I’ve been a lazy runner this week. Lazy in updating this blog: there was no 26 or 25 days to go. Lazy in running: three days, two runs, 14 miles, all easy, nothing taxing. Lazy in eating: I’ve been consuming too freely and too much junk (biscuits, chocolate and so on) – a notion (when…
Author: heightsofmadness
Running the 66-mile Vanguard Way: 27 days to go
Following yesterday’s 30 miles, I had run 60 miles for the week. I had planned to run a few loosening, slow miles to claim a 100km week – before thinking better of it. Up to three weeks ago, I was unwell and running haphazardly. I’m lucky to have survived 60 miles and I’m well aware…
Running the 66-mile Vanguard Way: 28 days to go
The following contemplations emerged today as I ran 30 miles. I should note that I am writing this while crammed on a train feeling nauseous. My judgement is impaired. Firstly, running along the North Downs Way is hard. My only previous experience of the route was the relatively flat and fast Guildford to Westhumble stretch….
Running the 66-mile Vanguard Way: 29 days to go
Another day, another run, another 24 hours closer to 66 miles. A light effort was all that was required today: five-ish miles of watch-free, undulating trail in the pleasanter environs of Croydon, taking my weekly total to 30. I have more serious business tomorrow: a run of somewhere between 25 and 35 miles depending on…
Running the 66-mile Vanguard Way: 30 days to go
In my years as a considerably more serious (and anarchic) cyclist than I am these days, the idea of being caught breaching 30mph on a speed camera was greatly appealing. I never managed to achieve the feat. Are cyclists too narrow to detect, I wonder. Besides, it’s not like they would be able to catch…
Running the 66-mile Vanguard Way: 31 days to go
Tomorrow is May 16. In one month’s time, on June 16, I will – injury and illness-depending – equal the furthest distance I have ever run. That previous run was the 66-mile Bob Graham Round, completed in 19 hours and 32 minutes in 2012. This year’s run is the Vanguard Way footpath, another, coincidental 66…
Three Forts Marathon and the need for constancy
The essence of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch is that Arsenal is the author’s constant in life. Amid the flux of education, work, relationships, happiness and sadness, Arsenal and football remain resilient to the vagaries of his existence. Running has been my constant since the age of 18. Through university, through jobs, through seasons, through highs…
South Downs Way 50: over before it began
Three unfortunate things happened this week: Monday – I drive from Lancashire to London. As I leave St Annes on Sea on the Fylde coast, I reset the mileage clock to zero. I watch as the miles tick by. Reaching the end of the M55, I turn right onto the M6, cross over the River…
Pendle Fell Race 2013 – race report
It is the taking part that counts, isn’t it? Discounting the Box Hill Fell Race, it has been a while since I have run a proper hill or fell race. It showed. I was 66th at today’s Pendle Fell Race in Lancashire, a long way back from the action at the front. I should not…
Finding the motivation to run
If I refused to run every time I did not feel like it, I would never run. Never is an exaggeration, of course, but finding the motivation to run is a constant challenge. Rarely more so than yesterday. I had been running 20 minutes since leaving Kirkstone Pass, the high level route linking Ambleside and…
Preparing for the South Downs Way 50 with the father of endurance challenges
I was following the progress of the 147-mile Viking Way Ultra at the weekend, a through-the-night race in Lincolnshire and Rutland that goes on for an impossible number of hours. I had something in common with those runners: I was also awake when the world was sleeping. I was fighting a different battle of endurance:…
Steyning Stinger Marathon in pictures
I am 162. I do not know what I am doing. Usain Bolt-style warm-up? Trying to psyche out Stuart Mills (the runner rubbing his hands together)? The first ‘sting’: running comfortably Around 24 miles in: Stuart Mills is a few yards ahead and fatigue begins to take its toll The end is in sight But…
Heights of Madness 