I recently entered the Shropshire Shufflers’ Severn Bridges 10k in Shrewsbury (after a little bit of a kerfuffle where it wouldn’t accept my affiliated club name) and ran with Gaz to celebrate his birthday. Never expected Gaz to choose a 10k to as a birthday celebration and yet here we are; I like to think of it as my good influence as a long time runner 😎

Katie, at lifeofamissfit, has some good tips for getting into running if you ever feel equally inspired by my awesomeness (hahahaha). Don’t ask me for tips, I haven’t figured it out myself yet.

Anyway – the 10k. The weather forecast on the day was optimistic – wet first thing but drying out in time for the race start – but it ended up being absolutely awful; I think it might have been the wettest race I’ve ever done, definitely the wettest 10k (and I’ve done a few). There were parts of the course where water was flowing down the roads and paths like a river and puddles so deep they were shin-level. Not a single inch of me was dry by the finish and I think it shows in my face in this photo taken near the end. 😂

Still, weather woes aside, it was a fun course and I’d like to do it again.

Before that though… the next race I have my sights set on is Newport Marathon. If I can complete that in April 2025, that will be a marathon completed in England, Scotland and Wales and one step closer to my “marathon in every major UK city” 40TBIF goal. Although I still haven’t actually defined what a “major city” is, and what to do if one of these so-called major cities doesn’t have a marathon; maybe I should do that first. 🤔

As it’s a local race, and Shrewsbury Half Marathon was a personal best setter for me in 2018 (even with its hills!) I felt obliged to enter this year’s race as soon as entries were opened. Despite promising myself I’d remain marathon fit after completing Edinburgh marathon back in May, I had let my long… read full entry »

This weekend saw me diverting from my Edinburgh marathon training plan to run Shrewsbury 10km, a race I’ve run and enjoyed 3 times now. I should have been clocking up around 26km but I didn’t feel like dropping one long run would dramatically affect my prep at this stage. Having made the decision to forego… read full entry »

I often find myself getting nervous before races, even courses I’ve run before, including at distances as short as 5km and 10km. However, you can imagine my surprise (and annoyance) when the week before my Storm the Fort endurance festival half marathon I started getting MEGA NERVES. I put the nerves down to feeling under the… read full entry »

I first ran the Ellesmere 10km, which is rated as one of the fastest in Britain, back in 2015. I finished in 01:04:51 utterly deflated and vowed to never run it again. I’d gone up with running buddies who buggered off and left me right at the start of the race and I failed to… read full entry »

A ‘How Hard Can It Be’ event, the Piece of Cake Half Marathon is a trail run in the picturesque Carding Mill Valley in Church Stretton, Shropshire. The ascents never seem to feel quite as vicious as the May Fourth half earlier in the year, but it’s a similar style of route with the bonus… read full entry »

Half marathons, that is. This year has unintentionally turned into the “year of the half marathon”, with one done (or planned) for almost every month so far. I didn’t start the year intending to run so many races, but I did want to get my running mojo back on track. Here’s a quick rundown (geddit)… read full entry »

For a large town, Telford has a pretty poor nightlife. With an estimated population of 155,000 (according to Wikipedia), which makes it the largest town in Shropshire, it beggars belief that we Telfordians have to travel to Bridgnorth, Shrewsbury and beyond if we want a few cocktails and some decent music to start a night out…. read full entry »

I’m currently stealing wifi from Gaz’s work in Shrewsbury having spent the day at the last Shropgeek (r)evolution conference. As the last talk – by Andrew Clarke – came to an end I got thinking about my origins in web development. In some ways it doesn’t seem like 5 minutes since I was publishing my… read full entry »

Gaz and I picked the kids up from Karl’s earlier today a little later than I would normally do so, so we decided to head out for some lunch. I left the decision up to Gaz as I was feeling a bit dodgy (self-inflicted, don’t ask .. or look at Instagram) and so he drove… read full entry »