I sat down to write a story about my recent run around the White Rose Ultra course, a nice enough event on a fine but breezy day. I had a good time, the course was good, the organisation fine and I got round a few minutes faster than the previous year without incurring too much stress. It was doubly enjoyable because my son John was running his first ultra and a pretty good job he made of it too, finishing in joint seventh place in a field of over two hundred. But, I thought, I've told this sort of story so many times over the past few years that it doesn't really bring anything new or intere ..read more

Nearly all the reportage I've seen so far about this year's LIAD has been about water  -  torrential rain and wading through streams, lakes and puddles, and of getting cold. Well, being as contrary as I'm sure my regular readers now expect, I have a different view of the world. I love the LIAD event. I did the first three then was unable to make the start last year because of the embarrassment of a double puncture on the way to Cartmel, so was looking forward to another run down the course. My last time in the near perfect conditions of 2016 was a few seconds over 15 hours, but havi ..read more

I ran my first marathon in 2004 to see if I could. I was 56 years old and I thought it would be the only one I would do. Somehow it wasn't, and now a few years later I find that I've just clocked up my 100th marathon or ultra. With 18 road marathons, 5 trail marathons and 77 ultras you can see where my preferences lie. It's a meaningless figure really, just a step along the road, I'll carry on doing these things until I find them too hard, I hope that's a few years yet. And of course there have been a few DNF's along the way, about a dozen, I've probably learnt more from those than the complet ..read more

When this sort of thing happens people always say it's like travelling by bus; you wait for ages then two turn up at once. The Lakes has for some time had an abundance of superb races at around the 50 mile mark  -  the Lakeland 50, Lakes in a Day, Lakes 3 x 3000, Lakes 10 Peaks and so on  -  but Snowdonia, the UK's only other "south of the border" true mountain area, was lacking. Then this year we had the inaugural running of two hopefully long-term classics, with the "Ultra Tour of Snowdonia" back in May and the "GB Ultras Mt Snowdon" last weekend. I was going to do my no ..read more

This is going to be a long post. I didn't allow myself to be hurried too much in the race and I'm going for the same level of casual luxury in the memories. So you have been warned, but if you still want to come along then I suggest you settle down with a G&T or whatever floats your boat and we'll begin. Deadwater? I suppose I've got a bit hooked on the longer races over the past few years, with completions in the Tor des Geants, Northern Traverse and King Offa's Dyke, and a couple of fanciful brushes with the Dragon's Back (which I would have loved to have met ten years ag ..read more

This is a story about a DNF. Thankfully I don't have too many of these but this one was always on the cards, one half of the gamble if you like. And teasing out the real reasons for failure, rather than the uncontrollable reasons we sometimes like to comfort ourselves with, can be instructive. So here goes. Background I met Mike Jones after I had put in an entry for his Ultra Tour of Snowdonia 50 late last year and ticked the box labelled "Are you interested in coaching?" Mike lives just two or three miles from me in Chester so after a chat in one of our local pubs he agreed to take on a nea ..read more

I've had to include last year's DNF at around 83 miles to justify the title, but as it cost me far more in pain and energy than this year's 10th finish, I don't feel too guilty about that. When I started my first West Highland Way Race in 2007 I was fairly sure I would never do another one, or indeed any other long race; it was just a one-off to see if I could do it. By the prizegiving 35 hours later I was hooked. I've been back every year since, apart from 2015 when there was a direct clash with the Dragon's Back which I wanted to have a shot at. I don't think I'll ever tire of thi ..read more

I was  fascinated by Neil Bryant's recent excellent article in the Ultrarunning Community "Could you run a 200+ miler". A lot of valuable stuff in there for anyone going a bit longer, but I'm not sure that the main principle that emerges, ie that a 200 miler is like a 100 miler but harder, necessarily works for all of us. The reason I think is that Neil is a fairly useful runner, wanting to put in a good performance in his chosen events; for a back of pack "completer" like me, 200 mile races can be much easier experiences than 100's if you tackle them right. I'll try to explain. My first ..read more

The UTS is the event that Snowdonia needed and deserved, and if Race Director Mike Jones has the energy and inclination, it will surely attain the status of one of the UK's very best mountain ultras in a very short time indeed. The format is simple yet ingenious. Two fifty mile loops based on Llanberis showcase most of the best ground that the region has to offer, not only the  battle-scarred classics of the Snowdon, Glyderau and Carneddau ranges, but the beautiful, less frequented and often still challenging hills to the west and south as well. The 100 mile event follows both loops, the ..read more

I was determined that I was going to be a bit more diligent with the blogging (and the running!) this year so was disappointed to discover that after a good start in January and February I had slipped to just one post in March. Not good enough, so here's a bit about my 2018 plan of action to try to kick myself out of the pleasant but rather dubious pastime of wandering along near the back of ultra fields while claiming I'm still some sort of athlete. The weekend of the 11/13 May this year will see the first running of the Ultra Tour of Snowdonia 50 and 100 mile races. I'm sure that over the n ..read more