Tales of Trails, Mountains and Rocky Roads

Lakou Backyard Ultra didn't go quite as planned, and there would have been a time when I would have cringed at my result, embarrassed that I hadn't performed as well as expected, and wanting to crawl under a rock to hide away from the scrutiny and judgement of friends and family who expected far more from me. These days, whilst there are occasions when I feel disappointed with how race day pans out, I don't feel any shame nor embarrassment with my results. When I was deciding on my race plans for 2024, Lakou was one of my target races. I had no interest in trying to make the Canadian backyard team this year - I know I can't hit 42 yards even on one of my best days to put me on the at-large list - but I did hope to exceed 30 hours. I'd had a couple of months off to give my mind and body a bit of a break from training earlier in the year, and during that time, I had made an attempt at an FKT on the Staffordshire Way. Although it was a great experience, the weather was...

April 18th 2024 was a special day - I finally became a Canadian Citizen, something that has been a dream of mine for many years. For those of you that didn't already know, my parents were meant to move to Canada back in the 1970's, and I would have been born Canadian had their plans come to fruition. But family ties and commitments meant that the move never happened, and therefore I spent my childhood growing up in England. Yet there has always been something that has drawn me to Canada, and I always dreamt of the mountain adventures in the Rockies, owning a horse ranch or a log cabin in some remote location, fishing for salmon in great rivers, and cross country skiing and ski-joring with the pups in the cold, Canadian winters. Even when at college, my final project was based on Canada. I remember writing to the Canadian tourist board for promotional material, and I hired a Mountie outfit to promote my booth at the travel fair that we attended which would determine our final gr...

With just five weeks until the Lakou Backyard Ultra, training has been ramped up in style and I'm really hoping that the miles, the hills, and the strength work, all come together on race day, so I can go into the race feeling confident of hitting any targets I might set myself. Right now, I don't have a goal except to attempt one more lap every time I feel like I've truly had enough. I'd much rather time out on a lap that not start, but then I have said that before and gone again my word! This past week has been a great week of training, with a decent speed session on Tuesday that saw me comfortably running 7.00 to 7.30 miling despite a brisk wind, Wednesday saw me doing what is now known as my 10-mile classic simply because until recently, all I tended to do during the week were 10-milers. Then Thursday, I was back at the off-leash dog park, running up and down the hill in an attempt to get stronger at hill running and therefore making my hillier races feel easier. Th...

The past three weeks have seen me back in the swing of structured training again, and I have to say that it's feeling good. I'm far from being at my fittest, but having those planned sessions is giving me the motivation to get outside and put in the effort. It's early days, but I am already starting to notice a difference in how I'm feeling in my body, especially with a mix of strength training, faster paced sessions, hill work, and even yoga! The hill work has been the hardest as I live in a city that is definitely flat, and I don't always have time to head out to the local trails to complete hill sessions after work. Doing hills midweek does take some creativity when short on time, and for the first couple of sessions, I was heading to the local rec centre and hogging one of the treadmills for an hour, setting the gradient to 14%, and just power walking for the full 60 minutes to see how much elevation I could.  Thankfully, daylight saving time kicked in a couple ...

When I heard that my mum had been taken ill just before Christmas, I knew that I needed to head back to the UK to see the family. It had been 9 years since I was last in England - even longer since I had last seen my parents. We scheduled flights that would give us two weeks in the UK during February, and with the visit coinciding with my birthday, I wanted to do something to mark my birthday whilst I was over there, something challenging again, something exciting.   Not having the same extreme cold and heavy snows that I have become accustomed to since living in Canada, the UK generally has relatively mild and wet winters which means that there are races held throughout the year. I scanned the race calendar to see if there was something I could perhaps compete in whilst there but nothing really came up - I was even tempted to rejoin my old running club - Trentham - just so that I could take part in the cross country races that would take place whilst I was visiting! It was then th...