I won a race yesterday. A running race. I was the fastest. The victor. On one day, in one place, no-one could beat me. This isn’t gloating; it is savouring a moment that may not happen again. I’ve said it before on this blog, but while there is pleasure to be gained by running, the…
Category: Ultrarunning
Broadway Tower Marathon – race preview
Mine has been a peculiar running year. Successful (so far), but peculiar nonetheless. Having never run a step beyond 26.2 miles prior to January, I started 2012 by reinventing myself as an ultra-runner. My first 30-miler – the Winter Tanners in Surrey in January – seems an age ago. Since then I have completed the…
Bob Graham Round – SUCCESS!
Moot Hall, Keswick, 1am. We were off, darting through a ginnel, away from town, destined for the invisible summit of Skiddaw. No fanfare, no cheering crowds, no fuss. Only a handful of late-night revellers enjoying the dying embers of a Jubilee night-out. Low-key, yes, but as the well-worn proverb goes: from humble beginnings come great…
Post-Fellsman: checking my legs still work
My legs still work. I’ve just checked: a 45-minute trot on muddy trails and around playing fields in the London drizzle. I even managed to wander up a few minor hills with relative ease. Everything – joyously – is intact. For all its hardness, the Fellsman did not destroy me. The pleasure from being uninjured and…
Surviving the Fellsman
The Fellsman has redefined what I understand about running. I have run ‘properly’ since I was a teenager, from the middle distance races I ran as a schoolboy and the road half-marathons and marathons of my 20s, to the gradual transition to fell, hill, mountain and trail, and now, ultras. Over the years, I’ve often…
The unfathomable miles of the Fellsman
I’ve been asked a few times recently whether I ran ‘the marathon’ or, prior to Sunday, whether I was running ‘the marathon’. ‘The marathon’ is, of course, the Virgin London Marathon. Because that’s the only marathon, isn’t it? When asked, I’ve said ‘no’. Not because I am now running scared of fast races on roads,…
The psychology of the long-distance run
I ran 33 miles on Monday. I have never walked or ran further on a single day before. The run was three miles longer than my Winter Tanners in January, but – taking 5 hours and 20 minutes – lasted an hour longer. My transition to ultra-running hasn’t been seamless; it has required a whole…
Winter Tanners 2012 results
The results for the Winter Tanners have finally appeared. It was not a race – the LDWA make that abundantly clear. Still, it is good to compare yourself with others. And comparing myself with others, I did alright: second, in fact, in 4 hours, 20 minutes. I trailed the leader by two minutes; he was…
Winter Tanners 2012
I very nearly didn’t run the Winter Tanners. My right soleus had tightened up following a hard track session on Tuesday, and by Friday I was on the cusp of dropping out. I had gone to work on the muscle on the foam roller the night before, aggravating it further. I was hugely disappointed. Suddenly,…
Winter Tanners: six days to go
By this time next week I might just have the smug satisfaction of being able to call myself an ultrarunner – and no longer a mere marathoner. By this time next week – as a consequence – I imagine I’ll also be in a great deal of pain. An ultramarathon is classified as anything longer…
Heights of Madness 