Category: Running

How the way I set goals has changed and evolved

7/30/2026

I have had a rare period of a week where I couldn’t follow my normal routines and not do normal activities (combination of walks, running and going on the exercise bike). A non-serious issue with my foot has meant that I have needed to rest and not put pressure on the foot and, because of this, my normal routine of doing a morning activity after breakfast has gone out of the window. While it has felt strange, it has also been valuable time to think about how I get active, train and work towards different fitness goals, also providing a great opportunity to re-set and shift so that the emphasis of my training is slightly different.

Over the last four years, I have had two different approaches going in parallel with each other, complimentary in some ways but not always compatible and not always helping with the wider needs of my overall health and wellbeing. Not detrimental, but not completely beneficial. And yet, looking back, I wouldn’t change the approach I have taken up to now. It is just the moment to change and shift focus on how I now approach things.

After a period of not doing much activity, especially with moving house/area, covid and changes of jobs, I went through a period of 2-3 years where I didn’t do much activity at all. Dog walks, an occasional walk and an odd run here and there, but very little compared to before this, when I would walk or run 5-6 days per week and would typically do 4-8 miles each time. I had done this for more than 10 years and simply reached a point where I needed a break from this routine, initially wanting to find a different sport or activity to do but ending up falling into the habit of doing nothing. As a result of doing very little over 2-3 years, I put on weight, didn’t feel great and the impact seemed to trickle into other aspects of life, up to the point where I needed to refind a focus in doing something physical and needed to start getting active again.

When making the decision to start getting active again, I chose to start recording what I did and set myself the goal to try to do a certain number of activities each year. I chose an annual target (100 activities, which would include fast walks, runs and other cardio activities) to take into account that I might miss certain weeks (holidays, tiredness, injuries) but if I could average doing 100 activities over the year, this would be a solid base and there was lots of room for progress over the following years, looking to be able to improve year on year and build better, more progressive habits as I go along. This has worked well and, over the last 4 years, I have gradually built up and built confidence by doing more and more sessions each year, getting fitter and more active each year and seeing how it has progressed over that time. It has also been good being able to adapt around work while having a focus on getting active as an additional goal when things may be more challenging, which has been a blessing on many occasions.

As well as counting the number of activities I do, with a grand total for the year to work towards, I have also been training with specific targets in mind and training for specific events, for example having a training plan for the marathon that I completed earlier this year. The training is more focused on a short-term goal, with specific training targets and each session counting towards the grand total that I talked about above. Over the course of the last four years, I have worked towards a variety of events at different distances and this has helped me to progress with getting back to running times achieved historically and the plans I have set myself have been valuable in achieving this.

There have been a number of downsides to counting the number of activities I do over the course of a year. The activities I have recorded (which I have seen as important to my fitness) were only the cardio sessions that I did, which made me put a greater emphasis on these as the most important to do. I have struggled with doing strength and conditioning sessions/training throughout the whole time I have been running and have always avoided it where possible, so this method of counting sessions only helped to make me avoid it further by placing emphasis on the different cardio sessions I did. When training for longer run distances, while cardio is important, the amount of pressure being put through your body means that strength and conditioning is really important, but I didn’t do much of this when training and felt the effects of it throughout the week when recovering from long runs.

Another downside of counting the number of activities was the ability to rest and take time to step away from the regular routine. While the whole point of setting an annual target at the beginning was to have perspective and to realise that there would be more intense/less intense periods, I ended up getting locked into the need to keep pushing up the number of sessions I did and continually trying to do more, even when I most desperately needed a break or rest, and the result of this was to hit burnout. I had it several times, but came back with reset goals that I stuck to until the next time I fell into the trap.

I am glad that I took the approach that I did because I got a lot from it and, without it, I think that I would still be inactive and stuck with the consequences of it. By recording activities and setting the goal to get better year on year, it triggered the start of doing first events in 4 years, doing a first half marathon in 8 years and a first marathon in 13 years. It brought back better routines and more positive feelings and gave me the motivation to get fit and explore new places, as well as revisit old places and relive old times. All in all, there were massive benefits that all started from recording and counting the activities that I was doing.

So why change and how am I changing things? First of all, constantly chasing a number throughout the course of the year means that, when I am trying to rest or have a period of rest to recuperate, I am feeling anxious because I am thinking that I will have to catch up or do more to reach a certain target by the end of the year. It takes away from the whole purpose of resting, so it feels like something needs to change. The other reason? Because I want to focus training more on the specific goals at certain times, which will vary at different times of year, and I want to ensure that the only thing I care about is doing types of sessions that will work for that goal. Not worrying about annual goals and completing certain numbers of an activity over the course of a year. It might mean doing more of one type one year and another type on another year, which I want to do without worrying about beating what I have done before. It will sound easy for some people but, for me, it has been my way of approaching things and, for some reason, it is not as easy as just going with things.

It is also time to do more strength and conditioning work in my training and placing more emphasis on that. Spending time over the last week resting and recuperating from the foot issue that helped a lot with this, giving a reason to do some and start from the very basics. This in itself is a big deal because, as part of my activity counting, I was fussy about having to do a certain amount to make it count so, looking at things in a different way, it is going to be fun starting from basics in all aspects (cardio and strength work) to build up slowly and see how far this new approach takes me in making me feel proud by the achievements I make and the things that I do.

The time I completed a Triathlon!

7/16/2026

In the early days of my running journey, I had many wild and wonderful ambitions of things I wanted to do, inspired by people around me and things that I had seen on TV. Running a marathon, running the London Marathon, running in France, running in the USA. I did some of them very early in my running journey, ticking them off the list nice and quickly. I still haven’t done some of the goals I set myself 20 years ago (running a race in the USA, for example) but I still have many years and many opportunities to do it and know that I will do it when the time is right. One of the early ambitions I had was to complete a triathlon and I did it in 2012, with the usual mix of nerves, apprehensions and moments of madness in the build up, as well as having the pride and affection of having actually completed a triathlon as well.

One of the big challenges of triathlon is that you don’t simply put your trainers on and run. You have to think about the different parts of the event and the equipment that you require to do it. I volunteered at a Triathlon in 2007 (stationed in the transition area, seeing the comings and goings in all directions as people arrived, went off to the start, passed through the transition from swim to bike and bike to run, then left at the end) so knew what was going to be needed to complete a triathlon. I also worked in a running shop that had different equipment and worked with colleagues who had done triathlons, so had the knowledge of what I was letting myself in for. It didn’t make it much easier to get everything together, but it was valuable all the same.

