Mantra

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Cross Country Run

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The start of the adventure "Adam, come quickly!" I hear Matt shout with a sense of urgency. "We need your help" It's the end of our first day attempting the Coast to Coast Challenge, a 190 mile self-supported run across northern England. Just the two of us. I've just stopped to take a leak behind a boulder. What on Earth is he hollering about? And who is 'we'? Over the course of the last hour we have been descending the steep sides of an 800m high fell. A giant rock strewn wilderness with fast flowing becks and raging waterfalls that towers over Grasmere, the location of our accommodation for the night. Just another three miles to go before we can enjoy a well earned pie and a pint. It has been a tough day with two big climbs and 38 miles of running across the Lake District from St Bees Bay on the Irish Sea. Our 10 kilo backpacks are weighing us down and blisters are already forming on the soles of our feet from the stony trails. It has been a clear ...
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Bushy, crewing and an Epping ultra

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What a weekend. It involved some running, some supporting runners and a bit more running. Saturday dawned wet and windy. 300 runners were assembling in Wendover ready for a 43 mile run into London. The fields were boggy, the paths were waterlogged and it was cold. Well, what do you expect on January 8th. These hardcore runners set off while I was driving from east to west London. My first stop was Bushy Park. This, as many will know, was the birthplace of parkrun. On 2nd October 2004 13 runners completed the first 5k with support from Paul  and Joanne Sinton-Hewitt. 17 years later it is a global phenomenon. This was my running pilgrimage. I have wanted to run Bushy since I ran my first parkrun in September 2012. This would be my 291st. A gentle rain was falling as I parked up by the Diana Fountain just across from Hampton Court. To stretch my legs - and kill some time, I was an hour early - I ran around the park exploring the tree lined avenues, gated gardens and open marshland....
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Logging my first run of 2025

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My knee throbbed. The pain emanated from the inside of my left leg and stretched upwards across the joint. Should I continue? Was I just making it worse? Could I run it off? With each step I winced and asked the question again. With each step the end came closer. But where would the end be? This was the biggest question of all. Twenty-six miles? Six miles? 600m? The New Year is not yet five hours old. Just twelve hours earlier I had completed a marathon. 26.2 miles across the south of London from Richmond upon Thames to my home in Lewisham. Now I was preparing to run another one. Back-to-back marathons over New Year. This had become a tradition. Book end the year with marathons. A tradition that was a year old. In other words, I did it last year, so now I have to do it every year. I wasn’t alone in this though. My equally obsessed running friend Matt Shimwell ran with me last year and is joining me again to welcome in 2025. Yesterday we had taken the train to Richmond on Thames a...
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