Dorney Lake 10km – 12/12/21

The Spring of 2016. It was announced that there would be a referendum to decide whether the UK would stay in the EU. Tim Peake became the first British astronaut to walk in space. England won their last Grand Slam in the 6 nations. Joe Spraggins ran a personal best at the Kingston 10km, when …

London Marathon – 03/10/21

It's been two and a half years since the last London Marathon (no one counts any of that virtual rubbish), and the world has been through an awful lot of pain and misery since then. If there's a event that, without fail, brings happiness and joy to people's lives, it's got to the be the …

2020 review – racing/training summary

2020 - let's not try too hard to remember it. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster of a year, and I know lots of people have really suffered in a number of ways. But, there's still been plenty to smile about. The real silver lining probably being that this post might be shorter than …

Goodwood marathon – 06/12/20

Regular subscribers will once again note that it's gone a bit quiet on the ol' blogging front in the last couple of months. That tw*tty virus is very much still amongst us, like that annoying hanger-on at a party that you just can't get rid of. I'm struggling with it, as I'm sure are 99.9% …

Cape Peninsula Half Marathon – 16/02/20

Good morning/afternoon sports fans. Yet another slightly longer gap between posts. Not me being lazy this time, just no real races of note to report on, and nobody wants to hear 'I ran x miles on Monday followed by swimming x miles on Tuesday etc etc' - people only read to hear about me making …

Valencia Marathon – 01/12/2019

As reported on these pages, as well as in various national and international press publications, 2019 hasn’t entirely gone to plan for Joe Spraggins. Seemingly never-ending waves of viral fatigue, bouts of depression and just a general attitude of can’t be arsed has led to a decline in fitness and results to match. However, the …

Frankfurt marathon – 27/10/19

Frankfurt. The financial centre of Europe, apparently. It was time to go and cash in some of those training chips. Unfortunately, I didn't have many, as alluded to in my post last week. However, this trip was all about the cleverer, prettier and less annoying person in our household - and she'd been working hard …

Edinburgh half – 26/05/19

12 years ago, I ran my first half marathon, venturing across the border to Edinburgh. It wasn't pretty and I didn't have a Scooby Doo what I was doing, but I got around. That evening, we went out for a celebratory meal, discussing whether or not I'd ever do another one. Consensus at the time …

Green Belt Relay 2019

The Green Belt Relay. Who can think of a better way of spending your entire day, than being shuttled around the outskirts of the M25 in a minibus, sharing close personal space with 43 other runners who have raced but definitely not showered, before getting a few hours kip and doing it all over again? …

Wimbledon 10km – 12/05/2019

It's the one they've all been talking about in the papers. In the final week before the race, the media attention was relentless, with a reporter from the Wandsworth Guardian camped outside our house, hoping for a scoop. He managed to get a photo of Katie taking the bins out in her slippers, before she …