To blog or not to blog, that is the question.

I've been wavering for ages over whether to start a blog or not and finally decided to take the plunge. Not just as a training log or diary but as a place to put my thoughts in order about what I feel about my running. Rarely do I finish a run without wishing that I had some device to capture the experience of that run. Not just the images, not just my thoughts but the whole experience of pushing my body to do something amazing, namely carrying me further and faster than I ever thought possible most of my adult life.

So, ready or not, here's my blog!

A little background

I started running to lose weight about 15 years ago now. Like most beginners, I assumed that all I needed to do was to head out of my front door and "run fast". I mean, we all know how to do that don't we? Well, I lived on a hill at the time and getting to the bottom of the hill didn't present too many problems. It was after that that the problems began! Suffice it to say, I probably made all the new runner mistakes. I got injured, overdid it, got discouraged, gave up for several years and repeated that whole cycle again. It wasn't until I scraped my way up to 2:15 1/2 marathon fitness in 2001 that I began to think for the first time in my life that the marathon might just be conceivable.

Fortunately, I was encouraged to try running with Troon Tortoises athletic club and I quickly realised that this was going to be an enormous help with my training for my first marathon (Dublin 2002). In many ways, I still regard that first marathon as one of my greatest running achievements. About 11 months after joining the club at the age of 45, I completed the Dublin marathon in 3:32:00. I've run further and a bit faster since then but it's still the marathon memory I cherish most.

It was in Troon where I met Ian Beattie, a strangely normal sort of person for someone who made a habit of running 95 mile races. (He'll probably resent that description but it's meant as a compliment). He didn't have two heads or a Kenyan physique and to all intents and purposes, looked "normal". I came to realise that the only thing stopping me running ultra distance events was the same thing that had stopped me from attempting a marathon for so much of my adult life, namely, my own expectations. Once I stopped thinking "I couldn't possibly do that" and moved on to "Why couldn't I do that?" a whole new chapter of my running life was opened.

I've had my ups and downs with running injuries since then but I ran my first West Highland Way race in 2005. Not as well as I'd hoped but still a fantastic experience. You can read about that race here. In 2006 I sustained a stress frature of a metatarsal in training and had to pull out the race that year. I was bitterly disappointed by that as my training had been going well up until that point. To make up for that disappointment, I chose to run the WHW on the shortest day of the year instead and successfully completed that run with the help of David McLelland. That report can be read here.

2007 turned out to be the "year of plantar fasciitis" and yet again I was forced to pull out of running the WHW race. Instead I opted to help with marshalling for the race which was a fantastic experience that I'll never forget.

Fortunately after some draconian treatment my PF is now just a memory and I'm back to full time running and currently training for the Loch Ness marathon in just over two weeks time. This will be the third time I've run it and as before, I expect to be around the 3:30 mark.

That's far more background than I'd intended so I think I'd better stop there!