I wasn’t sure until the day before whether I was going to run this race or not, but I’m so glad I did. I’d signed up for it the day it opened on Entry Central as it sells out really quickly, and I figured it was better to have a place and defer it rather …
I woke up at 06:43am on Saturday 19th October, and immediately realised my alarm hadn’t gone off as I should have been woken up earlier. Six days previously I had completed the Chicago Marathon. It was raining cats and dogs in Aberdeen on the Friday night, and my body clock still hadn’t fully adjusted to …
The goals for 2019 have not panned out as I planned. My aim for my running life was to look more to trails and ultra-running, although I did know marathons were still going to play a part. I had no plans for a spring marathon as the Glen Lyon Ultra was my main race. This …
When I started running two and a half years ago, I just thought of it as a nice social form of exercise. I liked that it was easy to measure performance, and that I seemed to be making good progress at it. If anyone had told me I would end up running marathons, and even …
When I went into Loch Ness, I – only half-jokingly – said “one and done.” If Charlotte could pace me round to a sub 3:30, I’d never have to give over 4-and-a-half-months of my life to marathon training again. In those last few miles, when my brain was shutting down and Charlotte was shouting at …
Why would someone get up earlier on a day off than they would for work? To indulge in a spot of parkrun tourism of course! Arthur Grant from Arbroath Footers has kindly organised a program of 12 tourist parkruns – one per month for a year – and the first one was Lochore Meadows, The …
On the benefits of a sabbatical Back in December I published my Depth Year 2019 post, which set out my goals and hopes for the year. As a reminder, here are the goals: Limit my social media time to 20 minutes per day, except if I’m involved in an important group chat about something: no mindless scrolling. …
Although the first few races I did all the way back in the mid 2000s as a casual runner were 10ks, this is not my favourite distance. It usually takes me a few kilometres to get properly warmed up, and I’m more confident in my stamina than in my ability to run fast for a …
I did my 50th parkrun on Saturday 20th July 2019, and I wanted to reflect on the impact parkrun has had on my life. This isn’t a run report. Or even all that much about running. It’s a bit of an incoherent ramble about my transition from a reluctant runner and exercise class aficionado to …
The Dundee Half DRAM 2018 was the first half marathon distance race I had done since 2005, and I ran it over 28 minutes faster than my previous one and only half marathon. However, I had been tantalisingly close to, but on the wrong side of, 1 hour 40 minutes so I had unfinished business …