Cake of Good Hope

[...] my way to the start of The Bastion, a new ironman event from the Castle Triathlon Series at Hever Castle in Kent. Iron-distance triathlons are a bit like long-haul flights: they make me very nervous [...]

[...] of the popular series of European triathlons, The Gauntlet was a new addition to this year’s Hever Castle triathlon weekend and promised to be a good race if you liked castles and half iron-distance [...]

[...] good to experience it at least once. I have entered another ironman for 2014: The Bastion at Hever Castle. I completed the half-iron distance, The Gauntlet, in September this year, so I know how tough [...]

[...] recognise to be so powerful that they've put their hearts, souls and technicolour compression socks into making the UK's first running bloggers' conference, Write this Run, happen next [...]

[...] though: I like to call him "man squatting on run course trying not to get poo on his compression socks". I may have struggled to run in 40oC heat that day but, in dark times, it's important [...]

[...] -haul flights: they make me very nervous before they start; you see a lot of people wearing compression socks throughout; and you only get to consume food in tiny portions. You also live in hope that [...]

[...] . You took on Ironman Nice on the hottest day of 2009. One third of the way into the bike course and halfway up the biggest climb of the day, your chain snapped. With the nearest race [...]

[...] was causing a few anxious murmurs in the field about what this would mean for the bike course. My concerns lay less with what was falling from the sky and more with what lay ahead [...]

[...] that it has become hard to find an event in our local area than doesn't take in a dual carriageway, and, this morning, I found myself preparing to race along the A40 Witney bypass. [...]

[...] a thunderstorm looming overhead; 5. I cycled 112 miles on a 20-lap course, along a dual carriageway, through rain, thunder and lightning; 6. I had a maniacally enthusiastic cheering [...]

[...] go?” “Left!” came the answer from the excited crowd in the race briefing at the Connemara Ultra Marathon. Based in a remote national park on the west coast of Ireland, the event takes in [...]

[...] that hill on Sunday, I'd say I'd been a bit optimistic. Just 4 weeks earlier, I'd run Manchester Marathon and I was certainly not in PB form so I scurried back up the hill and nestled myself [...]

[...] it printed in huge silver text across her vest and because the loyal supporters of Manchester marathon were so happy to cheer. Over the course of the miles that followed, I learned that [...]

[...] wasn’t up to asking, “excuse me, Sir, but why are you weeing on my leg?” when I ran Berlin marathon; lucky, really, that the perpetrator was British. It would be churlish to assume [...]

[...] breaking runners, too!" said Haile Gebrselassie after he set a new world record at Berlin Marathon in 2007. I shared the road with the great man that day but it wasn't the tailwind I could [...]

[...] marketing that rebrands it with the somewhat less catchy title, Edinburgh Marathon. The Edinburgh Marathon medal, modelled on one of the course landmarks (*EMF stands for Edinburgh Might Feature) It's [...]