I didn't expect to be going back to Cyprus for a third time; though the timing of the marathon there, and knowing the conditions for it there would be warmer than in the UK made it a good choice. Carmen would be pacing the half marathon there for the second year running, and I'd be doing my first Cypriot marathon. It'd be my second time seeing Cyprus in a November, and seemed like a good way to finish the year…
November 5, 2024 to November 18, 2024 | 6 posts
Another week, another half marathon. Could I edge closer to being a sub-90 runner again, and beat Copenhagen and Cardiff? I certainly wasn't sure, but I was going to give it a go.
October 13, 2024
The second of the Super Half series, and one as close to home as we'd get. Though maybe races being closer to home don't always mean they're going to be easier to get to...
October 6, 2024
At the start of our Super Halfs journey, we set off for Copenhagen to do the first in this six race series that spans Europe. It was a chance for us both to explore a city neither of us had been to before, and to also visit the home of LEGO. Unexpectedly between booking this one, and traveling, we'd had a short holiday to Vienna first so already had a taste of what it'd be like to go on a sightseeing holiday together. This trip felt like it'd be a little more adventurous, and would have considerably more running and sightseeing as we'd be travelling between two cities for this trip, with the potential for a third.
September 3, 2024 to September 22, 2024 | 11 posts
After last year, I decided I wasn’t going to do this race again unless they moved it back to March - a time of the year when it’s usually cooler. It hadn’t been fun last year doing it in such warm weather, and I didn’t want to risk a repeat of that. However, Carmen’s had done a workshop with some young people from work to design the medal and t-shirt for this year’s race, so I then thought I shoul …
September 1, 2024
“And I’ll dance with you in Vienna, I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise. The hyacinth wild on my shoulder my mouth on the dew of your thighs. And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there and the moss. And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty, my cheap violin, and my cross.” – Leonard Cohen, musician Vienna, the capital of Austria, and once the heart of the so-called Holy Roman Empire. Its history dates back to at least 500 BC, and was named Vindobona by the Romans in the first century CE. Fast-forward a thousand years, and more settlers later, this area of the Eastern March had become Austria. It was the home of the Babenburg dynasty, and then the Habsburg emperors. "This body which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." - Voltaire It has been the capital of the Austrian empire, then the Austro-Hungarian empire, and during the second world war lost that status as it was absorbed into Nazi Germany. It wasn't until after the war that Vienna regained its status, as the capital of the Republic of Austria. It was however, similar to Berlin, split into four and occupied by the UK, the US, France, and the Soviet Union. The difference with Vienna was that it wasn't divided by walls, and the central area (Innere Stadt) alternated control from month to month. Eventually it was agreed all four powers would leave Austria, and they would agree to remain neutral and not part of NATO. Today, Austria is part of the European Union, and the United Nations, but remains separate from NATO. It being part of the EU, and them having adopted the Euro would make it easier for visiting and reusing currency. It was to be my second city along the Danube in consecutive years, and the first time me and Carmen would visit an International city together that neither of us had been to previously.
July 2, 2024 to July 23, 2024 | 7 posts
Having had so few short races since 2019, I really needed to find more to do - something to keep me practicing at speed work at a time when it’s not been that fast. Rutland is a place I’ve been interested in running at before, mostly for parkrun, but wanting a fairly local 10K I felt this one would be a good choice. Since GU36, I've not really done any speed work. I've done two parkruns, which ar …
June 22, 2024
An anniversary trip to see the stage play adaptation of Studio Ghibli's "Spirited Away" at the London Coliseum.
