Our news
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Achilles Tendinopathy
I have been lucky to avoid major injuries for most of my time as a runner. The two exceptions have been (a) an Achilles problem in my mid-thirties and then more recently (b) and Achilles problem in my mid-forties. So perhaps you could say that tendon is my, er… one particular weak spot. Please note
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Bannau Brycheniog
This was a multi-purpose run, to meet a few aims… The journey down involved changing at Shrewsbury to access the “Heart of Wales” line to Swansea, via a lot of small towns and tiny villages. The scenery was beautiful, dozens of hills I will almost certainly never visit. The train itself was like my local
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Loch Tay Skyline
Some important details first… This was my comeback run after the Northern Traverse and the achilles problem I developed on that race. I had passed up an opportunity to go to Scotland two weeks earlier, as I was getting fatigued rather quickly. But now over six weeks after the 300km Northern Traverse, I was feeling
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Northern Traverse
Some advice first, this distance was new to me, and went reasonably well (6th place finish). The training Training had gone well. I was more diligent than useful, aiming for 1 tempo and 1 interval session per week, and 3 lots of progressive strength and conditioning. Life got in the way a few times, and
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Corris Round
First up, the helpful info for anyone attempting the round. Doing the Corris Round in March was Dave’s idea – which worked both as a great objective in itself, and as a stepping stone to future challenges. It was Lisa’s biggest ascent day so far, and a big day by any standards. For me, it
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Winter training
After a great start to Northern Traverse training in October, November became a bit disrupted by some family illness and life admin. December had been designated a “fun month”, with a weekend away, and turned into a pretty solid training month with more free time around Christmas than usual. Coming into the New Year, I
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Winter running tips
Some collected thoughts on running in winter conditions, after a few days of exactly that in January 2025. All the pictures below are from a couple of days in the local hills, 9-10 Jan. This advice is mostly concerned with local, low level trails than the more serious business of winter mountain running.
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2024 Review
This has felt like a transitional year – the first since I took my ultra running seriously where there hasn’t been a really big successful run. 2019 was the Dragon’s Back, even 2020 had my home made Peak 500m trigs (at 75 miles, the furthest I had run at the time). 2021 was the return
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Training log – Oct 2024
So, here we are, a 6 month run-in to the Northern Traverse (300km and 6000m ascent). Time to ramp up the training and see what I can do with it. 2023 was a fantastic running year for me, with a whole lot of challenges and races completed, culminating in the winter solo Bob Graham. 2024
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The Rigby Round, and other failures
Equinox weekend September 2024, I didn’t complete the 24 hour Rigby Round of Cairngorm Munros. Summary: it’s OK to fail, provided you learn something from it. In this case, not to approach something too casually. The Rigby visits the 18 Munro summits in the Northern Cairngorms, and is meant to be done solo, unsupported, and