Q1.When did you start running and what got you interested in it?
2009 – My girlfriend wanted someone to train with for the London Marathon… in the end she didn’t get in anyway, but as we’d started training anyway, we carried on!
Q2. How many marathons have you run?
162 – (increasing weekly, MO)
Q3. What’s your favourite event?
Mississippi Blues Marathon in Jackson. Just a very friendly event in a small American city you’d never otherwise visit aside from there being a marathon on!
Q4. How many miles do you run in a typical week?
26.2 or 52.4! One marathon or two usually…
Q5. What’s your best ever running performance?
Getting off a plane from Dallas after having done nine marathons in nine days and driving straight to the tenth in ten days. Very tempted to just go home as had zero sleep on the flight… was worth it as that set the mark for marathons in 365 days at 115.
Q6. What running shoes do you wear and do you wear racing flats?
New Balance 1080s, no flats
Q7. What was your worst marathon experience?
Moors the Merrier in 2011 – Torrential rain, mist and murk on the Yorkshire Moors trying to find paths and landmarks in a seemingly never ending identical landscape of streams, mud and rain. Was just miserable, cold, wet, chafed and blistered to bits…
Q8. How fast could you run a mile on a track?
07:00 with the wind behind me!
Q9. What’s your marathon PB?
4:41 at the Andover Marathon 2011
Q10. What’s the best piece of training advice you were ever given?
Anything is better than nothing.
Q11. Have you ever had a serious running injury?
I’ve had all sorts. If you can imagine it, I’ve probably had it at some stage!
Q12. What training session do you find the hardest/dislike the most and what’s your favourite session?
Virtually all my training is in races… I barely train.
Q13. What is the longest race you have completed?
40 miles
Q14. Do you have a Favourite quote [running or otherwise?]
We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
Q15. Weirdest food you’ve ever eaten during a marathon?
Dripping sandwiches. One mouthful before I worked out what they were!
Q16. Strangest thing you’ve ever seen during a marathon?
Stepping out from a trail into a seaside town where the marshalls were dressed as pirates, we’d been out in the moors and looked a muddy mess and there were these pirates and lots of tourists and they all just kind of looked at us like we were insane!
Q17. What usually goes through your head as you cross the finish line of a marathon?
Job done.
Q18. Do you get narky if you don’t get a run in?
Nope!
Q19. Have you ever considered how you’d handle it if you couldn’t run again?
Am sure I’d find another activity to sate my OCD nature…
Q20. What event have you not yet completed that you would like to do the most in the future?
Something nasty, probably Badwater 135. Did the marathon there in 2011 but the ultra would be something else
