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…
‘Lycra ponce’
I am a victim of road rage. Me, a humble, law-abiding – most of the time – London cyclist. I had weaved to the front of a queue of traffic heading north to Euston, before stopping at traffic lights, where I paused, waiting for the lights to turn green. ‘Lycra ponce,’ a voice said. I turned round to see a…
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…
From Everest to Helvellyn, via Boring Field
What does a man do once he has conquered the world’s 8,000-metre peaks? Everything else must seem pretty mundane in comparison. Not tackling England’s 39 shire county tops (sort of, anyway), it seems. For that is what mountaineer Alan Hinkes is up to at this very moment, raising money for mountain rescue teams in the process. Hinkes…
Isles at the Edge of the Sea – a title at last
After much mithering, my book on the Hebrides (and the Firth of Clyde islands) finally has a title: Isles at the Edge of the Sea. Hebrides (from the Norse word Havbredey) roughly translates as isles at the edge of the sea, although I’ve had it on good authority that it may also mean sheep islands, which is not the most…
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…
25,000 words
Another milestone – 25,000 words written, about a third of the way towards my target, and the book is beginning to take shape. Sandstone Press, my publisher, has put this on their website, which makes it all seem very real. Let’s hope I can live up to my billing of bringing ‘wit and intelligence’ to…
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,…
Heights of Madness 