My friend Helen is pretty special. If you've read my book you'll know that physical activity is difficult for her. I'm not just talking about the way that it's difficult for some of us with a large dose of lazyitus, I'm talking having to be really careful. It would be easy for her to use [...]
Looking back at my 2014 calendar there's hardly been a weekend this year where I've done nothing. Training, races, more training: I've clocked up a marathon, half marathon, 10k, the run leg of a 70.3, Olympic triathlon, half-iron triathlon, attempted Ironman and my 'iron person', as well as a couple of sportives. It's been fun, [...]
My first 10k It's almost six years since my first ever race, the Wimbledon 10k. It had taken me six months to go from non-runner to getting to that start line and on race morning I was nervous. So nervous that I forgot my timing chip and despite only being a few minutes [...]
“Excuse me.” “On your left.” “Well done.” “Looking great.” “Zuper!” I ran out of things to say as I overtook a steady stream of runners, and I felt a bit awkward. I wondered if this is what it’s like being a really fast runner, though presumably they start at the front rather than at the [...]
My friend Liz Goodchild is all about setting big, scary-ass goals and setting off in their direction. She does this in her own life and helps others do it through her work as a life coach. Liz asked me if she could interview me for a series of interviews she does on her blog. Interview [...]
Today I got up at 4am, got a taxi to the airport and by mid afternoon I was swimming in crystal clear water off the south coast of Sardinia. I am on holiday. Hooray! Clearly the picture above isn't of Sardinia. That was taken on Monday night at Hampstead Ladies Pond. I'm being photobombed by [...]
There’s a lot of things that I’ve put on hold for the past seven months while I trained for the Ironman. I’ve already put one of these straight by travelling to Sheffield last weekend to go out with two of my oldest friends. It’s a date that had been in the diary for many months [...]
After not finishing IMUK a few weeks ago, on Saturday 9 August I decided it was time to have another crack at the iron distance. At 7:30am I got into Stoke Newington reservoir ready to swim 3.8km, cycle 112 miles north to Peterborough then run 26.2 miles round the city. This is the story of [...]
Most of us are scared of failure. Of trying something and falling short. It stops us from even attempting many things that we’d like to do. And it’s stupid. I try to help my runners get over this fear when I’m leading my running groups. Each week that they attempt a new distance I’ll be [...]
Before the start of the race I made myself a promise: I wouldn't end my race unless I absolutely had to and would keep going until someone told me to stop. No matter how much I wanted to stop, I would ask myself the question 'can I continue?' and if the answer was yes, I'd [...]
