The only way is UP.
MadMax
Blog started:
The only way is UP.
I like ultras and hills and trails. Buzzers, I love.
Go forth and...
Blog Statistics
| 62 | Blog Posts |
| 17 | Followers |
| 538 | Comments |
Some 12 hours before the start of my R86+ revenge round, I spotted a new bruise on the lower inside of my shin. The attachment point of the peroneal, outside of the leg above the ankle, was also a bit more sore and twingey than one would expect, having ...
Near on two weeks later and I'm still waking up on the Pennine Way in my dreams. Usually a technical bit, the rocks underfoot distant cousins of the one that tripped me up and fractured my finger on the Ridgeway back in May, this time buried to the left...
I do not like that DNF,
I do not like the miles I left.
I do not like that memory -
Of quitting time, of stopping me.
I do not like the dream replay,
I'm at mile 70 every day.
No bones were sticking out my leg,
I cracked just like a broken egg.
Two poin...
Who knew a cinder block could be so comfortable? May well have been at The Four Seasons, that. Solid underneath and a place of rest. Again.
My goodness, what a journey was that Ridgeway (not)86.
To my right, the path up to Waylands Smithy, tucked neat...
Surrounded by the inky Shropshire pre-dawn sky, I sat cross-legged in the road, hand torch clenched between my teeth, shining feebly over a map of the area. I'd fortunately been meticulous in marking up my desired route on the map, which is extra lucky,...
This was a two stick job, no bones about it. Three if you count the Buzzer baton, but that has now apparently transformed into a sausage, if you believe Dave Payne of Ultra Challenges.
I'm not sure where to begin as per, when something so massive has e...
My head, when writing about running, has been as blank as the race calendar I'd planned in 2020. What an odd place to be, where I've done more mileage, more training, than I'd ever done in my life, for no reason other than to not wither up and die of bo...
Some crazy year, this 2020.
I'm sat here looking at a blank white screen, admiring the silence of it, the truth of it, the possibility of it. It's one of the few things I can control in a world that's completely slid off its axis. You'd have to be a ca...
Considering the time of year, one could be forgiven for thinking the title of this post has something to do with the conclusion of a long running season. Which it does, in part. But the wrap in question is actually the ice pack currently strapped alongs...
I'm currently sat at my kitchen table, thinking about how I really should be out running in the rain to weather-acclimatise in time for Snowdonia in a couple weeks. But there's a tub of near scalding water directly beneath me. It contains my feet, a hea...
"It's getting dark in my head, can someone tell me a joke?"
The words I was about to type seemed a bit maudlin indeed, but facts is facts. But rather than worry the beautiful blob spotters sticking with me straight through to dawn over the course of my...
If there's one thing I've learned over the past few months, it's that you don't have to be fast to be a good runner.
And there, I've said it, and I am proud of it and it's been a long time coming, but I can hand on heart say I really do consider myself...
This Buzzer community is a bit like a fireworks show. Every year since I've been coming on here, the culmination of a year's worth of hard graft reaches its explosive climax in Snowdonia and then the quiet lull of the winter slips in, just like the snow...
I'm going to wake up tomorrow, fuel up and go run 10k. This is a very big deal. If you know me you may be laughing. 'Shut up,' you say. 'Big deal, my foot,' you say.
No. I'm going to fuel up and go RUN. 10k.
The last time I actually RAN 10k was summer...
It’s always so ridiculously hard to find the words to explain something that’s climbed straight into my soul and changed me forever. And some people reading this will find it completely cringeworthy and ludicrous that I always get emotional and wax poet...
Why do all the epic stories hide their beginnings from me? Too many divine moments? Too much bliss? Too great a life altering experience?
And so I begin from the middle. An exchange from somewhere in the midst of the 2018 Chicago Marathon, that race w...
Jim's blog-a-day has inspired me to update in advance of my second try at the big one. I'm afraid it's slightly unhinged.
As it stands, I think I'm going to need a much bigger shovel. That one I use to dig and dig deep. That stupid little back tweak I ...
It feels too late to blog about my second ultra. It feels too late to blog about the Marika Parkrun. It feels too late for lots of things when life is on full throttle and you are careening towards what's next. But these need a few words so I will honou...
The dust has settled well and truly atop the memory of the story I'm about to tell, but it's most certainly a story to be shared. It is a story of achieving the once un-achievable. It's a story of camaraderie, pain, frustration and the standard blood sw...
It's now four days later and my quads and calves are still screaming. They're sore. And so was I. They've been ravaged. And so have I.
Funny how I expected the climb of Scafell Pike to be the least challenging of all the national three peaks - the shor...
When the boys are away, the mummy will blog! And so I will start this post with the best news I've got going: the pain in my hip is gone gone gone. Like Dodo gone. Like bell bottoms and lambchop sideburns gone. Like this pint will be by the time I'm don...
I had to run Brighton, because it was going to be for Rukai. But I never should have made that start line. As it happens, were it down to the park and ride organisers, I very well may not have but some bloke in the crowd at Brighton Stadium decided to t...
Whereas previously during the few weeks before a marathon I'd be well fit and about to taper, looking forward to the short runs to prove the fitness I worked so hard to build up, here I am clock watching for my 1 pm physio appointment, wearing my fake U...
In the wee hours of this past Saturday morning I was awakened with a nudge by a word.
Apogee.
It never had any meaning to me; I probably saw it in a book years ago (who has time to read anything anymore?!) and once I registered it odd that it was stuc...
