Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

I'm ashamed to say that the title of this particular entry really is quite poor, but couldn't really think of anything else for this brief update. I've just got back from a 2 week Mediterranean Cruise, and with the Commonwealth Trail Championships just a mere 5 days away, I'm a little concerned that maybe I shouldn't have enjoyed the food on board quite as much as I did! The good news is that I kept the training up whilst on board ship, although running on a treadmill in rough (ish) seas was certainly a challenge, and the thought of doing a long run of more than 10 miles really would have driven me loopy. So in the past 3 weeks, the furthest I have ran is just over 13 miles - and I've got to do 30+ on Sunday. I have struggled a little these past few days, and I'm a little concerned that yet again, everything will go pear shaped at the weekend, and I'm going to come away bitterly disappointed. However, it may be my last chance to represent my countr...

It’s been a pretty good week this week, with 2 team victories for the Moorlands ladies and lots of excellent performances by friends both locally and abroad. It was the Vets Cross Country Race on Wednesday evening, and  being the first time I had done this race, I really didn’t know what to expect. It was also going to be my first race for Staffordshire Moorlands and so I didn’t want to embarrass myself by having a really crap run. The event, organised by Cheadle Running Club, is pretty low key and starts from the cricket club at Oakamoor. The ladies’ 4 ¼ mile route is pretty flat and follows the old railway track to The Ramblers Retreat before heading up into the woods and then back down again and along the track back to the cricket club. I was a little nervous for a couple of reasons – namely it would be the first time I would meet a lot of the Moorlands team, and secondly, I hadn’t done a race of less that 27 miles since doing the London Marathon back in April! How I would co...

I thought that running was meant to be an easy sport, but it’s been a funny old weekend full of highs and lows and I’m beginning to think that it would be much easier to be a couch potato! It all started last Thursday, when after weeks of iffing and areing, I finally made the decision to resign from Trentham and to join Staffordshire Moorlands AC. This wasn’t a snap decision, but is something that I have been thinking about for a while now, but I’ve been so loyal to the Green Army and been honoured to be a part of that team, that writing out my resignation was extremely difficult. Even when I was handing it over, I broke down and cried, feeling absolutely terrible and convinced I was letting so many people down. However, my head eventually overruled my heart, and with me wanting to focus more on fell and trail running, and more of the long distance races, it became clear that I would have more opportunities by moving clubs. It didn’t make things any easier and it was difficult knowin...

Things over the past few weeks have been pretty hectic to say the least, and in the words of Cindy from Scary Movie, “It’s been a while!” since I’ve had the opportunity to actually sit down and reflect on things. It seems like a lifetime ago now that I flew out to Galway for the World Trail Championships, where I donned my GB vest for the first time in nearly 3 years. Thinking back, that was a fantastic weekend, and once again I met some great people and made new friends from the ultra running world in the form of   Stuart, Craig and Andrew, as well as seeing the more familiar faces of Allen, Julian, Karen, Lucy and last but not least Heather. GB Team minus Andy Smith and Julian Rendall The race itself was certainly not what many of us were expecting, and with living in Stoke, no amount of running could have prepared me for what we encountered over in Galway . Heavy rain in the preceding days meant a last minute change to the course on safety grounds, and what a course it was...

This time next week it will all be over and I will have competed in my 4 th ultra distance World Championship race for Great Britain . Even now it still feels a little unreal. Four years ago I’d only ever dreamt of competing for my country, and although the past couple of years have been full of ups and downs, I don’t regret any of it. Last Thursday the new GB kit arrived and that same sense of excitement and anticipation took hold, not only about the actual running, but also about meeting up with old friends from the ultra running world and making new ones. I’ve had the privilege of meeting so many inspirational ultra distance athletes since I started running “Beyond the Marathon” myself, some of whom have gone on to achieve some exceptional accolades and undertaken some extreme challenges. For me, next weekend at the World Trail Running Championships will be another personal challenge. Although I’ve dabbled in trail running overseas in the past – the 78km Swiss Alpine Mountain Mar...

Wednesday was one of those days where I’d been feeling really grumpy, so much so that I wasn’t really in the mood for the annual Shugborough Relays. The weather had been rubbish with heavy rain on and off all day, and then a few people had rubbed me up the wrong way and all I wanted was a nice relaxing evening in front of the TV cuddled up with my two dogs. The problem was that I had said I would organise the ladies teams for the relays, and having already got 8 ladies who had committed themselves to racing, I really didn’t want to let them down . I turned up at Shugborough still feeling a little moody, but the sun was now shining and with the usual hustle and bustle of races, I started to feel a little bit more cheerful. Unfortunately, some of our Trentham ladies were unable to run due to illness or injury, but we’d had a couple of last minute volunteers in the form of Kerry and Lynne which meant that we could still field two teams. Rose had turned up but was still quite poorly and h...

Thanks to my parents, I’ve always had a love for the great outdoors and have spent many happy days both as a youngster and now as an adult (!) roaming the hills and mountains at weekends, come rain or shine. To make things more challenging, my dad taught me to map read and we frequently chose routes that were unfamiliar to us just to practice our navigation skills, relying on these immensely on numerous occasions when on our backpacking expeditions in low cloud and mist up in the fells. Back then, I had also started running and I was often urged to take up orienteering to combine both my love of running and my obsession with maps and the outdoors. For one reason or another though, the closest I came to orienteering was when on work experience at Standon Bowers where I was teaching other young people about the sport as part of their geography field trips. As time progressed, I became more of a road runner, where racing meant following the person in front rather than thinking about whe...