Adam in Runderland

Sunday 22nd June - 32 miles The next morning we were up early again. The start times were all an hour earlier to ensure that people were finished in time to get home. After another filling breakfast we received the day’s briefing and then headed off on the home leg back to Cowes. Somehow during my preparation I forgot to apply Vaseline. This would come back to haunt me at the end of the day. The weather was no different to the first day with pure sunshine in a cloudless sky. The only difference was that it was even hotter but still there was no wind. I was surprised just how fresh I felt given that the day before I had jogged and walked 40 miles. My muscles were a little stiff and sore but jogging wasn’t a problem. Again we set ourselves an 11 minute pace to begin with as we tracked across the flat tops of the cliffs. The track was slightly rutted with raised edges on either side. Spiky bushes lined the path and it was while attempting to avoid one of these that I...

Saturday 21st June - 40 miles It seemed like a great idea at the time. Two days jogging around an island during an annual yacht race, spectacular scenery, accommodation and food provided and a t-shirt and medal for finishing. The reality however was that this would be the hardest challenge, both physically and mentally, that I had ever faced. It was still a great idea though. The day had finally arrived for us to head to the Isle of Wight. We arrived in Southampton on the Friday lunchtime and took the Red Funnel ferry across to Cowes. All the competitors were due to stay in a local school ready for the early start the next day. We made our way there and reserved a spot on the floor in the school hall. The facilities were fantastic with clean showers and toilets and I even managed to find a gym mat to use as a mattress. Having set up camp we headed down to the centre of town to mingle with the yachting set. We found a cosy pub showing a World Cup match and focussed on p...

Albert Earnest Clifford Young was born in 1922 in Beech Forest, Victoria, Australia. He was a potato farmer who would often round up sheep on foot. For most of his life he led a simple and quiet existence but in 1983 at the age of 61 he made headlines around the world as the winner of the first Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon. The race was 544 miles long and Young ran the full distance in his Wellington boots. The field was brimming with endurance runners and this unknown local was competing against the best in the world. When asked how he thought he could compete he told them that he often spent three days chasing sheep on his farm. At the start Young was quickly left behind by the trained professional runners as he loped along in his galoshes. Common practice over such long distances was to run for 18 hours and then sleep for 6. Not Cliff Young, he ran for 24 hours a day without sleep and eventually won in 5 days 15 hours and 4 minutes, two days faster than th...

Only four days to go before the Isle of Wight Ultra and I'm on a taper. This is the technical jargon for resting before a long race. From the information I have gleaned it involves reducing the number of miles drastically while eating as many carbohydrates as you can physically manage. My last run was on Saturday morning - 3.1 miles at Northampton Parkrun and I will allow myself another few miles towards the end of the week but that is it until the weekend. When I first started jogging it took a great deal of effort and self discipline to force myself to leave the house and run. A couple of years later I now find myself using the same methods to resist the urge to put my trainers on and go out. Back then I wouldn't have believed that I would ever need a reason not to go for a jog but as I have grown to love the experience I find myself becoming irritable and moody when I can't get out. It's as though my legs are bursting with energy that needs to be released....

I usually go out for a jog in the evening or at lunchtime. The only exception is Saturdays when I attend the Parkrun at 9am. However a lot of people seem to go out before work in the early hours. This has always appealed to me but I have a well established morning routine and haven't wanted to break it. Until today. The alarm woke me at 6am and I clambered out of bed bleary eyed. As it’s the height of summer the sun was already shining and had been up an hour longer than me. I quickly pulled on my t-shirt, shorts and compression socks, grabbed my trainers and, after a quick warm up, I was off. The day was already warming up but there was still a cool breeze. My hay fever has been bad this week and I hoped that being out early would reduce the potential for itchy eyes, scratchy throat and tight lungs. My legs felt heavy and my vision remained blurred for the first mile as my brain started to consider where I was going. Opting for an initial downhill route I headed for t...

Another week, another race. This time an OCR (Obstacle Course Race) called Mud, Sweat and Beers. It would have been more appropriate to call it mud, hills and more hills. The weather forecast had predicted heavy rain, thunderstorms and even hail all day and that looked accurate as I drove to Shukburgh Hall through a torrential downpour. I was running late and feeling unprepared as I peered through the windscreen while the wiper blades worked overtime throwing off the water. Not what I had expected when I signed up to this summer event. This was the fourth MSB event and my third. The others had been held in winter and had involved bouts of near hypothermia so I had looked forward to enjoying the lake wades this time round as a way of cooling down. The venue was at the end of a long driveway following miles of open countryside. I parked in the soggy field and walked over to the start area which was made up of a number of marquee tents, burger vans and charity stalls. I joine...

What do you do after running a Marathon? There are a number of options ranging from hanging up your running shoes at one extreme to taking on a bigger challenge at the other. I opted to push myself further and signed up for an Ultra Marathon. Ultra denotes any distance longer than the traditional 26.2 miles of a full marathon. The one I chose was taking place just outside Northampton starting and finishing at Lamport Hall. The Shires and Spires Ultra is a 35 mile route across the north-west of the County through rolling countryside taking in a number of picturesque villages. I arrived at the venue just before 7:30am giving me an hour to register and warm up. The sky was completely clear and the sun was already warm. Marshals directed me to the car park at the rear of the stately home. Registration was on the front lawn where a number of gazebos had been put up. Here I was able to pick up my number, map book, technical t-shirt and timing tag. The staff were friendly and it w...