One of my biggest fears when deciding to do a triathlon was the worry of swimming in open water. While it is safe to swim in many waters and any triathlon event has to verify that the water is completely safe before the competition can go ahead, I sometimes look at water that some people swim in and think it does not look good to swim in. In order to deal with my nervousness and worry of swimming in open water, I decided to sign up for a Great Swim event in 2011, taking part in the event in Suffolk (Great East Swim). It also gave me the reason to buy the wetsuit, one of the big expenses that occur when preparing for completing a triathlon. Although I was incredibly nervous about the idea of swimming before the event, getting gradually more and more nervous, the event itself in Suffolk went well and made all my fears disappear. The most surreal but amazing moment of the event was when swimming away and quickly glancing up to see a flock of swans flying overhead. I also learnt afterwards that it was raining while I was swimming, but I had no idea as I was in the water. Win, win!

Because the swim in Suffolk went well, and I completed a 5K running event the day after that also went well, it gave me the confidence to sign up for a triathlon and I decided to take part in the Blenheim Triathlon in Oxfordshire. I gave myself 9 months to prepare, had a solid running base and had conquered the swimming worry, so felt confident that all would go well. I just had to get a bike and do some cycling training then all would be fine.

If I thought there was a mental barrier with swimming in open water, for some reason, there was an even bigger barrier with cycling. For no logical reason, I was worried and nervous about getting a road bike because of the dropped handle bars and the narrower handle bars, thinking it would be harder (and I would be unable) to control the steering of the bike. I was also nervous about clipping into pedals and overall balance on a road bike. As a result of these worries, my preparation for the triathlon was reduced from 9 months to 2 months because I only got the bike in the April before the triathlon, which took place in June. When purchasing the bike, I also got sold a more expensive bike than I should have got (my fault based on lofty ambitions that would never come to pass) making me worried about damaging it. In the end, through encouragement of a family friend, I did one 20 mile training ride that went well, but I wasn’t very good with changing the gears and confidence in riding the bike was not very high going into the event. Adjusting the feet and riding with confidence were the main challenges and stemmed from the mental block and fear I had built up in the preceding months.

As well as the mental challenges with the cycling, I also did another open water swim event as part of my preparation for the triathlon, this time in a city centre. As I mentioned earlier, even though I have seen thousands of people swimming in them and there are no ill effects from doing so, I look at the water in different places and I have always worried about what it looks like. So, even though I know it is safe from what I have seen, and given I have my own feelings about what it looked like, I decided to book and do a swim in the water for this city centre swim event. Unsurprisingly for me, I let my brain wander and panic about illogical things and, half way through the event, I panicked and felt like I needed to stop. I found the lifeguard on a canoe in the middle and had to rest on it for a while, feeling sick through nerves but producing nothing, then got back in and finished the event. Although I came through it, it didn’t help with the overall preparation for the triathlon that, at this point, was 3 weeks away.

The Triathlon itself went really well. On the day, I turned up nice and early, got everything set up and felt as calm as I possibly could, given the preparation and how I typically felt at an event. The setting of Blenheim Palace is incredible, with its own lake and the transition area in the courtyard of the palace. The movement around the area is seamless and great and the event itself is organised and managed by people who know how to make everything run smoothly.

When it came to completing the event, things went as expected. The swim went well (the water was cold but a nice, clean lake so felt similar to the first open water swim I completed). The bike was challenging as I didn’t really know how to find the right gear for the right part of the course (uphills, descents, corners) and I was unfamiliar with the course, so always felt a bit disorientated. I had the base fitness there so the challenge wasn’t maintaining a decent speed. It was just that I didn’t really know how to get the best out of the bike and go even faster. By the time I got to the run (my safe discipline), I was relieved to have got through the swim and bike and exhausted from the worry of how I had got to this point. I got around and was just relieved when I got to the finish line.

Unfortunately, I never really got on the bike again. After gathering lots of dust for 10 years, I got rid of it without properly getting on it and doing another challenge. My experiences in the lead up to and at the event of the triathlon didn’t give me the confidence that I needed. I also lived on the outskirts of London at the time, meaning that roads local to me were busy and would require riding very confidently in order to stay safe while cycling.

Although this experience was a long time ago and I haven’t done a triathlon since, I still want to do another triathlon again in the future and even have lofty ambitions of completing an Ironman one day (we will see!) I haven’t got a bike at the moment and, if I decide to do a shorter event, I will learn from the past and get a more simple bike to start with. However, the learnings of the past will help to ensure that I approach it much better (more cycling preparation!) so that, not only am I pleased with finishing, I also feel that I get the best out of the event and myself.

Finding running speed that I thought I may have lost forever

7/9/2026

My training in 2026 has been good, building on the improvements that I have made over the last three years and slowly getting back to a level that is closer and closer to levels that I reached 10 years ago. When it comes to distances run in particular and the times taken to complete longer runs, it is definitely the case and I have grown more and more in confidence over the first months of the year.

The focus for much of 2026 has been on longer runs in preparation for completing a marathon. Respecting the challenge and wanting to be as prepared as possible, I slowly built up the number of miles that I completed with one sole aim: to get to the end of the marathon and be able to recover quickly afterwards. To achieve this aim, the focus was always on the amount of miles run and never about improving speed. I found a steady pace to complete sessions in and never really pushed it beyond these speeds, especially as it would be the speed I would be attempting to complete the marathon at.

When setting goals for after the marathon and what I wanted to do next, the aim was always to focus on shorter distances and see if I could find some more speed again to improve my 5K, 10K and half marathon times. Over the last three years, they have steadily improved but, as can be expected, have gone up and down along the way (normal for anyone). A natural increase in the amount of miles helped, as well as consistency in the training sessions that I did. When running, it has often felt like I was running with a more consistent pace than I did when I was younger. During the early part of my running journey, I would always start fast and would fade more and more. Looking back and thinking about what went on in runs, I think a large part of this was actually mental as I would always finish strongly. In more recent runs, I don’t have the same kick at the end to finish strong but I have a more steady pace and, at the end, I am doing OK with my times.

