13th October, 2020
With COVID raging and at the time of writing no prospect of it reigning in its raging any time soon a getaway or if you like a forgetaway was in order. I'd toyed with a route around Knoydart - bits of the Cape Wrath course - and then the Great Glen Way, both of which obviously meant the immediate purchase of maps and despite rejecting both in the end, no map is ever wasted. You can't have too …
29th May, 2019
The week-long Berghaus Dragon's Back Race is a major commitment in terms of both time and finance. Having just finished the race (blog post here), I wanted to give my thoughts on whether it's worth the investment and also how I would advise next year's first timers to do things better than I did.I should point out that I'm not sponsored in any way by anyone or any company with any relationship to …
27th May, 2019
Ever since the Internet has provided the opportunity to suspend all productive activity and watch dots instead, that's been my guilty pleasure. Days are lost every year to the Spine and I remember watching Jez Bragg's dot glide across the Dragon's Back route map in 2015. There's something about the combination of knowing someone else is doing something heroic and outrageous with the potential for …
25th April, 2019
As I write, we're only 3.5 weeks out from the Dragon's Back race - surely the toughest personal challenge I've taken on so far.It starts in Conwy on the 20th May 2019 and ends almost 200 miles South in Llandeilo on the Friday, having covered pretty much every significant peak on the way down. Every day is an ultra distance over some extreme terrain with the added challenge of largely being left to…
27th November, 2018
Next May I'm due to start the Dragon's Back race from Conwy Castle on the North Coast of Wales down to Llandeilo, the best part of 200 miles South. It's run over 5 days and over pretty much every mountain in between with strict cut-offs throughout for good measure. It's an enormous undertaking whichever way you look at it - my major (of many) concerns being the cumultive lack of sleep with wha…
28th August, 2018
Great Yarmouth Seafront and PierEvery year since forever my extended family has decamped en masse to Sheringham on the Norfolk Coast, 4 miles up from its more well-known neighbour, Cromer. My lot were in the shoe-making business in the distant past in Leicester and all the factories used to shut down in the Summer at the same time for 'Leicester Fortnight'. Half the city would flock to the coa…
30th June, 2018
Some lively weather forced the location of this talk from Hillary Allen and Fernanda Maciel indoors at the last minute which was unfortunate as I think a lot more would have attended and they were more than worth the effort.I wanted to write a post about this because Hillary's story in particular is immensely inspiring. It's an extraordinary, medical profession-defying return from near death to …
26th June, 2018
Cortina is a town that has redefined itself as a centre for trail running after the national level winter sports moved away and surrounding this picturesque town are some of the world's greatest trails winding through some of the world's most striking landscapes. Lavaredo is a 4-day trail fest with the main event being the Ultra Trail - a 119km race through 5800 metres of climb.I've run it once be…
31st July, 2017
This year's injury of choice - some sort of plantar fascia/policeman's heel/bruised fat pad sampling platter of frustration hung over this warm-up race for the CCC for a few months. I made a last-minute decision to run, mainly thanks to a cock-up on my part over the last day I could cancel my hotel. I took that as a sign and reasoned even getting part of it done would be useful training.The drive …
13th March, 2017
I may as well move to Haworth. I now know the bar staff in the Fleece by name. Thus adding the place to a long list of other pubs with a similar thing in common. In common with last year I'm finding it
ridiculously easy to make the effort to get to a race halfway up the
country while having far less interest in putting in a similar run in my
own patch. Even though my own patch is hardly a scrap…