Stick a barcode in me pocket. I’ll fetch the trainers from the closet. Cause if you want the best parkrun And you don’t ask questions Then Peckham is your one Where these runners come from Is a mystery. It’s like 9 in the morning, At least it’s free. But here’s the thing that’s driving me…
Category: Running
Making the top-250: the UK’s real running heroes
It was in January when I overheard two club runners speaking about their seasons’ aims following a Surrey League cross country match. One said his 2014 aspiration was to be ranked among the top-250 runners in the country. ‘What distance?’ his mate asked. The other shrugged. He didn’t mind: as long as he made the…
The Bob Graham Round: as seen from the water-carrier’s corner
High above, the jagged, dark silhouette of Blencathra decorated an oppressive sky. There were no stars. An incessant rain pounded the car roof. We fretted. Marc and Nayth (and their water-carriers) had left Moot Hall at midnight. Time was winning. Blundering off Skiddaw, the fivesome had been bamboozled by what is elemental in daylight. Time…
I would run 1000 miles…
Barring mishap or the unexpected, by around 7.30pm on Tuesday, midway through an undoubtedly frantic 8 x 600m session on the track at Tooting Bec, I will have run 1000 miles in 2014. It has taken four days and nine hours. It doesn’t sound very long, does it? The venue is fitting, for my metamorphosis…
Conti Lightning Run 2014
The premise of the Conti Lightning Run is simple: teams of one, two or five must run as many 10k laps of a course around Catton Park in 12 hours. The individual or pair or quintet who run the furthest are the winners. I was part of a Men’s Running team that won this year’s…
The agony of the mile
Running and racing is rarely as joyful as the smiling, skipping cover models adorning running magazines would have readers believe. I have had bad times running. And I have had some really bad times. Like climbing a wind-blasted Great Whernside some 55 miles into the Fellsman. Like running the London Marathon with plantar fasciitis. Like…
Running in circles
I ran track (that sounds very American, doesn’t it?) at school. I had a best of 2.13 over 800m. I was distinctly average. I never came close to winning anything. I recall 800m races being uncompromisingly hard. I continued my mediocrity at university, memorably running the 1500m in 4.29 at a BUSA indoors championship while…
The pain of the 10k
I did a few 10k races during my time living in Peterborough. It seemed the obvious thing to do in a place so painfully flat. I stopped to concentrate on marathons. I now remember why. I’ve run four 10k races since September: Middlesex 10k, RunThrough Brixton 10k, Serpentine New Year’s Day 10k and, on Sunday,…
Running up Box Hill… with a baby
My wife was racing in Surrey. I found myself on Box Hill. Just me, a baby and a running buggy. Ordinarily, the baby (my daughter, I hasten to add) goes to sleep the instant the buggy begins to move. She can cry hysterically during the insertion process, but move the thing a millimetre and it…
The greedy runner
I have been greedy. Not food greedy. Although that isn’t strictly true. I blame my wife; she didn’t need to make a cake today. I mean running greedy. Time greedy. Seven days of running before today had featured, by day and in order: a nine mile cross country race; 16 miles at a fair pace;…
Mud, mud, glorious mud: the 2014 South of England cross country championship
Parliament Hill on the day of the South of England cross country championship. Our warm-up has been broken by a stream of women racers crossing the path ahead. We pause to watch the gritty, multi-coloured procession. After negotiating the path, the women descend slightly into a hollow of sludge of unknown depths. At the centre…
‘I was there…’ Marking 125 years of Herne Hill Harriers
The year is 1889, a time before television, tea bags and Twitter. Queen Victoria is the monarch; Jack the Ripper is stalking the East End; Britain rules a third of the globe. In Milkwood Road, Herne Hill, an institution is born: an athletics club called Herne Hill Harriers. There was war and peace, Bing Crosby…
Heights of Madness 