While times have steadily improved over the last three years, I have been keen to focus more on speed and try to get more out of it. After putting in the extra miles needed for the marathon, I feel, and have felt, like I have better fitness and form as a result of the training, feeling more confident psychologically to push myself a bit harder over shorter runs. I had mixed feelings about doing it over the last few years and had odd attempts to try, but never followed it up. There was a bit of speed there but I never persevered in trying to consistently build the speed back up. I also seemed to get niggles and injuries every time I tried to build up speed, which resulted in knocking my confidence when putting several running sessions together.

Since my return to running a few years ago, there has always been a nagging thought of whether I would ever find my historic speed again. The slow progress has shown tiny signs but I have never had a moment that made me truly feel like it is there, making me think that it is time for me to just focus on longer runs and setting a different type of challenge. That was until recently…

As part of my quest to complete 100 events and to try and find some speed and confidence from somewhere, I signed up to a 1-mile running event. In order to make it feel valuable and worthwhile, I wanted to push myself and run sub-8 minutes, going faster than I would if I just went for a run on my own and challenged myself to a 1 mile time trial. By going sub-8 minutes for the mile, I also felt that it would show signs of finding the elusive speed again and would give confidence to kick on and try some more shorter runs. The goal was set and I knew what I wanted.

I was very pleased on the day because, not only did I run the mile under 8 minutes (7:43), there were lots of things to improve and changes that could happen that would mean that I could go even faster. As well as the things that are out of my control (it was a hot day, delays to the start), there were loads of things I could do differently and, as a result, I felt really good. Many things are simple changes, like not arriving so early at the event that it resulted in lots of standing around and drinking more slowly to leave a bit of drink to just before. I also did a long work shift the day before, with lots of standing around and eating at different times (not getting lunch until late afternoon) so this affected the preparation the day before, even if only in my head. While the time I completed the mile in is not elite standard (it is about average for a runner), the feelings and preparation are something that all runners go through and have to think about, whatever their goals and motivation.

As well as achieving the goal for the run and going under 8 minutes, I got that feeling that there was still speed in my legs and that some of my more ambitious running goals are still possible. Given the fact that I had had a long day the day before and that, if I am truthful, I felt tired going into the event, it made me realise that a lot is still possible and perfect preparation will continue to elude me for many events that I will take part in. It is hard to control everything and get all elements of preparation perfect, whatever we try to do, so doing the best we can and controlling the things we can is the best way to approach the event and see what happens. What I do know is that, finally, I have the feeling that I have my speed back and I finally want to push myself to see how close I can get to the times I achieved 10 years ago. It has always been the mission to reach those times again and even set new best times, for both shorter and longer distances, and I finally feel that it is possible.

The value of cross training for running and how it helped me

6/29/2026

Cross training is something a lot of people talk about, but can be something that makes people nervous. There are lots of messages given to people about what is best for running and how to improve performance, which says a lot. Clearly, there are different approaches that work for different people and finding what works for you is most important of all. If something sounds good to you, the best thing to do is try it, stick to it and see how it helps you. If it reaches a point where you don’t think it is working, try another approach and see how that goes.

Cross training has worked for me, but is something I don’t always do and haven’t done continuously throughout my running journey. In more recent times, I have realised that it is OK to have periods when I do cross training (mainly using an exercise bike for sessions but also some swimming, although I find this harder during winter). I also find that preparation for some events and some running distances is better with cross training, but some distances and events work best when just focused on running and walking, putting valuable miles into the legs and building up as best as I can for events. The cross training has been most valuable when becoming bored of the repetition of doing activities, providing a different type of activity to do to reduce pressure on certain parts of the body and to mentally stimulate myself in a different way with a fresh challenge.

Cross training through doing sessions on the exercise bike had a massive impact on helping to inspire me to get back into running in 2022 after a break of three and a half years. After choosing to have a break from running and just wanting to go for occasional jogs, doing regular walks to keep some fitness, I reached a point where I wanted to start doing something again and put on a pair of running shoes again. I had had a period of not setting myself challenges and, in truth, I needed a new focus and purpose that I had had when running and doing running events. At first, I started jogging and doing short runs, telling myself that I didn’t want to push myself and wanted to try to enjoy every step, not being focused on the time it was taking me to do a run and being pleased to be getting out again and doing some activity.

In my early running journey, everything was about time. If I did a run, I was always seeking to go faster and improve. In training sessions, I was always pushing where I could and wanted to keep going. Naturally, this led to having concentrated running periods with regular sessions, then gaps in my training where I wouldn’t train for weeks or would train inconsistently. I would go up and down, but would do enough sessions and train enough to still maintain roughly the same times that I could achieve, not improving by much but also not dropping my times by much. I would say that I loved and hated running at the same time because I was always looking for better times, but not achieving them. Looking back, I can see that my priorities were not balanced and there is no surprise that I didn’t achieve my targets.

I had two separate years where I did well and achieved targets, but this was more because of other circumstances rather than getting training right for running. In the first year, I was training to become a personal trainer and, as a result of the course, I was in a gym during exercise every other week as part of the course. At the same time, I was doing marathon training so, on the other week, I would do my long run training but circumstances meant I didn’t do much else. By naturally being in the gym as part of the course, doing activities as part of the development, the by-product was getting the benefits that helped me to achieve personal targets and bests in my running. In the second year that I achieved improvements in my running, I had returned to a previous place of work and was motivated to prove my abilities to colleagues I had worked with, using this as motivation to improve my running. While I was putting more training in and did some training with people I was working with, it felt like I was doing it for reasons outside of my true motivations for running.

With this experience in my personal “memory bank” it is clear to see why I wanted to return to running simply to enjoy it, but it also explains why I wrestled with the idea of simply jogging with no real intention behind it. As someone who needed something to motivate me and an end goal, it became clear after three months that I needed to set a target and that I needed to sign up for a running event. As I started to prepare, I was doing my new regular sessions but knew that something was missing; the ability to go that bit quicker and feel like I had a bit of speed in my legs. If I am honest, I felt nervous about testing my legs and body with a bit of speed work, particularly with the fact that my running routes are loops and there are points where I am further from home than other points. That is when cross training played a very valuable part in my personal running journey.

The first “harder” training I did on my return back to running was on the exercise bike. It was the first time I started to see distances and times that reminded me of training I had done ten years earlier. It was the first time I finished a session and felt really good because I had pushed myself that bit harder and felt the endorphins as a result. It was the first time I had pushed myself to the point where I was sweating a bit more and felt good for doing it. Ultimately, it was the first time I felt good about training runs and felt like I was achieving something again, giving me the confidence to push myself a little further next time.

