Petite Feet Runaway

The rules on Christmas Day are that you must wear a santa hat and drink champagne before the run Running every day for a month is hard for most. Running every day for a month in the lightless arctic month of December in Scotland is harder still. Obviously, this had to become a challenge. This challenge had to be called The Marcothon. It is named after some bloke in Scotland. Marco runs more than occasionally. So does his wife. Google the story. You can even buy the t-shirt. Running every day for December when you are currently residing in summertime New Zealand and have very little employment obligations… not as difficult. Perhaps even cheating. But given that I have attempted numerous times in Scotland and achieved just once, I thought summertime New Zealand matched my commitment level more closely. The rules; run every day in December for at least 5km or 25 minutes (whichever comes first). Previously highlights included leaving a Mexican restaurant at 11:30pm after ...

Taranaki Round the Mountain  New Zealand 100 miles (160km) Friday 4 November 2016 at 17:00 Undulating road Preperation went pretty well in October. First I entered the race. Then I went on holiday to the Great Barrier Reef for a week. This was followed by a week in Myanmar and then another in Borneo. Three weeks of sweating, having a dodgy stomach and drinking beer. If anything, I'd prepared too much. I pretty much entered because both my father and Sarah love to crew me so much. I thought that it might be nice to look at Mount Taranaki. Having seen Mt Rainier, Mt Saint Helena and Mt Hood in July, I then visited an erupting volcano in Vanuatu in August! Seems that I now love volcanoes so much I want to run the entire way around one. With this being a long race and having no training, I warned them that it might get a little ugly. They were still up for it.  My father and friend Sarah sorted the race logistics while I worked on my suntan, swam with some tur...

The blame for my Cateran entry this year lies with Sandra and Ian Beattie. After mustering up the courage to take off my coat at their wedding (who knew I would gain so much weight and not be able to fit a dress I had worn six weeks prior?), I began consuming a few beverages and busting some moves on the d-floor. A conversation took place with Karen and George whereby we all confessed love for one another and the Cateran trail in general. By the end of the night Scott had agreed to do the 55-miler and I was set up to enter the 110. What was I thinking? Two serious concerns; 1 - I am a huge unfit piece of lard unable to run 110 miles, and 2 - there is no way I could get the Friday off work to start the double. Fortunately in the morning we came to our senses. Scott would marshal and I would do the 55.  I figure 55 miles is ploddable without training and the undulations in the route made it more forgiving on us unfit. A solid story which boosted my confidence. I like to run Donald-...