I arrived at the minor injuries unit at St Thomas’ Hospital as a man with chest pains staggered through the door and immediately I felt like a fraud. But a sympathetic nurse with a good understanding of running injuries took pity on me as I hobbled in and kindly took a look at me. I'd [...]
About five years ago a good friend of mine started running. She began with a couple of laps round the park and gradually built up to a charity 5k event and eventually a 10k. Like most people, she found the early days of running and trying to get fitter pretty tough. What we didn't know [...]
Guest blogger Mr Nice Guy updates us on his progress as he trains for the 2012 London Marathon.So, just shy of two months to go until I take on the London Marathon and I've just completed my first 14 mile run. I know for you pros out there 14 miles sounds a little short but [...]
If Fred Astaire had a nephew he probably wouldn't race him across a lawn barefoot. Fred apparently insured his feet for $65,000, which was a lot of money in Fred's era. It's a lot of money now but in the days of J-Lo insuring her arse for $1m, it doesn't seem so much.Fred's insurance policy [...]
One of the unexpected outcomes of moving 10 minutes from my office is that I've been watching more episodes of Friends recently. Turns out there really isn't anything worth rushing home for TV wise in that 5-6pm slot. And as E4 shows around 5,574 episodes of Friends per week, it really is hard to avoid.I [...]
Training plans are rubbish aren't they? It's the way they stare at you making you feel bad, inadequate and underprepared that I hate. It's difficult to argue with them because they don't compromise, however long you stare at the words "8 miles steady" they don't change.I've tried to avoid crosses on my training plan by using arrows, annotations, [...]
Eight weeks ago my campaign for a sub-4 marathon began in Greece. It was a boozy week that included a bit of running - but I did hit my mileage targets despite it being hotter than the sun even at 7pm when I was heading out for my sessions.Two months later the mileage has picked [...]
RICE, it feeds the world and also helps prevent injury. We are of course talking about two different types of rice - but this is something that I didn't catch onto straight away when people told me that you need to RICE tweaked muscles. So for those of you wondering 'What is RICE?', I shall [...]
With only three 'real' weeks of training left (that's three weeks of big mileage before I start to taper) I'm starting to worry - and not about the things you might think. Obviously I have that dull noise at the back of my mind that keeps questioning whether I'll be able to complete the marathon [...]
There are many reasons why I run: to boost my happy hormones, to make sure the weight that I've maintained for the past 10 years, despite my lazy nature, doesn't suddenly double as I approach 30, to try to counteract the bad health that seems to plague some of my family, to allow me to [...]