For me, the value of the exercise bike was much more psychological than it was physical, even though there were very clear physical benefits to what I was doing. As mentioned above, I was nervous about pushing on a run because I was going further away from home with each stride, which meant that there was further to get back if I had a problem. This wasn’t an issue on the exercise bike so, in my head, I knew that if I was feeling bad at any point, I could stop. No worries. As a result, it meant that I got on the bike feeling less stressed and able to give it a go. Very quickly, I was able to build up and find form and the rest is history. The first sessions went well and I built up over a few sessions, getting better and more confident, rediscovering the form and abilities that I thought I had lost from a few years before.

The training on the exercise bike was incredibly valuable in helping me to rediscover my confidence in running and building up my fitness. Not only did I build up my fitness and confidence on the exercise bike, but I also learnt and realised that I was going to be fine in building up and slowly pushing myself as I strode for new targets in my running. It helped to find the old abilities in myself but was also valuable in shaping new habits, finding new ways to train and building consistency in training that has shaped the way I now set targets in my running, which are both realistic and challenging, without being so challenging that I won’t achieve them.

Cross training has so many benefits for both the physical and mental sides of training, but they can also be a way of testing new approaches to training without it feeling like it has a negative effect on your core targets and objectives. Whether it is swimming, cycling, walking, running or another activity, always have an open mind to using it in different ways to see how it can best help you to achieve your wider goals and always remember that there is more than one way to achieve anything!

It’s always great doing an event in London, but it doesn’t always go to plan!

6/18/2026

Over the last 20 years, I have done a lot of running events in Central London and they have always been great. Because of the location, being in the city centre and with people being prepared to travel from far and wide, they are usually big, well supported and well organised events. From the London Marathon to 10Ks and half marathons, the atmosphere is also always great with well lined streets of supporters and groups cheering all the way along routes, flocking to see friends, families and supporters running for good causes and to soak up the atmosphere. I really realised and appreciated this most more recently when, after a gap of a few years of doing a Central London run, I did my first one back in 2025 and the buzz was amazing.

Even though I love doing running events in London, and will always continue to do them, I have (unsurprisingly, based on other previous experiences) had running events that have not gone to plan. It simply came down to bad preparation and the luck of the day, not the event itself, but it was certainly interesting and one that took a while to recover from.

In 2012, I finally did the London Marathon. It was watching the London marathon on TV that inspired me to want to start running, seeing “non-runners” and people of all shapes and sizes taking on this incredible challenge. I loved watching sport as a kid but was not really great at anything, yet running was to provide the activity that was going to mean I could do sport and do it my way, competing against myself and improving my own PB without the need to compare myself against anyone else if I didn’t want to. The London Marathon was going to be my fifth marathon to that point, with mixed experiences of marathons and uncertainty about how it was going to go as the build-up was a bit mixed.

Training for the London marathon didn’t go according to any plan (there wasn’t actually a plan in place for this one, so it’s not a surprise that it didn’t go well!) I had a good running year in 2011 with new PBs, a first sub 50 minute 10K (and second and third) and I had built up good physical shape. I also had a couple of exciting and interesting work experiences, doing an apprenticeship and working for a footwear brand in one of their retail stores in London, so things felt quite good, even though there were a couple of bumps in the experiences that I found hard at the time. All in all, 2011 was good and I felt good, but with the highs of 2011, it brought the comedown of 2012 and challenges starting to creep in. At the start of the year, I was finding it hard in the place I was working and was balancing this with starting a new project where I was trying to make sport and fitness accessible and interesting for children. From an early stage, I felt a lot of pressure within this and, coupled with the part-time job I was doing, things became increasingly challenging to manage.

With the backdrop of the things happening in my career, it meant that the training for the London marathon very much took a back seat. I did some longer training runs and built up so that I had some preparation for it, but it wasn’t as much as I would have liked, especially for benefiting from the experience of running the London Marathon and wanting to get a good time with it. I relied a lot on the experience from previous marathons and the physical development that came from this, even if it was starting to run out. Because of the level of training I did, psychologically, I didn’t feel like I was ready and, in the end, it resulted in the outcome on the day.

In order to make the most of the experience, I also entered a competition and won a prize to make the experience of the London marathon unique. It was a competition with a major sports drink company and the prize included nutrition support throughout the training, some clothing for training and, most excitingly, a chance to go to a special reception event on the day of the marathon, after crossing the finish line, to celebrate with family and friends and be fed nice food. The first challenge would be to cross the finish line but the incentive was very good.

Because of the mixed training, the London marathon itself went as could be expected. I started well and the first couple of miles felt good. It was steady but comfortable and remained like this for the first few miles, but I started to feel like things were getting challenging by the time I had completed a quarter of the distance (around the six mile mark). From that point on, the run got harder and harder, feeling like it was going to be very difficult to get to the end. The supporters, volunteers and fellow runners got me through to the end. The weather definitely didn’t help, being a classic day of the four seasons, with sunshine, wind and rain. Unfortunately, the rain was in the later stages of the race, meaning I got wetter and wetter towards the end and crossed the line and got my bags feeling very damp.

Because of how I felt and the weather conditions, I ended up deciding to miss the post-run reception event I had tickets for. I regret not going now because it would have been special just to sit down and savour the moment, but I didn’t feel in the mood and felt groggy with how it all went, so just decided to get changed in the doorway of a fast food restaurant and grabbed a quick drink before heading home.

For a long time, I didn’t really reflect happily on the experience and felt sad about it, focused on the bad training and the fact that it didn’t go to plan, as well as choosing not to go to the reception afterwards. Many years later, I look back now and think that I wish I had felt differently about it because it was still a big achievement to finish the race, it was doing one of the biggest and best marathons in the world and I also had some very cool support along the way. This is an experience that helped to highlight to me the difficulty that I have had in living in moments and not being able to appreciate what I had until years later, but it is also experience that now empowers me to savour opportunities more and absorb the environment more, knowing that I am, and have been, very fortunate in what I have been able to experience.

