Wandering the World

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

November 20th 2016. I ran during the torrential downpour of ‘Storm Angus’ before flying to Nepal for an adventure I would never forget. I’d been to Kathmandu, and volunteered and ran a marathon around the mountain village of Kakani and the Shivapuri national park. In the days that followed I’d travelled all over Nepal, and had seen Annapurna from the Australian base camp, and took a flight past Mo …

November 5, 2023

I had planned on getting in plenty of speedwork after Swansea Half Marathon, so I'd be ready for my first proper 10K race of the year, but this hadn't gone to plan. I was also in London yesterday doing a parkrun at Fulham Palace, but had deliberately kept it slow, but at any rate, I'd not had the best preparation for this 10K I'd been wanting to do for a while. It didn't matter though, this would …

July 9, 2023

My last 10K didn't go that well, but fortunately I knew I'd got a few more still booked in for the year. The downside to this next one was that it's an evening race which makes fuelling harder, but on the positive side it's one that would be in daylight, and I've PB'd on this course before so I knew it well enough. Of course there was absolutely no chance of getting a PB tonight, no matter how har …

June 9, 2022

Repeating races I've done before always feels like a way to benchmark where I currently am. It's been a long time since I first did this race, and have done it a few times over the years. It was one of my first races back after the start of the pandemic, when they started up again. For that race I did it in 39:20 - not my fastest 10K, but the fastest I'd done this course. So for this race my goal …

April 24, 2022

My first night race in a few years, and one I'd travelled a long way for.

February 23, 2022

My first 10K in over two years - a belated 10K in Leicester that should have taken place in 2020.

August 22, 2021

Starting to feel a little better from my cough and cold, I had another 10K to run for the second week in a row. Maybe this one would go better...

June 9, 2019

This was one of those races I'd entered just for fun, and was only doing it because friends were. I've not raced in Clumber Park before; but I've seen plenty of it from trips there over various summers. It's the sort of place that is good for a picnic and to relax a little. My only expectation for this race was that it'd be a little slower than other 10Ks I've done recently as I figured it'd be a …

June 2, 2019

The wettest of my races this year (so far), and potentially my only chance to get a 10K PB in 2019… if I could be bothered to try.

May 9, 2019

My second 10K of the month being used mostly as a training run ahead of next week\'s more serious 5K race. The first outing of the year for my racing shoes (didn't feel like using them for the previous ones this year).

April 28, 2019

Six days after the Greater Manchester Marathon it was time to race again... even if I was treating it as a tempo training run.

April 13, 2019

My first race of the year. The best I've done on this course, finishing 5th overall and 1st in my age category.

March 3, 2019

One final race at the Rockignham speedway before it's closure.

November 4, 2018

A 10K race I did for fun with friends, on a nice sunny day. It wasn't a bad day out, and one I'd recommend.

October 21, 2018

Another go at what was my PB race last year. I entered this year hoping I could do better, but between illness and reduced training whilst on vacation, this seemed unlikely.

September 9, 2018

A four lap race in Prestwold around a driving circuit (formerly an airfield) with 1 mile, 5K, and 10K options available. It was a race I expected to be slow, but sometimes races can be surprising.

August 9, 2018

My third time doing this 10K, but the first time I've done it without overheating or injury. It was a cold day for April, and quite wet, but fortunately the rain eased off for most of the race.

April 29, 2018

A 10K race along the Tissington Trail from Ashbourne. This was my second time doing this race, but was one I wasn't ready for.

March 24, 2018

My plan for the start of 2018 was a simple one. I’d start with the Ashbourne 10K, the Reading Half, and then finish off with my third attempt at the Greater Manchester Marathon. Like everything, plans change. I’d planned to be in London on Saturday 3rd February to visit the British Library, but had no plans on staying for anything else. When the Winter Run was advertised it reminded me that it’s …

February 4, 2018

Just one week before this race I ran the Leicester 10K during my last few weeks of training for the Yorkshire Marathon. I’d had a slow year, mostly in the build-up to the longest races I’ve ever done, but marathon training wasn’t going too badly – even though it was greatly condensed from what I’d normally do. Even though I knew my training was so far exhausting, I wanted to try and PB at 10K. Fo …

September 10, 2017

So far this year the only goal for 2017 that I’ve been able to accomplish is to complete a 100km race. That is something I did at Race to the Stones once more than half the year had passed by. I still had goals to improve my 5K, 10K, half marathon, and marathon times. I came close to reaching sub-40 minutes at Leeds last year, so I decided if I booked a couple of 10Ks during the lead-up to my aut …