June 1, 2024
The last time we went to Guernsey it hadn’t gone to plan for Carmen due to the eye infection leading to events that required her to pull out of the race early. I can’t imagine it had been an easy decision, but it had been a sensible one. It did however leave her with unfinished business, and the need to return again. I’d taken about twenty minutes off my time, and I was close to a sub-7 hour race. …
May 19, 2024
The entire point of me entering this race again was to force me to run a half marathon between Boston Marathon and Guernsey Ultra 36. So in a way, this was like the first of two tapering runs from my long run at Boston, before my actual target race. With this in mind I didn't really have a target other than to finish the race. Ideally though, the time for doing so should be between 1hr30 and 1hr45 …
May 6, 2024
My first marathon of 2024. Would it also be my last one this year, or would I manage to fit a marathon into the autumn? I think this time around I started training far too late as I didn't have a good base to be working from after having had an easy summer following quite a few months of reduced training from other non-running issues. My half marathon at the end of December was so bad, I knew I'd …
April 28, 2024
Two weeks out from the Boston Marathon (in Lincolnshire), and I should really be doing a marathon-paced half marathon as part of tapering. Instead, having not done a 10K race this year, and this race being one I often do, I decided I may as well do a 10K with about 80% effort. With a decent warm-up and cool-down alongside it; maybe it'd be similar effort to a slower half. At least, that was my rea …
April 14, 2024
After running this race last year, I thought: "never again". Hilly by name, hilly by nature, and 20 miles of it was just more than I felt was needed. However, after deciding to do GU36 one more time, it turned out this would be the perfect training run for it. So that "never again" became "one more time".
March 24, 2024
Budapest is a city my sister has wanted to visit for several years as she thought "the buildings look cool". Having changed my mind about returning to Greece just yet, I decided this would be a good opportunity to go with her, and see some of Hungary - beyond just Budapest. Neither of us expected a visit to Slovakia though.
August 8, 2023 to August 23, 2023 | 7 posts
My first trip to Cyprus had been for a half marathon race that never took place. It'd been postponed until 2022, but due to timings I decided to defer until the 2023 event as it'd work better that way for me, and it was still unclear what would happen with the pandemic. So once again I was going back, and would not just see the familiar sights of Limassol, but would see the unfamiliar sights of Leftkosia and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus - the occupied part of the country on the other side of the UN green line border.
February 28, 2023 to March 20, 2023 | 7 posts
I've dreamt of visiting Petra since I'd learnt the place I'd seen watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was a real place, and located in Jordan. It wasn't used as Petra in the film, but was the location of the lost Holy Grail, guarded by an ancient Knight of the Temple of Soloman. I knew one day I wanted to return to Egypt to see what I'd missed and thought a few days extra to visit Petra could bolt onto that. So far though, I've not made it back to Egypt, but I did get an opportunity to spend some time in Jordan which would create a completely different adventure to the one I'd imagined.
November 15, 2022 to December 6, 2022 | 14 posts
“In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” -- Orson Welles In 2009 as part of a short trip around Europe, I'd visited Italy and had seen the likes of Naples, Pompeii, Rome, and Venice. Thirteen years later I was now returning, this time with my sister in tow, to see some of the places I'd not seen. My sister's last overseas trip had been Croatia and Slovenia where she'd seen a lot of Venetian influence, now she'd get to see a more modern view of Italy. What had started off as an idea for seeing Milan soon expanded into a week long trip around the Lombardy and Tuscany regions of Italy.
August 30, 2022 to September 24, 2022 | 10 posts
For my first trip of 2022, I was heading to the Bailiwick of Guernsey for a 36 mile ultra marathon around the island. As with any other trip to a new place, of course I'd try to get in as much tourism as I could whilst there as well. Unusually, I'd be flying in the afternoon before the race, and then flying home a few days later. It'd give me chance to spend a day cycling around the island, just so long as my legs were up for it after what was going to be one of the toughest ultra marathons I've done so far. === If you’ve enjoyed these posts you can also view the full photo album on Flickr.
May 3, 2022 to May 17, 2022 | 5 posts
This country split into two by conflict is one which my trip would also be divided into two due to the pandemic. For my first part of the trip I would be there sightseeing as 2021 approaches it's end, and would be returning there at the start of 2022 for the race that has now been postponed three times. Sightseeing would no be straight forward though. Some places are temporarily closed, and most tours that I attempted to book were cancelled, including one into North Cyprus. It also didn't help that a major storm was on it's way in, just in time for my arrival… If you'd like to see more photographs from this trip, they're available to view on Flickr.
November 16, 2021 to December 11, 2021 | 10 posts
Twelve years ago, before the age of the smart phone, I visited Berlin at the start of my adventure spanning three European countries. I was younger then, and less experienced at travelling, and with a friend in tow, we had a tendency to get lost. Now I was returning to run the Berlin Marathon as the first part of a railway journey around Germany in a time when a global pandemic is at the forefront of everyone's minds. How would it affect this adventure, and what would be different? === The full photo album for this trip can be found on Flickr.
September 14, 2021 to October 8, 2021 | 14 posts