While this was an experience that didn’t go to plan, one of my favourite runs was running a 10K organised by the organisers behind the London Marathon (London Marathon Events), the Vitality London 10K. The start and finish are by Buckingham Palace and the run is through Central London. I have done the event several times and always do well, soaking up the atmosphere which carries me along. I have done it with family and they have always loved it too, so it is an event that leads to me saying that I always enjoy running in London.

That place where running just goes well

6/11/2026

I am getting close to having completed 100 events and I am very fortunate to have been able to run in lots of different towns across the UK as well as in France and Spain. While I have already written blogs about events that have been difficult or not gone to plan, there is one town where I seem to have great runs every time I go there. My memories of runs in the town have always been positive and I have achieved some great milestones there, so it is just a happy running town for me.

Over the last 15 years, I have done several runs in Ashford in Kent, UK and it has been a happy place for running well during events. I ran my first sub-50 minute 10K there. I started to achieve better times after a break from running when I returned there. I have done runs in Winter, Spring and Autumn there, starting from different locations within the town, yet it always seems to go well when I do a run in the town. I have also driven there from different places I have lived in, taking longer on some occasions than others, yet the enjoyment remains the same each time. So, what’s the logic and why is it the case?

In the same way that there have been challenges in life and, as a result, it can make me nervous before with the fear that something bad is going to happen again, the same can happen with positive experiences in positive places. Positive memories of my time living in France have done a similar thing. As a result, whenever I am close and see the signs for the town, it brings back all the memories and I instantly start to feel good, making me relaxed and calm, which leads to having better runs. I have spoken to other people who experience similar things of doing better in one place compared to others and it shows the importance of feeling relaxed and feeling good in order to succeed in doing something and being able to reflect well on it.

Given my ability to get caught up and not be able to let go of difficult experiences, it would be easy for someone to say that the focus should be put on these happy places and positive experiences. It would also be easy to say that, if I only ever ran in one town, my running would keep getting better and better and all would be good in the world. It is never that simple and it would also get very boring, plus there are other places that could give that same feeling, so how can everything be balanced and the feel good factor be explored and achieved in other places?

One city where I have mixed experiences is Paris. I have run two marathons, two half marathons and a number of 10Ks there. I haven’t run there for 15 years but I have had good and bad experiences there. Marathons that went well. Half marathons that happened during sad periods of life and which are associated with coming to terms with different challenges (death of relatives, which made the runs insignificant at the time). For a long time, I would associate Paris as a difficult place for where I did running events, yet I would completely miss the fact that I had some great experiences there and, even in the difficult events, there was still the achievement of completing the event.

As I have reflected a lot over the last 6 months, building on wider reflection that I had been doing over the previous 3-5 years, I realised that I made a lot of positive and negative associations to places, where I saw a place as either positive or negative, not balanced or able to see that there were both types of experiences in a place. For Ashford, where I ran really well, it was the place I loved going back to and was always keen to add an event to my calendar. Other places were ones that I avoided and disregarded, only focused on the negatives and never really wanting to go back to. The problem with this was missing the bigger picture and losing sight of potential great places that I hadn’t fully appreciated.

This really hit home and was something I was able to address earlier this year when I completed the Brighton Marathon for the second time. I ran it for the first time in 2011 and it didn’t go well, so I made a negative association to running in Brighton (unfair on the town). As part of trying to change my mentality (with a lot of changes occurring and a complete need to transform lots of parts of my life) I decided to run Brighton again in 2026. I was keen to do the marathon again and feel differently about the marathon, changing the way I felt about the event and how I felt about the marathon as a distance (it was the first time completing one since 2013). As I ran the event, I thought completely differently about what I was doing and I made a conscious effort to savour the atmosphere on the day. When I crossed the finish line, it felt great and had gone well, which made all feelings I had for running in the city (from 2011) melt away. What had been negative associations to running in the city became positive and amazing feelings, full of pride and a complete change in how I thought about the experience.

We naturally form associations and there are some places we go to, run in and do things in where we feel happy, safe and relaxed. They are lovely places to have and we should always capitalise and benefit from them. However, it is also possible to bottle and savour the feeling we get from these places and try to find them, or transfer those feelings, to other places that can give us an equal amount of joy. The feeling itself is the most important and special thing, so if we can get it in lots of places, it should be the mission to see if we can get it in as many places as possible, savouring it and appreciating what we have, where we have it.

The marathon with hills, rain and bagpipes!

5/21/2026

In 2009, I completed an autumn marathon in the South of England. It was one of the early marathons I completed and early on in my running journey, so looking back, I don’t think it felt like a big deal at the time and in the following period. When reflecting and looking back on it more than 15 years later, it probably has all the cues that feature in the stories of subsequent marathons and a few added bits of madness to put it up there with the others in terms of madness.

Unlike the other events I have talked about so far, the lead up to this marathon was as bizarre as the day itself and will help to set the scene for what happened on the day. It began with deciding to run the marathon earlier in the year and, after hearing my dad talk many times about how he had walked a marathon when he was 17 years old, I decided to challenge him to do the marathon as well. Having resisted it a few times, he finally decided to do it after watching the London Marathon coverage on TV and my sister agreed to do it with him. As a result, the three of us were going to do the event with my dad and sister walking it, me running it.

In the lead-up, I (unsurprisingly) didn’t do much long run training/good marathon preparation and was relying a little (or a lot) on my previous experience. I had run my second marathon earlier that year (Paris in April 2009) and had done some running events, including the Great North Run (half marathon) in September before the marathon, which was taking place at the end of October. I didn’t do too bad in the events I did, but I was not doing the long runs I was going to need to get myself prepared properly for the big event (an event, by the way, that I have seen described as more of an ultra marathon with the hills and elevation involved, which I agree with!)

Training was made harder by the other things happening at this time. I had recently finished my degree and was moving back to France, going back to become an English Foreign Language Assistant again, this time moving to Amiens and working in primary schools. Before leaving, I was working in a running shop and just getting myself ready to go out and start what, at this point, was going to be a new and different chapter in my life (I was moving out there to live there permanently). This was going on and I was aware of the big changes about to happen, so I was not really doing what I needed to get myself ready for the marathon I was about to do. All in all, it was a chaotic period and wasn’t going to help with making a great marathon experience.

Now that I was living in France, this meant that I had to travel back home in order to do the marathon. I travelled back the day before, arriving home that evening. I had driven back as I had taken my car out to France, so this made me quite tired by the time I got home. I had a nice catch-up and evening with everyone at home, getting ready for what was about to happen the next day.

