I have just returned from a weekend marshalling at events in the Glen Lyon Ultra. This was the first Scottish Athletics licensed event since lockdown. It was racing, not quite as we have grown to know it, but remarkably familiar to those people who were around when ultras were just starting out in Scotland and …
The ballot gods have spoken and so for the most part the adventures for the coming year have been decided. A few people have asked me recently about where I find these races and why I do them. A while back I wrote a bit of a blog about the types of race which pique …
My race report deals with all of the details of the race itself, but what about the lessons, what worked and what didn’t work? Pacing I spent a fair amount of time researching pacing by looking at splits for previous races. In particular I was interested in the splits of those who finished strongly. I …
Some people like to run for the joy of running. That isn’t my bag. I need a purpose to get me out the door. Some people like to run randomly and tackle races in whatever fitness they have at that time. With my lack of any natural ability, I need a very structured training programme …
or knowing when to quit…. I went for a run on Saturday. I parked up at Loch Turret Dam and ran up the side of the Loch with the intention of running up Ben Chonzie. Ben Chonzie has a reputation as the most boring Munro in Scotland, however from this approach it is quite runable, …
2014 was a funny old year. In my head it wasn’t a very good running year, probably because I didn’t get any faster. No PBs for me, and that worries me that old age is catching up, the nagging fear of getting worse before I have managed to get better. I had started the year …
I am a great fan of warming up. One of my great frustrations is watching runners who do Parkrun stand around with hands in pockets before setting off for a 5K run and then wonder why it feels hard and why they never quite perform as well as they would like. Same applies to new …
So sang the Pointer Sisters. This probably dates me to an alarming degree but it feels like recent history to me. Unexpectedly my haircut didn’t cure my achilles problem after all so it was back to the physio again this morning. My usual torturer is on holiday so today I had a different pair of …
First inkling that my achilles might be starting to feel better came this morning with a haircut. Not a racing haircut, but a running haircut. Its a significant phase in the rehab process. If I can survive a day or two with no adverse reaction to my haircut, I might be able to progress to …
“Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it” – Bill Cosby Shamelessly pinched this from Scott Jurek’s Blog. With just one week to go until the start of the west Highland Way Race and my huge step into the unknown of a 95 mile ultra, it somehow seemed appropriate