Font 2023

Font 2023

Another holiday in France, this time with added 36 degree weather! In the UK, we were protected mostly from the fierce weather happening on the continent. This meant we set of for France with temperatures of around 17 degrees, to driving past Paris in 36 degrees. Luckily for me, I was in a car with air conditioning, so barely noticed until we got out for lunch along the route. Scorchio! Poor old Jim, Lolly and Dave weren’t so lucky, having…

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Scafell Sky Race: Sometimes you’ve just gotta grind it out…

Scafell Sky Race: Sometimes you’ve just gotta grind it out…

Ah yes, I should probably squeeze some sort of update out about the old running thang. I’ve become really bad at getting regular updates on here, so it tends to only be big events that make me sit down and hit the keyboard a bit. So, it’s been a couple of days since what was my first A race for the year. This was the big one for the year, the RAB Scafell Sky Race. 40km (ish) up a bunch…

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2023 and I’m not injured.. yet.

2023 and I’m not injured.. yet.

For the first time in 2 years, I’ve managed to get through November and December without succumbing to some sort of ankle injury. Ish. The end of 2020 and 2021 saw something getting sore in my right foot, probably either the Peroneus Longus or Brevis tendon inflamed where it attaches to, or crosses under the foot. Both times it knocked me out of action for probably 2 months while it calmed down. This then meant 2 more months getting anywhere…

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Help! I’ve gone to Spain in winter and it’s lovely.

Help! I’ve gone to Spain in winter and it’s lovely.

So, when I was up in Scotland running that crazy crazy race, Rowan kept dropping a few hints about how he was going to Spain at the end of November for some winter climbing in the sun with his friend Simon. “Ha, that sound lovely” I thought to myself. Once I’d got back from the race, Anya started hassling me. Well, it turns out she really fancied going to Spain too, and if she was going, she really needed a…

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The Death of Quads: The Salomon Ring of Steall 2022

The Death of Quads: The Salomon Ring of Steall 2022

2022 had started just as badly as 2021 did with a return of my ankle issues. Pretty much exactly the same scenario as last year where my training was going really well and I was getting close to race time when *bang* it goes. This time it was worse, as my foot went basically at the start of a 21k tough trail run loop from Whitby to Robin Hood’s Bay and back and I just ran/limped on it. Dumbass. That…

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2022 Catch Up. (I’m a lazy blogger)

2022 Catch Up. (I’m a lazy blogger)

Kinda failing at blogging recently. Here is a quite retrospective about stuff I’ve been up to this year. After an injury flare up in November last year, the early parts of the year were about recovery mostly, meaning I missed out on the 2021 Percy Pud, The Inaugural Winter Round Sheffield Run and my targeted 10k PB race in Kew Gardens. I did manage cobble some fitness together for the long postponed Langsett 10k, one of my favourite local races….

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Once more into The Forest: Fontainebleau 2022

Once more into The Forest: Fontainebleau 2022

After an abortive attempt for Ed and I to on a ‘psyched’, two men on a bouldering mission to Font on the day France went into their first COVID19 lockdown (We went to Carrefour, cooked dinner, went to bed and the next day drove home 🙁 ) it’s our first Fontainebleau climbing holiday for a LOOONG time. This time, we went large, with 11 of us in a massive Gite up at the posh little village of Bois de Roi….

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Firelighter 2021 Ultra

Firelighter 2021 Ultra

An interesting choice for my first ultra, but I signed up to run it with Liz who had chosen it as a target crazy race. We both had a very disturbed year of training leading up to it with injuries getting in the way of us doing the consistent number of long runs I’d intended to build the fitness. With Liz’s runners knee flaring up, I refocused her on practising using running poles which turned out to be a very…

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Loxley Lashed

Loxley Lashed

(Backfilled as i was being very slack and hadn’t updated for about a year and a half!) The Loxley Lash wasn’t on in 2020 due to COVID but was back in 2021 so I figured it was a good opportunity to see how many pace recovery was coming on after my injuries. There were three rounds, each 2 weeks apart meaning that wasnt a huge amount of time between the first and the last to have improved that much, but…

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Welcome to the 20s

Welcome to the 20s

What an odd year for running and climbing. Reflecting back on it, I feel like it’s been a bit of a crap year for my running. Running Reflections Except, it really hasn’t: One of my targets at the start of the year post was like the past 2 years, to run the year again in km. Yep, did it: 2023km in 2019. Then, in mid June, I destroyed my 5k time while testing the new Loxley Lash 5k course with…

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