On marathon day, things started interestingly. I went through the same routine before leaving, having breakfast and putting everything on ready for running. We had to leave early to travel the couple of hours it took to get to the event. Not long after leaving, we had to stop the car because I felt (and was) sick! Fortunately, I managed to get out before being sick, but was sick on the side of the road and brought up most of my breakfast. A great start to the day!

The rest of the journey was OK but we arrived just in time to start. As a result, it was a rushed arrival to join the pack ready to run. Looking back, it was probably a blessing based on what was to come. In front of me was an enormous hill, the first few hundred metres of the marathon (and last few hundred metres!) which would be a crazy first part of the race. As the horn went to start, this was it. My dad and sister had gone off to join the walkers and I crossed the start line, doing the first stretch of 100 metres before climbing that hill. It was interesting doing it but I did it pretty easily and, once at the top, had to tackle the rest of the run.

Certain memories stand out from that day. From the beginning, it was misty with light rain in the air, so it felt quite miserable in terms of weather. I had seen pictures of previous editions where it had been sunny, so it looked very different as a beautiful course but was definitely not like this for the day I did it. Because of the misty conditions, In the first couple of miles, there was an invisible bagpipe player performing as the runners were running along the top of the cliffs. The sound of the bagpipes, accompanied by the misty conditions, made it feel very eerie! It didn’t make it feel any less eerie when the outline of the bagpipe player emerged, as pointed out by a group of runners (friends or colleagues running for a charity and wearing tutus, which made me smile) who were joking about how eerie it was.

After getting through the early, eerie miles, it was time to hit the first of the “fun zones” of the course, four long and big hills to climb and descend, each taking about 30 minutes to ascend. I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time (young and naive to running at this point) but I was running with experienced, older runners around me and one of them gave me some advice at this point. They said to “walk up the hills and take them in your stride, then run down them, as there is a lot more to come and you want to save your energy.” I did follow this advice as it would be stupid not to, and it proved to be valuable in the end. Around this point, I also overheard a conversation that still makes me chuckle to this day. Two older gentlemen were chatting to each other and one said “this is my 103rd marathon today. ”The other man replied to this by saying “oh, you’re a baby at this then. This is my 312th marathon.” Oh my god,” I was thinking, while laughing and crying, tackling my third marathon and listening to these experienced guys comparing themselves.

As I tackled the ups and downs of the hills, running through countryside, getting wet and listening to the conversations around me, I was also starting to get colder and colder. I was in short shorts and a t-shirt, no jacket, and feeling badly dressed in comparison to all the seasoned people around me. As the miles and hills rolled on, it was feeling more challenging and was becoming a bit monotonous, making it become more challenging.

When I hit the third check point of four, at about 15 miles, I did stop for a bit to take stock and psych myself up for the next bit. It helped that there were sausage rolls there (the homemade, good kind) so I took one, ate it, then set off on the next part of the journey. This is the bit that is mostly a blur, apart from a couple of distinct memories. I remember reaching a point where there was a car park, which was where some people were parked to go for a walk along the cliff tops by the sea. The other memory I have in the latter stages was running along the cliff tops in the last few miles. In pictures of previous events, with clear skies, the views look amazing as you run along the rolling cliff tops along the coast. On this particular day, you couldn’t see the edge of the cliffs, it was misty, raining and there was some wind about, and I was tired, wet and, truthfully, MISERABLE! By this stage, I was struggling to tackle the rolling hills, exhausted from lack of preparation and the busy few days before with all the travel, and a little bit scared with the wind and rain swirling around. I was far enough from the edge to be safe but it felt closer than it was, especially when tired. I somehow got to the end of this patch and, fortunately, was very close to the end.

The final stretch of the marathon was to descend the big hill that I had had to climb at the start. Being so tired and at the end of a long run, what should have been the joy of descending the hill with gravity was actually horrific and hard, but I did it and, fortunately, shortly after was the finish line. I made it!

Up to this point, I had done 25 events and had never felt emotional crossing the line, even after my first marathon. However, this was different! I think that the exhaustion, conditions and general madness of all that had happened meant that, as I crossed the line, I started crying. It had been so hard and I think it all caught up with me. Very shortly afterwards, my mum was there to hand me my stuff, which I took to get changed, but only after being told that my dad and sister had pulled out and were sitting in the car. They had decided that, with the conditions on the day and a couple of other difficulties they had had, they took a local bus that got them back to the start. I was so relieved at this and pleased that they were there, so went off to get changed and joined them to discuss what it was like.

The recovery in the weeks after were tough. It took me weeks to feel comfortable walking and even longer to dare to run again. It was an early experience in challenging how to tackle a marathon and going about doing things right (even if I didn’t really take it on board and am only really realising the lessons from it now!!)

How Juggling helped my running

5/18/2026

The key to good running is about balancing many things. Doing the right training. Getting a good balance of running the distance you are targeting (long runs) and faster, shorter runs to improve the way you run/make runs easier. It is also about doing good recovery, eating the right food, drinking the right drinks, and making sure you generally look after your body (strengthening it and stretching). Then there is the mental side! The power of the mental side of running is so big and so important, beyond what many people realise. I have personally experienced this, found it hard to overcome for large periods of time where different blocks set in and limited my potential, yet one activity helped to unlock and change the way I thought about running, helping to give me a wider, longer term perspective of running and the achievements within it. This was Juggling (an unlikely source, but bear with me!)

Juggling highlighted and brought my attention to the barriers I have often put in front of myself when doing the activities I do, highlighting the barriers in different ways. The barriers looked similar but they highlighted the challenges I created for myself and the ways to get around them. In truth, they also helped me with other challenges I have faced (discussed in my blog to date) and helped me to unlock them too, but let’s focus on running and how it unlocked new ways of thinking about running for me.

I have been able to juggle with 2 balls (some people would say that isn’t real juggling!) from childhood and I could do different varieties of it. I have also wanted to juggle with 3 balls for a long time, but just couldn’t do it. Every time I tried, I could do the first part of the sequence then my brain would tell my arms to stop. In 2025, I decided that one of my small challenges for myself was that I was going to learn and be able to juggle with three balls. So, every night, I would practice juggling. It became my evening mission and I made sure I could do it. I looked at video tutorials, had a go, kept going back to them and kept going. After practicing every day for one month, I finally cracked it and was able to juggle three balls confidently.

