The route
Gosh, I did run quite a long way. The blue line wasn’t quite so obvious, though.
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Paris Marathon 2008
The headlines are pretty simple. I am the proud owner of a finisher’s medal and tee shirt for this year’s Paris Marathon, having achieved a personal best by scraping in at 4 hours 59 minutes. Or at least I think that’s my time. My Garmin tells me that’s the case, but I’ll have to wait…
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The slow train
A lot of people have been very rude about First Great Western in the press recently, describing it as slow, inefficient, poorly managed, etc etc. I cannot comment on very much, but I can confirm that it is very slow. I am currently sitting on a train from Swansea to London, just outside Reading, where…
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Coffee with Lord Baden-Powell
He looks just like his grandfather. Same height; maybe slightly broader shoulders; but the eyes and nose are distinctly those of a Baden-Powell. Today, Chris James, editor of Scouting Magazine and I travelled down to Surrey to talk to Lord Baden-Powell about his views on modern Scouting, in preparation for a forthcoming article comparing his…
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The Oakley 20
It rained. The wind blew. I ran. In the right weather, today’s 20 miler could have been quite fun. An undulating course took us in two loops (one of 12 miles and one of 8) through country lanes and pretty villages around Bedford.But the weather today was far from right. I knew things were going…
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Going downhill fast
There you go. I did see the Matterhorn! It didn’t snow non stop all week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty dreadful, with good visibility and flat light the best we could hope for. But the sun shone on Thursday and Friday, allowing us to ski across to Zermatt and to rush down pistes that…
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Snow and rock
Cervinia is not the most beautiful of ski resorts. Its architecture is functional and in today’s cloud looked far from inspiring. But, even this late in the season, its ski runs more than make up for the lack of chocolate box views which I’ve been used to in Austria and Switzerland. And, of course, because…
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The Thanet 20
There was no sign of this family on the beach at Broadstairs this morning, or on any of the other beaches along the route of the Thanet 20 mile road run. This was my first 20 mile race of the year and it was hard work. The course itself is a bit of a demon,…
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Brighton Half Marathon
Last week I said I wanted to shave off another couple of minutes to get my personal best under the magic two hours. Well, today I achieved it… Just. It really was a beautiful day in Brighton. No wind. Sunshine. Lots of very keen and polite competitors. And a relatively flat course, which went mainly…