Thank you so much for visiting my page, hope you can help with my milestone…

In less than a month, I’ll be 60! Eeeeek!

About 3 years ago I was looking for a suitable challenge to mark the occasion & happened to read about a new event in a running magazine… a Rat Race Adventures run starting on June 1st 2024 at Land’s End & finishing (I hope!) on July 5th in John O’Groats! But not the quick way, this will be a 1,030 mile, 70,000ft elevation adventure on a bespoke route designed to take in the most beautiful trails in the UK. Double eek! Run Britannia was piloted in 2022 & the first group of 27 embarked upon it in June last year (2023). My turn next!

Training didn’t really go so well – I think it was too far into the future! Well, now it isn’t!! I began to take it very seriously from the end of March and even more so since June 1st! And here we are February 1st with only 4 months to go, so I’m ramping up the miles, trialling kit & nutrition, cross training & building up strength.

The days will be run, eat, sleep, repeat! An average of 33 miles each day, although I believe that there are a couple of mammoth 40-42-mile days. But hey, after the first 7 days I will get a day off each week, so that’s only running 31 of the 35! There’s even a day that doesn’t even reach marathon distance at a mere 25.3 miles!

My pesky alter-ego, Brewski, the Marathon Mongrel will be helping me out with some training runs, but he’s most certainly not welcome on Run Brit! He’s not a long-distance dog! (Remember how long it took him to do the London Marathon!! Almost 8 flippin’ hours!) So, for now he’s retired from marathons, instead he’ll do the London Landmarks Half Marathon in April, Race the Lights 5K in August & The Great North Run in September.

In fact, together we're aiming to complete 3,000 miles throughout 2024! Find me on Strava to follow mile by mile! I'll actually be carrying a tracker up the country with me, so there'll be a dot to watch!

We’ll be doing it all for Dogs Trust in memory of the much loved, mightily missed Brian Coulthwaite (my cousin’s late husband). It’s his big birthday too this year – he would have been 60 on September 17th 2024. As many of you already know, he loved his dogs & was a keen Dogs Trust supporter himself.

So, Big Birthday Britannia here we come, watch this space…