How does this relate to my running? As I said, when juggling with three balls, I could do the first sequence then a block in my head kept stopping me doing it. When I was practicing after deciding I wanted to crack it once and for all, the first two weeks had the same problem. I could do the sequence but just couldn’t confidently juggle in a flowing way. I tried different tutorials and one resonated particularly with me. In it, the tutorial said that you have to be prepared to keep dropping the balls, but take the risk to push through if you are going to get the flow of the rhythm. As I was watching it, it made me realise where I was going wrong (scared of dropping the balls, so I would naturally stop after the initial juggling sequence) and, as I started to correct this in my juggling, breaking through and being able to do it, it hit me that this was a problem in many areas of my life, including running.

When you read a lot about running training, there is a lot of great advice and programmes to help you achieve your running goal. It is actually like that in most things we do. For most people, many of the things we do are influenced by people around us and, as a result, our introduction to activities is passive and based on observing what others do. The problem with this is that we don’t see everything that goes into it, we go in with a preconceived idea of what we think we should be doing and we want to catch up with the people we are following as quickly as possible. What’s the problem? Things take time. There are shortcuts in the way we can do things, but the best way to achieve things, and do them well, is to take our time and build up slowly, acquiring knowledge and applying it so that we can do things to the best of our ability, at that moment in time.

For me, running was very much like that. I started off by running a local event but had my sights set on running a marathon, inspired by the London marathon and watching inspirational, but normal, people on the television. As a result, I built up quickly, did OK and wanted to do more, then worked in the running industry through a running shop and felt the need to push myself to get better and better, not being able to do it like I wanted to (as fast as I wanted to) but not putting the effort in that others did, so I lost confidence and stopped pushing. The fact that I didn’t see the years leading up to things was irrelevant to everyone’s journey didn’t enter my mind at the time, but that is how we see things when we have tunnel vision on something.

Part of the challenge through much of my personal running journey has been inconsistency of training and having a long-term vision that takes into account both ups and downs. I have set long-term goals, but assumed that it would be a direct progression, even thinking that I had set a low level of progression for each stage so there is no reason for it to fail. But that is not how it works. The progress can be quick but then you can go backwards or stay static then, out of the blue, you have another jump in progression. It is not always logical either, as the perfect preparation can end up with things going differently to plan and bad preparation can suddenly lead to a result that goes better than planned. The reality is that our brains and the mental side of things have a big impact and this is something we can all improve on.

Juggling helped this and the positive impact was transferred into my running. Where I practiced juggling every day and saw the jumps in progression and steps backwards, going back to the drawing board to rethink and refocus on what I needed to do, it highlighted my need to do similar things with my running. I did more sessions (not every day but more than I was doing) and I was much more accepting of sessions that didn’t go to plan. I had a better perspective of what the overall objective was and, when a session didn’t go to plan, I accepted it and focused on making sure that the next session wouldn’t be defined by the last. As a result, with a better perspective and growing confidence, I have slowly got better and improved in running consistently and built back up to doing distances I hadn’t done in a long time.

I am not going to suggest that you take up juggling in order to make your world better and help you unlock some magic potentials, but trying new things (and especially achieving something you have wanted to do for a long time) can be a great way to get to know yourself better, find your strengths and weaknesses and create a breakthrough that can transform your life, grow your confidence and help take you to the next level.

How to embrace a running challenge and reflect positively on it

5/10/2026

Having reflected a lot about experiences I have had during running events and other mass participation events I have taken part in, my approach to the events themselves and how I think about them afterwards has changed a lot. When completing some of the earlier events, I would feel happy when it went well and frustrated when it didn’t go as well (generally when the time wasn’t what I had hoped). As I was running along, I would have my head down and would be focused on how fast I was going, and would only take in a small amount of what was around me. This was especially true in my first marathon, when I put headphones in and listened to music, not taking in any of the sights around me.

As I got more experienced and completed more events, experiencing more occasions of not getting the time I wanted (something that is normal when you are always chasing PBs and improvement), I realised that the priority needed to change and the way to do this was to pick my head up and look more regularly at the people and things around me (including the supporters on the side of the road) than at my watch and my time to that point. The more I did this, the better I felt at the end of an event and the better I reflected on the event when travelling home. Time is always something that you want to take note of and track as this helps you to find improvement, keep you pushing yourself and helps to get the best out of you at that point in time, but it should never stop you from enjoying and savouring the experience and feeling good for getting to the end.

As part of my career, I have worked in running shops and it is always interesting to talk to people about their experiences. It helped me to put context in my own running journey because, when talking to people of all abilities about their running experiences, in particular marathons, many people have stories to tell about the day they ran a marathon and it didn’t go to plan. Two of the blog posts to date for Turtle in the Room have been about challenging marathon experiences, so I know first hand how challenging they are. The reality is that most people have one challenge or another that means their marathon didn’t go to plan, which tells you how challenging it is and how important it is to prepare and reflect on the challenge in a positive way where possible.

This is not a blog post telling you how to prepare for a running event or challenge of any size by telling you what to do, what to eat or where to do something. Instead, the preparation I am talking about is to tell yourself beforehand that the aim of the challenge is to embrace the surroundings, savour the support, take in as much of the event as possible and feel proud at the end of the event for finishing. Every challenge that is completed is a challenge for that person. Whether it is an “easy” challenge for you or one that you have chosen that is really hard, it is still a challenge to complete and finish and, as a result, you should savour every moment.

The best bits of advice that I can give for embracing and savouring the event you take on are the following:

Remember the simple reasons for why you have chosen to do the event and, at the beginning, think about how you will feel at the end when you have completed it
Look around at the environment where you are doing the event more times than you do your watch
Remember that everyone around you on the start line has probably experienced the same things you have in the lead-up to the event, so realise you are not alone and there will be support to guide you all the way through
Remind yourself of the training you have done to get you to the start line and realise that you have done it all before, so it will all be fine
Whatever happens on the day, savour the moment of crossing the finish line, appreciate the mementos you will get and feel proud of what you have achieved, knowing you have done everything you could and you have done something amazing

These are all small things to remember, yet they are also big things that I have forgotten or not done in the past, and I know that I am not alone. It is natural to focus on certain things (time!) when doing events but they are not the only thing that is important and, in the times when things are more challenging, finding other things to feel positive about can make us feel better about what we have just done.

