Second race in consecutive days, another 9am kick off and another drive to Loughborough.  I've entered this race 3 times now and never turned up so it was a minor victory even to make it to Market Square.  One of the previous occasions was lost to a night on the lash round Loughborough town centre followed by a massive curry and all the trimmings.  If you're going to miss a race make sure its f…

Just 6 weeks to go before the Thames Path 100-miler and despite having almost no clue how to train properly for it, the one thing that seems obvious is getting time on feet.  I thought I'd take advantage of a chance to visit the folks in Leics and take in the Charnwood Marathon on the Saturday and the Loughborough half on the Sunday.  It seems slightly selfish to spend most of the weekend away d…

As the days until the Thames Path 100 disappear at an alarming rate of knots this was to be an essential training run.  It wasn't in the original plan but stepped in as understudy to the Country to Capital which I lost to injury.  I'd never heard of the race, maybe because it had only been run once, but found it on the UK Ultra Marathon Running site - a great resource but they don't half make yo…

It was always going to be ambitious scheduling this race, classified as 'severe' by EnduranceLife, just a week after the Thames Trot.  When I entered, the plan was still packing in the long stuff for the Thames Path 100 early to leave a shot at a decent London Marathon in between.  As last year's soleus tear injury has dragged on those plans have had to change. The London Marathon has been downg…

The original plan had this as my second ultra of the year, the first being the Country to Capital but the same team, GoBeyond. However, the soleus tear which wiped out the last couple of months of 2013 hadn't healed in time to risk that one so after a scant 3 weeks of training - and pretty low volume training at that - I'm on the 6:38 from Slough heading to Oxford Station. If I wasn't trying to ge…

Total cock up with the Loughborough Half - I thought it was the 23rd Feb when I booked it! So that's looking dodgy!I'd love to go for a full-on effort in London but it's only 3 weeks before a 100.  I'm hoping that as that's so much slower-paced that's long enough to recover.  I will try to keep some speedwork going throughout and up it from March for London.  Reckon you hang on to endurance so …

There's still plenty of 2013 to go and a target marathon to attack in 10 days but I've started filling out 2014's diary.  Looking at the races already booked in I can't help but think these are distances and challenges I couldn't and wouldn't have even considered a couple of years ago and yet here they are back to back!Something seems to have switched in my head and the more outlandish runs are n…

I'd planned to race the Maidenhead Half on the 8th September to see how the training for Frankfurt was going.  It's about as close to my house as a race gets - all of 5 miles away and this was the 3rd year the race has been held.  Unfortunately I managed to continue my shameful record of entering this every year and subsequently failing to turn up.  I can't remember what happened the previous t…

This June was all about running the Comrades Ultra in South Africa. The biggest ultra in the world. 14,000+ people running 54 miles over some serious terrain, with most aiming simply to break the 12 hour cut-off.The entries have just opened for the 2014 edition; this time a down-run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban on the coast.  As I write this I'm considering whether to go back and have another …

Now I don't get sent many unsolicited goodies through the post but things have clearly looked up recently.  I may never have been asked to babysit (I have no desire to, but it would be nice to be asked so I can politely decline while feeling that little bit more trustworthy) but Salomon have sent me a pair of Mantra trail shoes to try out so that's something. I've been looking to start auditionin…