Blackford on...The New York City Marathon... "Given that I dislike New York and loathe marathons, I enjoyed the New York City Marathon immensely. It started well – I managed to avoid getting peed on from the upper deck of the Verrazano Narrows

I’m writing this in the hope that it may help in some small way to hasten the progress of sports medicine. Perhaps some hapless researcher out there, trying vainly to comprehend the intricacies of the human mechanism, will glance at my poor scribblings. And who knows? Perhaps th...

You can tell a lot about a country by the quality of its roadkill. In Britain, for instance, it consists mostly of pheasants – slow, dim birds, imported from China because English aristocrats were too slow and dim to hit anything of local origin. I’ve run in countries where the...

recommend the Blackford Diet to anyone except hardened masochists and the criminally insane. By next month, of course, I may feel different.

of Blackford has been synonymous in Mauritania with colonial exploitation of the worst – or more accurately, the wurst – kind. For me to attempt to enter the country would be suicide.Actually, you may be surprised to learn that none of that is true. I invented

as fast as today’s sorry bunch.“Ah! Good morrow, Mister Blackford!” At least Norman managed a semblance of cheery bonhomie. Harry just grunted at the dog, and Big Ron barely raised a grimace.“You’re slow today,” I replied as I tagged on to their flank

Given that I dislike New York and loathe marathons, I enjoyed the New York City Marathon immensely.It started well – I managed to avoid getting peed on from the upper deck of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. I’ve always maintained that during the early stages of a marathon, it’s ad...

Did I ever tell you about the time I nearly froze to death on the remote Atlantic island of South Georgia? While running solo across the ice cap, I’d fallen into a swamp of frozen guano. My blood had attained the colour and consistency of blackcurrant jam before I struggled to te...

Go on – ask me how I’m doing in my new, saintly lifestyle. Fine – I’m doing just great. Not a drop of alcohol has passed my lips in three months, nor a single cup of coffee or tea. No harmless creature has laid down its life to feed me (apart from a handful or organic, free-range...

Life, I have concluded, is more like a fartlek session than a marathon. It jogs along for years at a steady pace – then it passes the second lamppost after the church and vroom! – its head goes down and suddenly it’s thundering along at a five minute/mile pace.There’s no predic...