The weird answer is not really anything specific. So Lou and I lived in London and our son was born two years ago and we always thought we just didn’t want to bring him up in London. We didn’t want to live there especially with a boy because my partners got several older brothers and they had some questionable experiences growing up in London. Long term, we knew we didn’t want to be here. We couldn’t afford to buy a house there anyway so it was kind of like, right, let’s just move somewhere!
Yeah well initially we weren’t going be quite as rural as this but I’d always loved the idea of coming to the Peak District but Lou was a bit less keen. She was brought up in London but we found a house that we liked in Buxton and then that went and then we just sort of started looking around.
We’d never been to the area and I guess a bit odd to buy straight away and not just rent first. But we knew we wanted to buy something and at the time, it just felt like the right thing to do.
Yeah, I ran with Dulwich runners. They aren’t super old like some of the clubs in London and a bit more casual than some, but still take things pretty seriously. A pretty big club because all the clubs there are, so you’d get like 50 plus people at a Wednesday night club run.
Well it was easier to create routes because you’ve got so many more roads to choose from! So it’s not like, OK, I want something flat, I’m going to run on the A6, you could run anywhere, but yeah, you’d be crossing roads constantly and no head torches needed! Racing was good because they’re all mostly in parks, so there is something on every weekend if you wanted to race.
Yeah, it was. And that was one of the things I liked best about it. So Wednesday club run, we would meet and finish at the clubhouse. A lot of people would stay after for a drink (sometimes several!) and sit and chat. And that was quite nice. I miss that a little bit.
I just reached out to him for some coaching before I moved to London and he started coaching me in like 2019 online, he would do a plan and I would just do what he said. And then he happened to put on his Instagram that he was looking for a house mate. Yeah, which was weird, but quite nice. We talked about running a lot!
Yeah definitely. At the time, I was very good at following what he told me though.
Yeah, definitely try to be. It’s hard now with being a parent and life just being a bit busier. But yeah, still try to do that if I can. But it feels a bit unfair. Like during marathon training, trying to go out for, I don’t know, 2-3 hours on a Sunday so I try and give that time back to my family in some way, so yeah, I’m very conscious of it.
Its really fun. It’s also draining at times and sleeping isn’t quite there yet! And he’s just started nursery within the last few weeks. So we’re dealing with new separation anxiety stuff and yeah, you get through one thing and there’s another thing coming along, but he’s really fun to be around.
I did, I would say I used to like it more than I do now. I think I’d struggle, even though we’ve only been out of London for just over a year. I would struggle to go back and live there now, now that we’ve seen the light, as it were! But I think we very quickly got used to not being quite so busy and having a lot more green space and all that kind of stuff. So the cities have their place, but I don’t want to live in them anymore.
So I joined on the grad scheme from E-on and as part of that we had to do a placement abroad somewhere. Most people went to Germany because they are a German company, so there was lot lots of jobs there. But I found a job in Chicago and was like, you know what? This would be fun! So managed to get HR to say yes to it. And yeah, I spent six months there, It was really good. I was 22 at the time. So it was a good time to go and do that. Don’t know if I’d want to live there now, but it’s a fun place.
Actually, I wasn’t. It’s a bit of a regret because it’s a great place to run. It would have been amazing if I was a runner at the time, but yeah, no, I hadn’t really found it by that point.
I mean, it’s really nice. We’ve got meadows behind our house. So you can just head up onto that 200 metres from the front door, which is great. It’s also kind of hard because I’m like, I don’t always want that and I don’t always want hills. So it’s difficult especially marathon training for a road marathon. I’d quite like to just not think about the terrain and just run. So yeah, as everyone always says at the club, you’ll get used to the A6 and I soon did. So it’s nice at times and at times it’s hard, but overall I definitely prefer it.
It means a lot of routes look very boring on Strava! It’ll just be an out and back, which I hate doing, but at times it’s a necessary evil.
