My Big Tour of England gets underway on 1st July – 13 days from now. Throughout the tour I will be eating anything and everything. That’s because I am: Trained as an ultrarunner to make the best of any situation. The distances I run can’t be sustained by gels and I have to be able…
(top pic, David Miller) It has certainly been a busy month. I followed up completion of this dark and mesmerising 200 mile race in 54hours and 19 minutes (for context that Tunnel would join Bath to Lake Windermere if continuous) and recklessly followed it up 3 weeks later with 100KM in the bright and…
I’m very excited to be building up to my Big TOE next year and a major part of that is being accepted to run the Brathay Challenges 10 in 10. Brathay Trust is one of two youth support and development charities that I am supporting with the 10 in 10 an amazing curtain raiser ahead…
What an adventure! The Line 300 was immensely deceptive, so much more in reality than it seemed when I signed up for it. Here’s the TLDR bit for anyone either with just a passing intertest or a short attention span. I attempted The Line 300 by Cockbain Events, a 328-mile journey, self-supported, carrying a pack,…
So, I got halfway through The Tunnel, which metaphorically and truthfully is a hard place to stop. I have had 2 meaningful DNFs before, at events I was determined to complete. The first was when horribly exposed to the arctic snowstorm in the wrong kit during the Lofoten Islands 100 mile, a race nearly all…
I actively enjoy ultra running. I got into the sport for the big point-to-point challenges, traversing vast landscapes on foot. I love routes that take me through river valleys, over mountain rocks or across sandy bays. I’m endlessly curious to see around the next corner. That’s not what I’m going to get in The…
It’s been a year with injury management and physical breakdown a constant threat, but nevertheless 27 marathons and ultras were completed in it and some of the most epic experiences in life, let alone in running. 1 Greenham Common A looped marathon. A looped marathon is a great way to test a sore leg. If…
Is ultrarunning – and long hours of physical activity – good for your mental health? Recently my friend Stewart gave a full account of a DNF at Copthorne 100, a very hard hilly race of 10×10 miles laps. It is a race with an extremely high attrition rate. At 50 miles Stewart wasn’t going so…
It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained. Queen Elizabeth II The collective unconscious consists of the sum of the instincts and their correlates, the archetypes. Just as everybody possesses instincts, so he also possesses a stock of archetypal images. Carl Jung Man needs difficulties; they…
Midway through a ‘what a year I’ve had’ type year for me I met a man who also lives between one exhilarating adventure and another. I was in Uganda, nominally for the marathon, truthfully for the adventure and the life-enhancing envelopment that comes with visiting the associated charitable projects. The man I met was Steve…