An early marathon experience that didn’t go to plan

5/7/2026

As mentioned in a previous blog, I recently completed my 7th marathon by taking part in the Brighton Marathon. As well as being my 7th marathon in total, it was the second time I had completed the Brighton marathon, the first time being 15 years ago in 2011. It was a very different time for me and, although I ended up running the marathon in a very similar way, the way I saw it and the way I reflected on it were completely different. In 2026, I planned to run the first half quite quickly and then simply get through the second half as best as I could, expecting to walk the majority of it. I ended up completing it in this way and was pleased with the result. In 2011, the plan was not to run in this way and, although the run unfolded in a similar way to 2026, my view of the run for a long time was very different, often feeling disappointment and frustration at the event, even 10 years later.

To explain why I felt this at the time and to see how the expectations set for an event can affect and shape the way we do things, an explanation of the day itself and the lead up to it are the best way to understand it.

On the day of the event in 2011, Everything started as normal, although I was very conscious of what had happened the day before. I ate my breakfast as normal and was dropped off by mum and dad. I went through all the normal pre-race things I do and got myself ready to run. I started off the run comfortably, pushing myself because training had gone pretty well (I had run my first sub-50 minute 10Ks and first sub-1hr 50 mins half marathon, so I was in good shape). I was running along with the people targeting sub-4 hours and felt good. The first part of the course is up and down, but with the training I had done and routes I had done before, everything felt OK.

The first few miles ticked away and all went well until, at mile 10, I started to feel and sense what was going to happen. I managed to maintain some good pace but was feeling myself slow down/slow my pace, but continued to feel OK. I got to halfway (13 miles) in 2 hours and 2 minutes, but had been gradually slowing mile by mile between miles 10 and 13. It was at halfway, seeing a crowd at this point and heading the other way from the centre of town, that it hit me and not just lightly. It hit me hard! I was empty of fuel and didn’t have the energy to keep running. The night before had caught up with me and I couldn’t maintain the pace and ability to run anymore. From this point, it resulted in me walking and power walking as much as possible, all the way to the finish. Yes, that’s right, walking! A half marathon, having already done one half, all the way to the finish.

So, the reason why race day went the way it did! At this point in my running journey, I had an unusual and risky pre-race meal plan which, up to this point, had gone well (but the luck had to come to an end at some point!) My pre-race meal before runs was a Chinese chicken curry from a takeaway with rice and prawn crackers. The (very loose) science of it was that, with the rice, there were lots of carbs and, with the chicken curry, a good combination of carbs and protein. Honestly, I think this helped but it also made me relaxed and was a tasty meal leading into races.

Why did it all go wrong? Honestly, the problem on this occasion was that I didn’t like the curry and rice we had and I struggled to eat it, so I didn’t get the food I needed the night before the run. I was staying in a cottage on the outskirts of Brighton, travelling down the day before (but staying for the week after). On arrival, we looked for where the local Chinese takeaway was and found one close by. Without doing much research, we chose it and went to it that evening, ordering the normal order and thinking nothing of it. It was only when eating it back at the cottage that I found out that it wasn’t nice and I really struggled to get it down. I wasn’t keen on the other things I normally have in a takeaway (chicken and pineapple) and it was just an unpleasant meal. I should say that I have no recollection of where exactly it was and, on reflection, it is possibly just my tastebuds, but it doesn’t change the experience on that evening and the subsequent effects on the marathon the next day.

So, with the pre-race meal not going to plan and attempts to get fuel in other ways not having much impact (crackers and toast are no supplement for the rice and curry), I went into marathon day without the planned fuel and the result is as I have already explained.

Back to the day of the marathon and I have quite strong and vivid memories of the second half of the marathon. I remember that it was a very warm day, the sun shining and lots of people out supporting, particularly at certain points of the route. In the second half, there were points, running through residential areas, where people came out and offered amazing support. I remember that one person in particular had a bowl of jelly babies and, in my need for energy, I took a few, which was very unusual for me. They were very nice and very needed!

I also remember, and will always remember, the big signage at mile 20. It was designed to represent the wall, the notorious point for most people at which point they start to struggle and find it difficult, battling at a point where they have probably gone further than they have ever gone before. As well as thinking it was a bit strange to create signage highlighting this (it was only the second running of the event so maybe they thought they were being funny!), I also remember thinking that it was a bit ironic as, on this particular day, I hit the wall many miles before and it was now a battle just to get to the end.

Despite the challenges and the walking half marathon within the marathon, I still finished the marathon in under five hours (4 hours and 48 minutes) which was a great effort. It was surreal to go through so much and yet still complete the run in a good time, which was ultimately a testament to the fitness that I clearly had at that time.

The preparation for the marathon had gone really well and, at this point, I was probably the fittest I had ever been. As mentioned before, I had run my first sub-50 10K and first sub-1hr 50 half marathon, so the indications were really positive. It helped massively that, in the previous few months, I had been training to become a Personal Trainer, a course which was one week on, one week off of study, so the week of study was spent in the gym and classroom, regularly doing training and support to people also on the training course.

On weeks where I wasn’t on the training course, I didn’t do much training, but was walking on a regular basis and working in a running shop, which meant travelling into central London and doing lots of walking as part of the commute. This all added up to improve the general fitness I was building at this time.
Everything was pointing towards doing a decent marathon, certainly improving my PB at that time (four and a half hours) and doing well. Because of the circumstances around the marathon day and the fact that I walked half of it, the post-marathon effects were different to what I had experienced before and there were different benefits within this. The couple of days afterwards were typical (a bit sore and slow to walk around, feeling the effects of the marathon as I normally would) but within a couple of days, I was more mobile and starting to walk comfortably again (this usually took roughly a week). Even more surprising and shocking was that I went out for a run the following week and felt OK, running at a steady pace and generally feeling good. On previous occasions, it had taken 3-4 weeks to feel ready to go for a run again so things really did feel different.

The whole Brighton Marathon experience in 2011 was a strange one. Looking back, I wish I had capitalised more on it because I think it was the start of something big to build on but, as I now understand as part of getting to know myself and how things have unfolded, it wasn’t the way things went and it was difficult to do this as I didn’t really persevere with it when performances didn’t go as I expected in the following months, which then caused a bigger drop-off.

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