September 3, 2017

I hadn’t raced since the Nepal Marathon during the previous year, and my hope was that I could have a winter of training that would help me get to the point where I could set new personal bests for each of the distances I run. The first of the races I hoped to PB at was the Ashbourne 10, though sadly I missed a lot of runs in January and February as training didn’t go to plan for one reason or ano …

March 5, 2017

I’ve not had much luck with the couple of 10K races I’ve had this year. One of my goals for 2016 had been to go sub-40 at 10K distance – but so far I’d not achieved this. For the first of these attempts I just couldn’t keep going in the heat and for the last 5K I completely lost the pace and walked frequently. On the second of these 10K attempts I was injured and found hobbling around the course j …

November 6, 2016

One of my goals for 2016 was to manage a sub-40 minute 10K, and ideally I wanted that to be in a race. For the first (almost) half of the year I’d been training for marathons and an ultra marathon so couldn’t really do much with speedwork, but early on I did manage to get my 10K time down to 41 minutes so that’d I’d only need to find another minute or so to meet this goal. My first real chance to …

May 15, 2016

I booked this one to be my last attempt at a 10K PB in 2015 – my 16th and final race of the year. I had no idea at the time though that this one would be almost entirely off road – I’d made the silly assumption it would be on paths. I started to wonder if a PB was possible, but I decided that as long as I beat my time from Rockingham I’d be happy. On the night before the race it was cold – so col …

November 22, 2015

When I first entered this race my plan had been to attempt a new 10K PB as after setting my current one in Lincoln earlier in the year. I did at the time think I could do better as I wasn’t running flat out at the end. Over the summer I’d had a lot of bad runs, but I still didn’t think it was out of the question as the majority of my training runs were still not that much slower than my PB. Howeve …

November 15, 2015

A year ago I did the Rothley 10K for the first time, and it was one of my first 10K races. It was however one which took place at a time when I was having issues with my knees and this race played havoc on them. I decided to enter it again this year, but again knew I wouldn’t be racing at full speed due to it only having a day’s rest since my last race. On the day of the race I prepared my race k …

June 16, 2015

This was a race I’d wanted to do the year before, but by the time I’d decided I wanted to do it there were no available places. So, when the the entries opened for 2015 I made sure I didn’t miss out. A friend had done this race a few years previous so it was one I wanted to do also, in part so we could compare times afterwards. However, after 3 weeks of almost zero runs, and going straight into th …

June 14, 2015

Before I’d even run the London Marathon I decided I’d do the inaugural Great Birmingham 10K the week after it. It didn’t seem the best of ideas at the time. As it got closer to race day I attempted to book a train so I could take it easy before the 12noon start. The problem though was the start time changed, and I'd now need a train at a time when there weren’t any trains stopping at the local sta …

May 3, 2015

In 2014 the Lincoln 10K was my first proper race so I knew I had to try doing this race again this year to see if I'd improved at all. The downside to this though was that it's timing was the week after the Silverstone Half Marathon, another race I'd wanted to do well with. On the day of this race I should have been doing an 18 mile run for London Marathon so running a 10K race didn't really fit i …

March 22, 2015

This was a bit of a last minute decision, and it didn’t really fit in with my training, but when I saw this one was nearby I decided this would be a good way to start racing for 2015. This actually became the last run of my third week of training for the London Marathon (out of a total of 16 weeks training). The weeks of 2015 had so far been cold and was showing signs of getting colder as we got c …

January 25, 2015

Following the Leicester Marathon I had barely run for three weeks. With the exception of setting a new PB of 20:29 for running 5K most of my runs had seemed like hard work, from both the point of view of motivating myself, and the effort required. I think my loss of motivation was a combination of having just done the marathon, the sudden change in temperature outside, and the changing of the cloc …

November 16, 2014

In July I started my marathon training and by the time of this race had already got passed 10K once more, but the program I was following recommended having a 10K race at around the halfway mark for the 16 weeks of training. Fortunately the Atherstone 10K which is hosted by the Badgers running club fit in with this timing almost perfectly, and it being in Warwickshire meant it wasn’t that far to …

August 31, 2014

This run was in support of Rainbows, a charity that provides hospice care for children and young people that have life-shortening, or life-threatening illnesses. This year the charity is celebrating it’s 20th birthday, and on the lead up to the event I was able to raise £75.00 in sponsorship for them. It being about a month after my previous race I was pretty hopeful that I would have managed to …

May 18, 2014

My first ever "proper" race, the Lincoln 10K

April 6, 2014