To begin at the beginning......

It all started in a pub, like so many crazy ideas.


I'd run into an old colleague at a conference.  We got onto the subject of fitness and running. Andy is younger and (much much!) fitter than me and had run a mountain marathon or two, and he said "You know what you should do. You should enter the OMM."  I laughed it off, but the thought niggled away...


I run a bit, maybe 6 - 8 miles a week.  A couple of years ago I was doing a bit more, driven on by a last defiant gesture of youth as I passed my half century, but a bout of sciatica and a hint of arthritis had kept me off the road for six months.  I gingerly started running again in November, and I have been working my way back to my old fitness, but I am still not there yet.

And then I bumped into Andy, and he raised the OMM.



It appeals, because I love the mountains.  I'd spend every waking (and sleeping) hour in the hills if I could, but content myself with irregular long weekends.  But I've been wandering the hills and mountains for years, and so the navigation challenges of a mountain marathon don't worry me.  I relish those challenges. It's the fitness that would be the real challenge.


I'm not sure what happened.  I was back to running over 8 miles and i felt good, so I spoke to my brother Pete and said "What do you think?" and he said "Yeah!", and next thing I knew I was £100 lighter as the OMM entrance fee disappeared from my account.  Hmm - Committed.


I also signed up for the Mean Streets bit of the Bristol Rat Race on 5 June (next weekend for those that are counting!), with Pete and Alice, reconvening last year's highly successful team (who came 95th out of 106 teams!)

So where are we now?

• The Rat Race is in 5 days, but I am just getting back from 3 weeks of no running after an old knee injury flared (mountain path, new camera, cold day, trip, caught camera but landed on knee!).  I'm feeling OK for the Rate Race, but not as good as I'd like. 
• We have entered the OMM, on the Short Score race (the simplest and shortest!), but we haven't got a place in the lottery yet.  That'll be at the end of July.

This blog will be my place for recording (mainly for me!) my progress from here onwards.....