I’d been running a little under a year when I first realised where running could take me. I don’t mean in the metaphorical sense – it’s taken me to do all sorts of things I would never have done before I became a runner, like going travelling round the world by myself – I mean [...]

If you don't already listen to the Marathon Talk podcast you should. And you should definitely listen to this week's show. BECAUSE I'M ON IT!Martin and Tom invited me on to talk about my experience of going from not being about to run AT ALL to getting my Good For Age qualification and lots of [...]

What do you think about when you think about swimming? For a long time I thought of damp changing rooms, wet hair on a cold walk home from the pool and soggy towels in my bag. I thought about the sting of water going up my nose, being pulled out of the water by a [...]

I'm against picnics. I don't see the point of preparing food and then carting it a few miles to a local park to consume it by which time it will be warm instead of cold or cold instead of hot and taste less good than if you'd stayed at home. I'm against all picnics with [...]

There's no honour in not training for an event. In turning up at the start and saying to anyone and everyone within earshot, whether they want to listen or not, that "I've not done any training." In not respecting the race distance. Loath to become one of those types of people when I line up [...]

Imagine yourself driving to work and there's some idiot driving a meter from your back wheels. They keep trying to overtake you but you know the road is too narrow for them to do this safely. Imagine that, as you drive along, you're somehow invisible to other road users, despite being lit up like a [...]

It was a hot evening in Siem Reap, Cambodia when I first went to a yoga class that I enjoyed. I'd met a girl from Liverpool the day before in the middle of Ankor Wat. That evening we made a pilgrimage to 'Pub Street' where we drank cocktails imaginatively called Toomrader into the next morning. [...]

"No special preparation is needed", those are the words of Don Fink, Ironman triathlon training guru in reference to 100 mile cycle rides. I've taken those words to heart. Perhaps a little too much. In contrast to the Don Fink school of thought, Ride London 100 keeps emailing me to tell me about all the [...]

When I started running five years ago it was hard and definitely wasn't something I'd call fun. But I carried on doing it because there was an image in the back of my mind of me running barefoot down a beach smiling. That was what I wanted.Somewhere along the line, as I trained for my [...]

You can avoid looking at a certain page in your diary, avert your eyes away from the calendar every time you go into the kitchen and even flee the country for two weeks, but that race day is still happening. It’s all happening a bit fast. I did a sprint triathlon in May. My first [...]