The Christmas Day run – as traditional as turkey and the trimmings, and the logical precursor to stuffing one’s face. I’m in rural Worcestershire, a world away from south London. The snow here really is deep and crisp and even; the mercury plunged to -13C last night. Today I had one of those this-is-why-I-run moments….
Category: Running
Bog of Doom
If, as an event organiser, you boldly decide to call part of your race the bog of doom, it had better live up to its billing. The name is given in irony. As far as I know, no-one has actually died in the bog of doom. That would lead to one hell of an insurance bill for…
Crystal Palace
I won a race at Crystal Palace, the national sports centre, the home of British athletics. Alas, it wasn’t this Crystal Palace… … but this one – Crystal Palace Park. The event – the weekly Saturday morning 5k race that is run over two laps. These park runs are a brand; dozens take place around…
Box Hill – 209.4m, apparently
There’s not many hills in London to run up, certainly no proper hills. Box Hill in the Surrey Hills is about as good as it gets. Four months in London and my mountain legs have already deserted me. In their place are the puny, road-running limbs of a southern softie unacquainted to a steep slope. I had…
An inauspicious start
I raced for the first time yesterday for my new club, Herne Hill Harriers. The race was the Will Bolton memorial cross-country relay, held at Sparrow’s Den playing fields, not far from Hayes. Having no idea of where Sparrow’s Den was until a few days ago, I had Googled the name. The top hit was…
Ben Nevis Race 2010
Eroded and overcrowded it may be, but I’ve grown fond of Ben Nevis. It was the first Munro I climbed, as a brief walking interlude while cycling between John O’ Groats and Lands End on a snowy May day in 2003. I climbed it with my girlfriend, now fiancée, two years later, with swirling mist obscuring any…
Ben Nevis Race – good weather prospects?
The 2010 edition of the Ben Nevis Race is nearly upon us. The big question is: What will Mother Nature deliver? The MWIS forecast for the west Highlands predicts an 80 per cent chance of cloud-free Munros, no rain, but quite breezy. Sounds promising. For Fort William, the BBC expects a day of cloud with sunny intervals, with…
An electrifying day on the Malverns, literally
It is the last thing a runner needs, particularly at the end of a hard, long training session: to be electrocuted. I was coming off End Hill at the northern extent of the Malvern Hills when I stepped over a low fence. My T-shirt, which was hanging from my shorts, must have brushed the wire, for a split second later…
Injured no more
Four days off running, a 15-mile run on the fifth day, no problem with the hip: I’m declaring myself fit. Hence the reward: chocolate Hobnobs, the king of biscuits. A 15-mile run at a little over seven-minute mile pace burns 1,664 calories, apparently. I find that figure hard to believe, but by that reckoning a…
The dreaded ‘i’ word
The dreaded ‘i’ word: injured. It happened on Sunday after a steady 12-mile run. Post-run I had stopped for half an hour to talk, eat breakfast. As I began the jog home, I felt a sharp pain in my left hip, a place previously untouched by injury in my previous 29-and-a-bit years. It felt better yesterday,…
Training for the Ben Nevis race…
… in central London. Not easy, not easy at all. Still, I’m trying to do the best I can with what is at my disposal. The absence of hills of any great height or length – you would have thought there could be at least one Munro, even a rubbish one, in London – means I…
Highland Cross 2010
DREAM TEAM aka Young, Gifted and Old – MacIntyre, MacRae, Muir. First overall gents team Highland Cross 2010. Cramp. I’ve had cramp before, close to the end of marathons or during a long swimming session, but never like this. Never Highland Cross cramp. I had reached Beauly, crossed the finish line. Top-10 in a race…
Heights of Madness 