Paul & Cally's running tales
paul 
With the Dan’s Beer Run on the 18th of September looming large I’ve felt like I’ve needed to up my mileage to meet the challenge. The 50km course has been somewhat in flux with Dan & I tweaking various sections until it seemed like the route was in its final form. “Tweaking” generally went … Read more
Marlborough When planning, we aimed for the coast after a spell of good weather hoping we might find something in the South West. No luck, everything was booked up so we just kept zooming out of the map until we found somewhere with availability. This turned out to be Marlborough. It’s a beautiful and very … Read more
This one just sort of popped into the calendar. A month or two back Tom mentioned he was running this. I asked Cally if she was keen and received a non-negative response so I jumped on it and signed us up. While we gave done several runs together at half marathon distance or more, Cally … Read more
A surprise entry Three weeks before the race I received a “Dear runners” email. Wait what!? I’d forgotten that entries from last year’s cancelled race were automatically forwarded to this year and had put it completely out of mind. In 2020 I’d run this solo for my 12in12 July run. It is about as local … Read more
Pangbourne Jackpot! It’s always a bit speculative to go somewhere for the first time and just plot a route using OS maps. In truth the UK countryside is generally brilliant but sometimes it just works out better than others. Pangbourne turned out to be just beautiful. The choice to go to Pangbourne was pretty random. … Read more
It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to run in Cheltenham. With friends there, we make the trip several times a year (pre-COVID) and I just love to get out into the Cotswolds early in the morning and take in the local beauty. The trails are a great mix of fields, forests and … Read more
Sometimes you just have to go for it. Sometimes the challenge is just bigger than anything you’ve done before and you don’t know if you’re ready for it. This is how it was for Cally. This was also our first ‘proper’ instalment of our annual adventures challenge thanks to COVID lockdown easing. The event was … Read more
With the 50k looming we needed to get a long one in. In part for the miles and “time on feet” and in part to test the state of recovery of Cally’s knee injury. The route follows the Wandle trail to the Thames and then follows the Thames path on the South bank to London … Read more
Back in January Cally picked up a knee injury after pushing herself to her first ever half marathon on the hilly, muddy North Dows Way run. This is an ITB injury which has dogged her ever since. ITB strains are a devil and typically manifest as pain on the outer knee and take months to … Read more
Yet an another COVID restricted outing but one which took in a beautiful stretch of the North Downs Way (NDW) on a sunny March Saturday morning – what more could you ask? We set off from home around 6am in two cars leaving one at the finish in the Box Hill car park. It was … Read more