster this time out.  Did that happen? Read on and find out! But no, it didn't.You can't beat trail running in this fantastic weather.  Sunday was a perfect…