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Fastness Is All In The Mind
By Andy Blackford on 04/09/2003 17:00:55
Running is a mental thing. But running 78K over Swiss mountains is a mental mental thing
As I once remarked to Rob Wright, a founder member of Numbskulls AC, “You know, running is a mental thing.” He nodded vigorously. “It certainly is, mate. Do you remember the Nude Year’s Eve Triathlon when we had to break the ice on Regent’s Park lake for the 200m Skinny Dip and ...
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Diet Hard
By Andy Blackford on 04/09/2003 15:29:06
Abstinence. Detoxification. Self-denial. Makes you sick, doesn't it?
recommend the Blackford Diet to anyone except hardened masochists and the criminally insane. By next month, of course, I may feel different.
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Runnin' Along And Feelin' Groovy
By Andy Blackford on 04/09/2003 15:49:58
Slow to start but a joy to experience? The benefits of a healthy lifestyle
Go on ask me how Im doing in my new, saintly lifestyle. Fine Im 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...
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Charity Fatigue Syndrome
By Andy Blackford on 09/09/2003 10:30:17
Charity may start in the home, but these days it always seems to end up at a race of some sort
In the last 20 years, running has become inextricably entangled with fund-raising.Correct me if I’m wrong, but until the first London Marathon we ran only for ourselves. When we turned up in the rain to plod round the Cabbage Patch 10, the last things on our minds were the dwindl...
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I Want To Be Part Of It...
By Andy Blackford on 04/09/2003 15:09:04
Our hero almost becomes reconciled to the charms of New York, New York
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...
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Coming To Life
By Andy Blackford on 04/09/2003 16:02:35
Marathon preparation with a twist: quit your job, catch a cold and drop your running buddy into a pit of despair
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 its thundering along at a five minute/mile pace.Theres no predic...
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Horse Sense
By Andy Blackford on 04/09/2003 16:39:13
Ever wanted to try horse racing - well now's your chance. But the horse always wins
biker with whom he was engaged in conversation. Andy, meet Rita!Yet be warned: the ordeal of Man v Horse is seldom alleviated by such entertaining diversions. Its a tough run, and if youre seriously thinking of following in the footsteps of a
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Pack Up Your Troubles
By Andy Blackford on 09/09/2003 10:58:31
From Souzaphones to spider monkeys - the correct kit is vital when preparing for a desert ultramarathon
As the Trans 333 looms ever closer, a frisson of pure terror is rippling through our little band of British ‘disties’ – we who are either too old, too fat, too lame or generally too congenitally useless to run anything under 100 miles in a time that wouldn’t invite the derision o...
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Excuses, Excuses
By Andy Blackford on 09/09/2003 11:49:06
Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction - but mostly it's the other way around
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
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