Petite Feet Runaway

Abel Tasman Coastal Track New Zealand Great Walk 60km Sunday 22 January 2016 Weather Bomb The plan was to run the 60km Abel Tasman Coastal Track, one of New Zealand's Great Walks. Easy track, doable in a day, and the parents had offered to drop me at one end and then pick me up at the other end. Logistics dreams are made of. On Saturday my father asked me if I had looked at the weather for the next day. I hadn't. He had. He thought the run possibly wasn't a good idea. As I am now Scottish; a bit of rain was not going to put me off. Wind? Well, I don't understand the speeds when they are in wind form. What does gale force even mean? Who's this Gale and how strong is she really? And when describing wind to others why do I always lean to the left? So many questions; none of which will be answered on a solo 60km run.  We drove from Nelson, dodging fallen trees, and arrived in Marahau for a 7am start. A falle...

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...