Challenge Stu

Saturday... So, this weekend was the inaugural “Big Running Weekend”. The event started on Saturday night (for me anyway , some people had been there setting up pretty much all week!) when I gave a talk about the Big Alps Run and then was part of a panel to answer some audience questions. I was in illustrious company, Nicky Spinks gave a great talk about all her achievements despite huge personal setbacks, and Darryl Watton talked about his brilliant 35 th place finish on the Marathon des Sables. The panel - photo borrowed from Accelerate Photography All the talks seemed to go down pretty well, so thanks if you came along! For the panel we were also joined by Marcus Scotney (GB 100km Ultra runner), Julian Lings (English Duathlon champion), and Jason Ward (GB 10k runner) and answered some interesting questions from the floor. It was very interesting to hear a range of thoughts on things like training, kit and drugs testing from the elite to the make-it-up-as-you-go-along-er...

...and prepare to fail! Unfortunately that's what I did at the LTB on saturday. I had hoped to recce the course, but just didn't have time, though having run it twice before I should have known my way! Anyway, at the start I wasn't sure how fit I was, with fairly haphazard training since the Alps, but I was looking forward to it! Bradwell is only about 20 mins from home so I had the full support crew (Lorna and Dolly) with me at this race which was really nice. After I'd registered we wandered down to the start and caught up with Karen McDonald, as well as Dan Shrimpton and Ian Symington, who I hoped I'd be running with once we got going... With helpful assistant before the start We got cracking at 9ish in good weather, and I found myself at the front with Ian, Dan and a few others. It was nice to catch up with the guys and really good to be racing again! Off we went up out of the village, through the quarry (once we found the way through!) and out towards ...

Well it's been a while since I last wrote anything! Since returning from the Alps I have been really busy with life in general... I've got married, been on honeymoon, begun a concerted effort on my PhD, been to the Olympics, and started writing a book... Our Wedding! This weekend though I'm back to running again, the Fellsman feels like a really long time ago so I'm looking forward to seeing what sort of shape I'm in at the Long Tour of Bradwell on Saturday. Not sure it will be the greatest due to a lack of consistent training over the last few weeks, but I've had a couple of really good runs this week so it will be good to be back to racing and training properly. I have found the Olympics so inspirational! Every day you can turn on your TV or internet or whatever and see people giving absolutely everything (apart from Badminton cheats) and it's fantastic! We went to London and watched Beach Volleyball last week, the atmosphere was amazing, the only s...