SportsShoes Blog

Sportsshoes.com are pleased to announce that we are supporting an exciting new running event taking place in Bradford in October. The Bradford City Run’ is designed for both runners and ‘first-striders’ alike to give you your own personal challenge within a festival atmosphere. Elite racers will relish the challenge (along with the prize fund) whilst fun-runners can use the event to build up to bigger challenges ahead. The unique nature of the course – using two distinct 5mile loops north and south from the city centre – means that entrants can opt to do just one this year and then go further next time. Choose from doing the 10mile race, 5mile run or a 4 person relay (over 10miles). For the younger ones there is a 2mile junior fun run. It will be held over closed roads from the city centre and out to two of the showcase parks, Lister Park and Bowling Park, on Sunday 18th October 2009. A full entertainment programme will run alongside in Centenary Square. For more information and to enter visit bradfordcityrun.com.

The race will be starting outside the Sportsshoes Unlimited shop in Bradford and will be attended by some of our staff, who will also be participating in the race! It should be a great day out for all ages and you will have the chance to test your running skills against some of the best runners in the city as well as some of our very own highly trained staff!

We hope to see loads of you there …

And good luck from the whole team here at Sportsshoes.com.

Well that’s been a grotty week hasn’t it….

Last Sunday morning I had a great run for a couple of hours over Ilkley Moor - it was freezing cold with ice on the ground, no mud but plenty of grip. It was the perfect morning for a long run so I made the most of my kids’ footy matches being called off and took to the hills.

Monday I cycled to work and on the way home as cold water trickled down between my butt cheeks I thought to myself “I really should have put my mudguard back on!!!”

Since then I’ve been crocked with a cold - a gift from my wife who has been struggling with a bad dose of girl-flu for the past couple of weeks.

Anyway on the postive side, it was a great time to have a cold and be laid off running as the snow and ice meant that it would have been pretty much impossible to do much anyway. I still managed my 2 dog walks each day to keep the old joints from seizing up.

It’s Saturday now and I think I’ve beaten my cold through a bout of ‘positive thinking’ I’m just at the green custard stage now - it looks very pretty in the snow!!!

I’m all psyched up again now after just talking to a chap (Rob Thackery) about his sub 10 hour Ironman so tomorrow I’m going to try another long trot over the moors - hope the weather holds.

I’d like to do an Ironman sometime soon but the training commitment is huge because of the three different events. I used to swim a lot as kid but not anymore - to get to a point where I could do 5 miles open water would be a massive challenge (and that’s before 100 miles on the bike and a marathon).

JI have ust come back from a break off the bike and so I’m getting back into it again now. Went to the gym last Thursday and absoloutly died!! Apart from that I’m just doing easy riding at the moment as I don’t have any competitions for a while.  The weather’s pretty bad at the moment - typically it was lovely weather during my week off! I tried to go for a run to make the most of the weather but only managed 20 minutes and had aching joints for 4 days afterwards! I should be hearing pretty soon about whether I’ve got a place on the Olympic Academy Programme which I applied for at the end of August! Fingers crossed!

Saturday - decided to race tomorrow at Oldfield. This is a nice little local fell race - just 5.5miles and 550ft of climb. Oldfield’s just about 8 miles from home so I’m going to cycle over to the race, run it, then cycle back - should be a decent training session.

As I’m racing tomorrow I just did a steady 40 mins this morning - similar route to yesterday but in reverse.

I’d left my trainers out all night so they were nice and squishy when I put them on this morning - didn’t notice after first field crossing!! 

I’ve been a bit off it this week but feeling better now.

Both kids have been off school after bouts of sickness and as ever they’ve been kind and generous in sharing everything with mum and dad!!

Got out last night with the club for a nice run over Ilkley Moor followed by a pint and a chin wag at Dick Hudson’s pub.

What’s happened to the summer? We were all out in wind/waterproof tops last night and it felt like October not July!!

2 weeks tomorrow to Borrowdale so will try and get out for a long run this weekend in preparation.

On the same day as the Borrowdale race, my mate Steve Fry is to start a solo attempt at running the Wainright Coast to Coast route (Whitehaven to Robin Hood’s bay) in 3 days. This will be around 60 miles/day up hill and down dale. I reckon it’s quite a challenge but if anyone can do it it’s Steve…..