Over The Contours

What follows is perhaps more of a reminder to myself than a blog per se. The Dragon's Back Race is such a long and intense event, and with my head swirling with so much emotion I want to record my thoughts and memories of this great event before the mundanities of normal life creep back. Registration Day - Sunday 3rd September - Conwy An early start leaving Thanet Parkway heading for Crewe. My first minor heart attack comes when the station board lists my train as 'delayed'. Rail strikes the day previous had disrupted many a travel plan and I was worried this would be the start of my woes. Fortunately, it wasn't; the station board updates - the train is again on time. Relief. The journey turns out to be uneventful except for sharing a table with Giles Brandreth between Euston and Crewe. I get to Crewe and mum and dad are waiting. I'd asked whether they'd drop me off in Conwy, rather than me take the train all the way through. It's lovely seeing them and we h

The Long Mynd Valleys fell race; the first fixture in the English Fell Running Championships 2023. When the fixtures were published in late 2022, my eyes were immediately drawn to this fixture. I've never been to the Shropshire Hills and so there was a certain allure to this 11 mile loop of the Long Mynd.  Organised by Mercia Fell Runners, their website warns of a tough and unrelenting course - not one for the faint hearted. Still, needing to get metres of ascent into my legs ahead of the Dragons Back Race in September, I signed myself up. We used this as an opportunity for a weekend away, staying in Shrewsbury the evening before, followed by two nights in my home county of Cheshire afterwards.   Having collected my race number and dibber from the local school, I made my way up towards the start which was close to the National Trust car park in the Carding Mill Valley. At 11.05am, we were off. Being a championship race it was popular, but the first few 200 metres are on the tarmac

Standing in the drizzle in the beautiful Knole Park, I wondered what on earth I'd been thinking. This was my first cross country since 2019, and I was a little nervous about my fitness levels. But needs must; I had been looking forward to the cross country series for some time, and had promised myself I'd get to at least four of the seven events in the KFL series. Knole Park kicked off the cross country season. Because of parking restrictions, there's a long walk from Sevenoaks town centre into the Knole Park estate. I walked in with a few other members of Thanet Road Runners, chatting about the rubbish weather and spotting deer roaming the parkland in its autumn colours. A decent turn out for Thanet Road Runners meant that we were in with a reasonable chance of scoring some points. I was under no illusions that I'd perform particularly well, but it was really good to be back out doing a cross country. The pre-race information included a rough map of the course. The sha

It's been a while. Pandemics, injury, new jobs, PhDs, disillusionment...all of this combined meant that I abandoned this blog (and all associated running goals) through most of 2020 and 2021. I've re-read a lot of these posts of late and decided that not only do I miss goal-based running, I also miss writing about it. Don't be under any illusions - my fitness is not what it was in late 2019, and despite some recent parkruns of 19:10, 18.58, and 18.16, I'm a little heavier and a little older. In addition, I'm still suffering with achilles tendinopathy. I have, finally, started getting some physio (from third year BSc Sports Therapy students at work...) and this has helped, but it has not gone away. Either way, I'm not getting any younger and I was happier when I was competing, so I entered the Sandstone Trail Race in Cheshire. The Sandstone Trail Race has been run since 1977. Competitors can run either the A course (17.1 miles) or the a B course (10.5 miles) alon

When I was a kid growing up in the north, I'd often hear on the weather forecast of scorching temperatures in Gravesend, Kent. I grew up thinking that Gravesend had its own little microclimate; a sun-drenched oasis in the garden of England. Anyway, it turns out that Gravesend just happens to have one of the lowest positioned weather stations in the UK and soil with a propensity to heat up quickly in the sunlight. Well, either way, Gravesend lived up to its expectations this Sunday as the North Downs Run, which starts and ends just outside Gravesend, was by far the hottest race I've ever participated in. As we gathered next to the Cascades Leisure Centre in Thong, the sun was already beating down. Lots of runners stayed in the shade for as long as they could before the race started. Fortunately, my travel companion and fellow runner Chris had brought some sun screen with him and I gave myself a liberal coating. Chris and I shuffled into the start area ready for the 10.30am s

The dreaded leg 3; the leg that I'd read so much about..."the climbing leg". Well, on Sunday it was my turn to see for myself. Leg 3 poses some logistical challenges for a recce; namely because the start (Dunmail Raise) and end (Wasdale) are a good hour and thirty minutes away from each other by car. Because of this, I'd arranged with Abigail (the BGR widow) to collect me from Seathwaite in Borrowdale. To that end, I'd run leg 3 and then walk from Wasdale Head via Sty Head to Seathwaite. After a short and slow walk from Grasmere, I reached the starting point at Dunmail Raise. It was 6.00am and there was a little collective of people parked in the lay-by. I didn't get close enough to say hello, but I have a pretty strong feeling that they were a support crew for a Bob Graham attempt. I crossed the stile and began the steep climb up to Steel Fell and Dead Pike. The weather was pretty good; no rain and relatively mild. Some patches of blue sky were appearin

It was a typical Cumbrian morning; wet and breezy. I was staying near Sedburgh for a friend's stag-do-that-wasn't-a-stag-do; basically a collective of geeks, nerds and outdoor enthusiasts in a converted barn in the middle of nowhere. I reckon more board games were brought than alcohol. Anyway, never one to miss an opportunity I escaped early and made the seventy mile round-trip to Fell Foot park, Newby Bridge. This is a parkrun that I've wanted to do for ages. We travel to the Lakes four or five times a year and I'd never managed to get it to work logistically; until now. I parked in the National Trust car park (free for members, obviously) and decided to brave the rain and go for a warm up. A couple of hardy volunteers were already out and about placing cones and putting up signage. The park is beautiful, even in the greyest of conditions. I had a vague idea of where the course would run and followed this as part of my warm up. I followed the shore of Windermere

Abigail won a Salomon sportswear competition and the 'prize' was to go to the Surrey Hills with all of the other winners and test a range of Salomon kit. Never one to miss an opportunity, I saw this as a perfect chance to a) get a new parkrun in and b) do a long run through the Surrey Hills. I ran Cranleigh parkrun; an undulating and grassy little parkrun close to the town centre. I came fourth, which I was happy with considering we'd arrived with only eight minutes to spare. Abigail had dropped me off at the parkrun and then headed off six miles away to Birtley Green where she would meet up with the Salomon folks. I knew I had until around 1pm to keep myself occupied so I'd plotted a long run that would eventually take me over Leith Hill, Holmbury Hill and Pitch Hill, making my way over to Birtley Green where Abigail was. "There's no real hills in the South", I thought. How wrong I was. The run started in Cranleigh, straight after the parkrun. I meand

It was a sunny and mild April morning as we drove along the A66 towards Threlkeld. My legs were still a little beaten from the Manchester Marathon and from the Loughrigg Fell race the evening before, but nevertheless, I was keen to make the most of the weather and the time in the Lakes to do a recce of leg 2 of the Bob Graham round. When I plotted the route I’d come to consider leg 2 as one of the easier sections of the round; a long slog of a climb up to Clough Head from Threlkeld and then a long, but steady, ridge run over the Dodds, Helvellyn and down to the Grisedale Tarn. In a way this is exactly what leg 2 is, however, what I hadn’t accounted for was the amount of relative elevation loss and gain whilst on the ridge. Leg 2 “officially” begins in Threlkeld, heading south by the disused quarry and then onto Hausewell Brow. For convenience, Abigail dropped me off just south of Threlkeld so that I could begin the route along the Old Coach Road beneath the Threlkeld Knott