Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

Way back in April 2006, I ran the London Marathon as a member of a team. It was the English National Marathon Championships, I was running for Newcastle (Staffs) AC, and our ladies team came away with national team gold that day. It was an incredible result for the team, and to top things off even further, I personally smashed my marathon PR by another 7 minutes, finishing in 2 hours 47 minutes which gave me 14th place in the ladies event. The marathon was always my strongest distance and I rarely lacked the confidence that I could hit my goal - I've now stood on the start line of over 60 marathons over the years, and even today, I could still probably predict my finishing time over the distance. A few weeks after running my marathon PR, I received a letter from Norman Wilson, the Team GB Ultra Distance Coach and Manager, asking if I'd be interested in competing in the Boddington 50k in the August. This race would provide the opportunity to qualify to represent England at the W...

Last year, I registered for the Sinister 7 100-miler. Long story short, I wasn't properly trained for a mountain ultra at the time, and I ended up with a DNF at the end of leg 4. I had successfully completed the 50 miler the previous year and had thoroughly enjoyed the run, and whilst I had debated going back again to give the 100 miler another go, one of the things that prevented me leaping at the opportunity was the the first few miles of leg 1 - there was just too much pavement for my liking, it was far too crowded, and it was really difficult to get in to a flow for several miles which put me in the wrong frame of mind before we'd even got properly started with the race!  Sinister definitely was not on my race plans for this year, but when my coach scheduled in a 50km trail run on the same day as the race, I sought out a last minute bib and registered for the 50km,  Although this would mean running leg 1, this year the route had changed, and runners would be directed on to...

After a long wait of well over 10 years, I finally became a Canadian Citizen back in April 2024, and quickly registered for the Survivorfest 24-hour event which would be hosting the national 24-hour championships, as well as providing the opportunity to qualify to represent Canada at the World Championships the following year. As a new Canadian in my early 50s, I was extremely proud to have finished in the silver medal position with a distance of 184km - enough to be considered for selection for the following year. For the past 12 months, I have kept my eye on the national rankings for 24-hours. The deadline for qualifiers for the Worlds was June 8th, and that date has been in my mind for several months, hoping and praying that I wasn't bumped off from that bottom spot of female runners that had already ran the qualifying distance. Having already ran 184km last year, I didn't feel the need to run Survivorfest again in 2025 - the work was done, all I needed to do was prove fitne...

The Blackfoot Ultra was one of the first ultras I did, having moved back to Canada in 2018. I raced the 50-miler, and ended up winning the ladies race in around 7 hours 50 minutes which was a complete surprise to me. The following year I decided to up the distance and registered for the 100k - unfortunately, the weeks leading up to the race were full of lots of emotional stress, and I ended up DNF'ing after 75km. Since then, I had gone back and volunteered pretty much every year, but this year, I decided that I wanted to give the 100k another go, so I registered as a racer instead. My original plan was to use the 100k as proof of fitness for team selection for the World 24 hour championships, but when the ACU extended the qualifying period to allow more people to qualify by running Survivorfest, my race plans got all shook up. I ran the Lakou BYU and with Survivorfest coming just 2 weeks after Blackfoot, I dropped down to the 50k instead. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn...

Although specialising in the 800m and 1500m on the track as a youngster, I've never really been a huge fan of shorter races - in theory, the shorter they are, the faster you are meant to run, except that never really worked for me. My average marathon pace back in my younger days was only 10 seconds slower than my 5k pace, which meant I was either a really slow 5k runner, or an exceptionally fast marathon runner, neither of which was actually true.  My PR in a true 5km race is 18.42 - that was many, many years ago, and I cannot even get close to a sub 20 these days. But then I don't train for speed, which makes my slower times far more acceptable these days.   One of my goals for this year is to hit my 50th parkrun - I'm currently at 42, and I anticipate hitting that glorious 50 milestone sometime in late autumn, when my racing season is complete. I also have a goal of setting a new parkrun PR - this means running faster that 21.46 which I did back in 2023. So far this ye...

I was first introduced to the backyard ultra format during the Covid era back in 2020 - back then, I had never done a backyard, but due to my experience and relative success at ultra distance running, I was selected to represent Team Canada at the satellite team world championships - 15 of Canada's best headed out to Kelowna in BC to take part, and I ended up with 36 yards in my first ever BYU. Since then, I have gone on to do 5 more - my next best being 30 yards once again in BC when representing Canada at the World Team BYU Championships - but other than that, I have found that the excitement and anticipation of a backyard ultra has dwindled for me, and no longer find myself striving to run for an unknown length of time with the aim being to qualify for the national team for a third time.  So how come I ended up at the Lakou Backyard Ultra? Well, the simple answer is because it is one of the best backyard ultras that I have ever done, it is on my doorstep with being in the Edmont...