It kind of depends I think if I’m outside of marathon training, I’ll do more trail stuff.
So I’ve got a few weeks before I’m planning to start another plan again. So yeah, I’ll just get out anywhere and enjoy it a bit more and when I want to do more easy running I’ll do off road as well. But then long runs, I think I’ll be sticking to road, It’s just easier. I did the Edale skyline with a few MACs a while back which was fun. David tried to recruit me for his length of the Peak District run but I thought that was a bit much for now!
I think so, it’s the only thing that I respect enough to train properly for. So yeah, I think it tends to be everything else is in the lead up to or to facilitate a faster marathon basically.
I kind of like to set fairly ambitious time goals, I’ve decided that I would like to try and run under 2:30 at some point. Don’t know if it’s possible, but that’s kind of the fun. Just seeing how close to that you can get. I decided that I wanted to do all the majors under three hours. So that means I can’t just turn up and run. I have to be properly trained. So yeah, that helps. I’ve done four of them now and still ticking them off within that goal, so I can’t let it slip now!
Josh is well on his way to his 6 stars having completed Boston, London, Chicago and Berlin. Next stop New York.
Yeah, I think I am. I also know that I’ve got lucky so far that I haven’t yet missed the ‘A goal’ in a race or had a serious injury. So I know it won’t last forever and it’s going to happen one day. The next one is New York in November so I’m going for sub three there again.
Before I joined Dulwich in London, I only ever really ran solo and I thought that’s what I preferred, but that’s because it’ll all I knew. Everything’s just so much easier running with other people. In the early part of my training for Manchester (illness meant Josh sadly didn’t make it to Manchester) Thursday night was like the anchor. I knew that I was going to do that every week and you could sort of build the week around it and you don’t really think about running when you’re running with people. Doing more racing as well, at some point I’d like to race a bit more.
So having a club vest to wear in a race is quite nice and other people to meet up with at the race but mostly the social side, to meet people.
It’s much more enjoyable, to be honest the routes are a lot nicer. I’m looking forward to doing a few more summer ones on the trails. I enjoy the runs a lot more than my old club runs, where it’s just about distance and time. At least now there’s somewhere nice to look at while we’re running.
Not really, to be honest, this is definitely the main one I’ve tried lots of other stuff here and there like I’ve joined the squash Club when I was in London and did that for a bit and there’s nothing else that I kind of gravitate to as much as running because there’s nothing that’s quite as easy to just go out and do, or that doesn’t rely on other people, right? You can go and book a squash court and practise on your own, but not that much fun. If I’m not running, then it’ll be doing home stuff and doing stuff in the garden and yeah, jobs around the house. We’re just over a year in, but still lots we want to do.
We’re in Cromford, the garden is a big focus at the moment because we’re obviously spending a lot of time outside. It’s more work than we had hoped for, it’s liveable, but lots to do!
I do like to sit and do nothing but that’s not very possible with a 2 year old, so we’re going away in July. Our first sunny abroad holiday with him. We’re hoping he enjoys the beach but are a bt worried that the pool might be too cold for him!
There’s going to be a bit of running too, so it’s going to mean getting up early and going out before it gets hot. One of my favourite ways to kind of explore somewhere new is to go out for a run and just see things you might not see if you’re driving around and then you can go back later without trainers on and enjoy it more. But some relaxation is needed, hopefully we will got some!
Leeds United, they’re my home team. My dad’s not from Leeds but the rest of us are all Leeds fans because that’s where we lived. It has it’s ups and downs but pretty good at the moment!
We haven’t been to a lot because our son has some food allergies, so we don’t often go out to eat because it’s just it’s just annoying and he doesn’t like to sit for too long. We’ve been to The Boat in Cromford and we had a nice meal at The Oakhill hotel without our little one, which was very nice.
I did go to the rising sun in Middleton a few weeks ago, which was quite nice sitting out in the beer garden
