Rob on running

You might, or might not, have noticed that I haven’t blogged here for a long while. I know at least two people that read this stuff and apparently enjoy it (shout out to Will Warren and Jon Kawaja).  There is a reason for this radio silence and it relates, in part, to the Lakeland 100 which I ran this past weekend. First, a quick recap: Lakeland is essentially like a British UTMB - 105 miles, a bit less climbing (but still plenty!), and helpfully for me at lower altitude.  It is a lap of the glorious English Lake District starting and finishing in Coniston, via Wasdale, Buttermere, Keswick, Pooley Bridge, Kentmere and Ambleside. Given the love I have for the lakes it’d been on my mind for while and training had gone pretty well, although I wasn’t very well the last few weeks before the race and so not ideally prepared.  I shouldn’t have worried though, the plan worked pretty well.  I worked my way up from about 70th at checkpoint 1 to 13th overall at the finish which is by f

The mountain weather information service (mwis.org) has a bit of a reputation in some parts of the running community as being the Eeyore of forecasts - taking an average of 3 forecasts, as I often do in the Lakes, MWIS will always be the gloomy outlier, and it's very seldom in my experience as bad as they suggest.  I suppose the day was bound to come when it would be.... MWIS also uses language really nicely, bringing to life it's prophecies of doom in a way I quite appreciate - the two phrases that rang in my ears all day on Saturday were "incessant rain" and "extremely arduous" - as in the conditions for walking.  For once, MWIS was spot on. There are very few races that I go back to more than once, simply because there are so many on the list (yes, I have a real list) that I want to experience.  The best compliment I can pay to the race, and to James Thurlow at OpenAdventure, the organisers, is that the only other race I've repeated at is

One of the questions that I get asked most often is why I do it.  What on earth motivates you to run that far? I’m sure its a familiar question to other ultra runners, and I’m grateful that many have shared their reasons with me over the last few years. It’s perhaps a more perceptive question than it appears - one of the things that I have learnt along my ultra journey is that your “why” is tremendously important.  In every race, as in life, there will be tough patches and being able to connect to a strong reason for being there is critically important to being able to respond positively in those moments. Let’s start at the beginning.  I confess, when I started running long my reason wasn’t entirely clear - that clarity has emerged over the subsequent months and years.  Simply enough, I read Scott Jurek’s book in which he discussed how hard he found UTMB, and the contrarian part of me decided if it was that tough I’d better try it. Over 3 years and 8 Ultras the “why” has now b

UTMB 2018 Race day awoke to a mixed and deteriorating forecast, and two route minor changes texted to us by the organisers.  I managed to get some fitful midday sleep which in itself was a big improvement over last year, got kitted up and got to the start a full 90 mins before the off, to make sure I got a good position - not because I wanted to go out fast but because I didn’t want to get trampled!  Given it was raining, there were only a handful there and I ended up right behind the pen reserved for the elites.  Learning from experience I’d brought a camp chair, extra layer and a delicious snack prepared by my daughter.... The time to the start passed quickly as the atmosphere built, I found myself smiling with anticipation and gratitude knowing the adventure we were about to be setting out on, the incredible environment we were in, and how well prepared I was - I felt really confident. Those of us who had been organised enough to be there early were pretty robust in dealing