been achieved with recourse only to unconventional training techniques. The drinking of cider, for instance. I clocked my PB for the Three Bridges Race (along the Thames embankments) while suffering a hangover of Olympian proportions. I’ve occasionally

.My training started in earnest last weekend with Man v Horse. Although it didn’t exactly mirror the conditions that I’ll experience in Wadi Rum – more rain fell in the first half-hour of the Man v Horse than has fallen in Jordan during the last 50 years

is oversubscribed by a factor of five. There remains only the technical question of how one trains for these hyper-mega-ultra events. After all, to prepare for a marathon, you need to put in a handful of 20-mile training runs. So should I bash off three or four 100

.Indeed in New York’s Central Park, where the runners are exclusively short, spherical, middle-aged ladies, The Twelve-Minute Mile Rule is generally observed. Out West, of course, they’re very laid back. In fact, there’s fierce competition between Californians

, according to a recent survey of RUNNER’S WORLD readers, I’m slightly less popular than Glenn Hoddle.Last month my running had descended to an all-time low. While training in the Peak District I was overtaken by a large boulder. I was deeply shocked

scribblings. And who knows? Perhaps they will trigger in him the blinding supernova of enlightenment, and my suffering will not have been for nought.You see, my metabolism has gone into reverse.I first noticed it about a month ago. My training for the Jordan

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...

Rings.If times get tough, he could hire out his chin to advertising agencies as a billboard. His biceps are so big, his tattoos are in wide-screen. Truth be told, he hasn’t personally trained me yet. I had to cancel our first appointment because

in the trackless dunes of deserts so wild that no man has subdued them with a name. These abominations I have endured without complaint. But last Sunday was the last bloody straw. It all began with a simple e-mail: how’s the training going for the Trans 333

railway trains and giant rodents. The few waking hours available to elite runners are devoted entirely to training. It’s the track, then the gym, then a carton of some unspeakable complex carbohydrate with the taste and consistency of estuary mud