I’m a firefighter from North Yorkshire who lives in Keswick…ish. I’m married and have a cat, who’s as radge as they come. I joined MAC because I always like the underdog and MAC has that sleeping giant feel to it. Plus my mates Harry Holmes, Bill Cartwright and Dan Haworth run for them!
Shearing with my uncle and grandpa on their farm on the west coast of Scotland when I was maybe 10 or 11 and then getting pi**ed on about a cupful of Guinness.
Wear all your clothes, get in your shower, crank it so it’s as hot as you can get it, then jog on the spot for eight and half hours. Pretty much what I did in the race but it saves you the flight and embarrassment of doing it in front of elite runners from other countries.
Porridge or pizza, but never porridge on pizza. Simple man, simple pleasures.
Coffee. Black. No sugar. Who wants to enjoy life?
I think the last 10k I ran was about 7 years ago in 33 minutes; the last, and only 5k, I ever ran was even longer ago than that, I think it was the Scottish 5k Championships and I ran around 16 minutes. I ran a 71 minute half in training by accident earlier in the year. Basically, I’m not very quick so that was more of a fluke I think.
I save energy by following the cycling adage – never run if you can walk, never walk if you can sit down, never sit down if you can lie down, and never…well, there’s not much less you can do than lie down.
Get into running, it’s what will make you rich and famous.
The Red Gorilla Tubtrug Flexible Extra Large 75l Bucket in green. That baby should be top of everyone’s bucket list.
I read lots of books. Partly because I enjoy it but mainly because people think that if you have a wide-ranging vocabulary then you must be both clever and interesting. Books give you that.
I worked in a plant nursery for all of two weeks, one week longer than my brother managed. Some people had been there going on 15 years. Wild.
On the way back from a climbing trip at university, and having ran out of meaningful forms of food nearly two days previously, we stopped at a KFC in Inverness and took on, and completed, the ‘Mega Bucket’ Challenge (an entire mega bucket to yourself, including all accoutrements – gravy, beans etc.) Lovely.
Shoes on. Always race with shoes.
I am not very good at two things in running. First, I tend to have numerous bowel movements (though I’ve kept a lid on things – so to speak – in recent times) and second, I get bored of regular routes quite quickly. I tackled the latter using the former by ‘buried poo orienteering’ to spice up my daily run whilst doing my Fire Service training. Both scary and funny, I guess.
Those GU salted caramel cheesecake pots.
I’m a fan of the ‘effortlessly cool’ or ‘casually deliberate’ people who do awesome stuff without seeming to try very hard at all, or who don’t give two hoots about it. The Italians have a word called ‘sprezzaturra’ that sums it up well. People with a bit of character too, especially in running, which can be populated by some right boring ba***rds.
I go through phases and like everything except for Country and Western, and Jazz. The latest was some fairly heavy drum ‘n bass, which I got into as a joke but now actually quite enjoy.
Film: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Podcast: don’t really have a ‘favourite’ but I listen to a football podcast called Undr the Cosh (not a typo) more often than not
Book: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway – nothing happens really but it’s still the greatest book ever written
Enter a race at your local summer show, the more farmer-y the better and run like all hell. If you enjoy it, which you will, then sack it off for a few years and focus purely on getting super-fast on the track and roads. Then come back when you’re super quick and you’ll win everything there is to win in fell running. Simple.
Maybe get some training camps going to far flung places in the world…or the Lake District.
