North Eastern Counties Cross-country silver medalist Calum Johnson switched his attention to the roads and produced a superb performance to win Saltwell Harriers Ronnie Walker 10k. The Gateshead athlete made his Saltwell Park debut a winning one in England’s oldest established road race and while it was a first for Johnson the women’s race was […]
Chicago Marathon Prologue I’ll start my report with a little insight into my training, it was hard. Don’t get me wrong marathons never ‘easy’ but after training and running 6 of them some feel less difficult than others. I didn’t ‘feel’ it this time, I felt sluggish, unmotivated and just generally meh. It’s not the […]
Athens Marathon – The Authentic Any self-respecting marathoner knows the legend of Philippides, the Athenian soldier who ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver the news of the victory of the battle of Marathon, losing his life for the effort. There was something magic in the idea to follow the steps of Philippides, running from […]
The road to Chicago started on a whim, I knew Darren was going for all 6 stars and when he mentioned that he was applying through the ballot I thought “let’s chuck my name in” never expecting to get drawn out. The application process is really easy and you find out around 6 weeks after […]
Gemma’s Bob Graham Round – 14th/15th June 2019 This is a bit late… apologies. But I did the Bob Graham Round on the 14th and 15th of June and I guess it is a bit of a tradition that you tell the tale. So here goes… Over the years, running has become less and less about racing, times […]
Even before I had completed my Bob Graham Round last year I had decided that my next big challenge was going to be a Paddy Buckley Round. It is similar in terms of ascent and distance but widely considered much tougher because of the roughness of the terrain and lack of trods/footpaths. Given the […]
The build up It’s around 7am and the alarm goes off. Its Sunday the 16th September, Marathon day. The previous night was spent frantically searching for somewhere that sold pasta for my breakfast. Weird I know but out of everything I’ve eat/tried pasta seems the best thing for me plus it served me well […]
3rd July and the weather continues to be hot and sunny (it is summer after all) as 65 athletes line up for the Saltwell Fell Race, The dry weather meant that the route was the driest I have seen for many a year, There was another sporting event on that evening (they won on […]
Trying to sum up my weekend at Lakeland 50 is extremely difficult, as there just aren’t words that are expressive enough to describe some of the feelings and emotions I felt on my wonderful adventure. I woke up that morning totally hyper, as Is usual on race day. Quick shower then into my race […]
Naz – “Phil, what shall we do in March?” Me – “Well I’ve got to get a long one in sometime, it’s in my ‘marathon plan’ for Manchester. What do you reckon?” “I know, let’s do the Hobble, it’s a 32 miler in Bronte country. I did it back in the day and actually […]
