to bed. Turns out it wasn’t even ’is ’ouse. T’were ’is next door neighbours, like. To make things worse, he were sick on their cat.”“Aye. He ran a crackin’ race next day though. Knocked three seconds of t’ Commonwealth 10,000m record, as I recall

I’ve admitted this before in my column. But I suppose if confession is good for the soul, repeating the confession can’t hurt. So here goes: I’m crazy about running shoes. No I really am and I’m not joking.I like to look at them, read about them, try them on, and buy them. And I’...

. I felt great - I was well-rested, well-hydrated and ready to run. I soon managed to settle into my 7:00-mile pace and everything was going well. I'd never felt so good running and was well on target to achieve my 3:10 goal. But at Mile 15 I felt a

in case I had hypochondria. I get it when I’m meditating, too. I’m supposed to count out 10 breaths while concentrating wholly on my breathing. If my mind strays to anything else – Ducati motorcycles, the size of mangoes, the Shania Twain video – then I

to straighten me out. And while I am now satisfied that pain does not exist, I’m having a hard time convincing certain wayward elements in my non-existent body. Take my right hamstring, for instance. It all began 20 years ago when I fell down the lighthouse

the Regent’s Park Canal, I can’t help thinking I might have overcooked it a bit. Still, it certainly kept the taxman off my back, so I mustn’t grumble. First came the dental work. When I was 15, I paid a visit to my dentist in Middlesborough

children like pulling the legs off flies.I’ve always hated stretching. Warming up, it seemed to me, was a waste of time. As far as I was concerned, the first 10 miles of the race was my warm-up. Result: I am barely able to touch my knees, let alone my toes

this week I decided to secure a bit of moral support: I called up my old Marathon de Sade crew and tried talking them into joining me on the Jordan caper. Eadie, a veteran of the Himalayan 100, was cheerfully apologetic. “Sorry, sport, I’m doing a 200-miler

If the ‘World’s Toughest Foot Race’ was merely a race to develop the world’s toughest foot, I’d be laughing. I’d spend a couple of weeks firewalking in Haiti, soak the old plates of meat in permanganate, and bingo! – I’d be quaffing my Special Brew from the Jordan Desert Cup by C...

Why I should have imagined that a 14-mile run along the Cleveland Way in August might be good training for the 105-mile Jordan Desert Cup, remains a mystery. Perhaps I reasoned, not unreasonably, that August = Summer = Heat