10k done! I'd set myself a challenge of running 10k  everyday on the treadmill and see how many days in a row I could do.  Some kept asking how I could do this, wasn't it boring? No, not really, not when you challenge yourself and give yourself small targets to achieve constantly.  I was also currently trying to improve my flexibility and improve the strength in my lower back as this was always the problem area.  I'd begun by going through my normal repertoire of stretches but decided it was time to expand the programme a little.  I bravely walked towards, now prepare yourself, the big beach ball looking things!  I know, not that adventurous but to me this was a whole new world!  So just imagine it, there's me arching backwards over this great big space ball copying exactly what the woman I saw the day before doing.  For some reason though my hands didn't meet the floor and before I new it I'd flipped off the big bouncy ball rebounding off the wall off mirrors.  As most people do I quickly tried to recover myself sitting bolt upright like a Meerkat pretending I was doing a new highly upto date stretch whilst alertly scouring the room to see if anyone had noticed my circus act.  Highly amusing I am sure if anyone had, I just tried to style it out like it was normal ha ha!

This was the beginning of my search for pushing the boundry and looking for a greater challenge.  I'd decided running the Yorkshire Marathon which was to be held in York would be the start.  I was having this re-occurring question rattling round my head of 'how far is too far?' , 'how far could I actually go if I tried?', this is where my challenge was born, I couldn't let this thought go it kept coming back, like Arnie!


Training was becoming more and more consistent, gym sessions, short runs, long runs, squash and brace yourselves, Body Balance! We'll come back to this as it deserves its very own little section.  So the morning runs became habit and running with other people started to help the motivation to get out of bed and run.  There are a vast amount of fantastic people out there with brilliant characters and personalities you just have to find them.  Well its save to say I'd definitely found not just one but a few.  To name a few, there nicknames were  Costa Darren, Pistol Pete, Mad Dog Adam, oh and Princess Faye!  Now these names are perfect for them, I have been on many morning runs with Darren where a strange ritual takes place, one that I have never come across ever before and quite frankly don't think I will ever again contrary to what Darren says about being normal.  We would arrange to meet earlyish if he could manage to actually crawl out of bed and head off through town on route across the city. Now normally I would avoid stopping and taking a not so well earned break but on this occassion Darren informed me how beneficial an Expresso is mid run!  I looked at him with a very confused look on my face and he convinced me this is what we should do.  Well apart from looking incredibly out of place in the shop at 7am, two guys sweating profusely and steaming like two boiling kettles, the expresso did not settle well in my stomach but on I pressed with our run  persuading myself this was good for me.  This became the ritual, in fact it gained the title of 'The Costa Run' hence 'Costa Darren'.

My other running buddies I will briefly introduce, we have 'Pistol Pete'  aptly named as he prefers to run much quicker than me and is always pushing for a better time or pace.  He likes to run with me as I am steady Eddy and I like running with him, apart from the banter, as he pushes me out of my comfort zone.  We then need to mention 'The Princess', the first run I did with Faye was the 'Mo Run' in Leeds this was in Movember and I had grown a great tash for this event, never to be repeated I will let you know.  Faye is always in pristine clothing brand new, and this run was a little muddy I remember it very well.  I can see her face now once her trainers started becoming a little less than bright ha ha!  Faye has become a great runner since that cold wet day in November and all credit to her for continuing, although not quite buying into running 100 miles yet though!  This brings me on to 'Mad Dog Adam', now I need a real gritty name for Adam as that sums him up.  He loves the challenges and gets stuck in.  Always looking like he's in agony yet always ahead of me, as most people are.  Funniest thing happened whist out on his first Hardmoors venture, this will stay with me forever, so funny.   There we were bouncing down this trail on the Yorkshire Moors, Adam running with a spring in is step looking like a hyper Kangaroo and me slugging it out behind looking half dead.  Now Adam was chancing it a bit on this day by running in some normal running shoes rather getting the more traditional tried and tested trail shoes.  He was having a great time no one problem at all, leaving me to question why I'd just spent a fortune on pair to look the part now I was a through and through true trail runner with a couple of runs under my belt.  This was going so well, until the fateful moment when I shouted up front to him 'hows it going, those trainers ok?'  his reply was a loud 'yep great, loving it!' then swoosh down he went sliding across the trail slipping and glidding down his side roughly through a gorse bush.  Now at this point I was beside myself with uncontrolable laughter almost crying from what I remember, then I quickly thought best ask if he's alright and needs a hand.  He was fine just a bit of ego bruising and some pretty painful needles stuck in his hand, ooouuuch!

These trail runs are brilliant if you ever get the chance then look up Hardmoors Trail runs they are great fun in a beautiful part of the world, YORKSHIRE!

Just so its fair, I will let you all into a little secret, my running nickname!  Its not Lightning Eddie I'm sorry  to say, or Bolt, or Dash!  No its much more dynamic, charismatic than them, its.........'Diesel' yes like a steam train or locamotive that just chugs along ha ha!

justgiving.com/edbarkerwyatt

So how did this all start I here you ask?  Well once I had started getting out on regular morning runs the addiction kicked in. Morning runs turned into evening runs, lunch time runs, any gap during lessons runs to more than once in a day runs!

Previously I had done no official events I had only run to improve fitness or during the latest attempt to lose a bit of weight.  Until April 2006, I  signed up to run the Flora London Marathon.  I fancied a go, I had the mentality of 'How hard can it be' and 'its only four 10k runs'.  Now with my die hard mentality I did a bit of training never going beyond 10k as I thought this was enough as long as I did it regularly.  Coming up to the event the last two months of training, if you could call it that, was dissasterous as with limited training or lack of training you become vulrunable to injury.  I'd damaged my foot, this was a real problem as couldn't run on it, not that I was training that much anyway ha ha!  Before long the Marathon was upon us and off we went on the train to the big smoke 'London'.

So I set off on this cold misty London Sunday morning, among thousands of others I stood with absolutely no idea what I had let myself in for!  Those great words kept rattling around my head 'how hard can it be' well I'm about to find out.  So off I trot passing all the great distractions around me, its great so many things going on, bands playing outside of pubs, clowns on unicycles juggling and bongo drums banging away.  Wow! just passed the half way point can't believe it that wasnt so bad!  How wrong could I have been, by the time I staggered over the finish line I was in bits physically, mentally I was strong as was in the mind set to just keep going but my feet were blistered and bruised and curled in as you do when things hurt relentlessly causing massive stress on ankles, knees, hips and back.  In turn each of these parts of me were aching enormously but off I hobbled to the meeting point of my loved ones as agreed beforehand.

Back at the flat sometime later, beer in hand and dinner on the way I put myself through the second excruitiating part of the day, the deadly shower!  If anyone has been through this deathly torturous ordeal they will know my pains.  This was the worst part, as a novice to this running malarkey I hadn't subscribed to the techniques other runners used (stupid Ed)  to avoid these painful times, I hadn't used any lubricant in vulnerable areas therefore I was sore, not just normal 'oooh my skin stings sore' I mean 'its burning through me like someones pouring acid on me sore'.   Lets just say this left me with a very uncomfortable evening of trying to smile and say how much I enjoyed the experience and how everyone else should have a go next year, ha ha ha!

The train home was an interesting experience, if you can imagine me sitting or should I say lying in the middle aisle with my legs stretched out as my knees wouldnt bend and if they did I would get cramp and scream out with a screaching yelp, and my poor girlfriend who at this point was 5 months pregnant was not entertained in the slightest by my needs being greater than hers looks and expressions.

Back to York and back to work straight away, on the tennis court with absolutely no intention of moving at all for the ball.  Lesson learnt..............


Absolutely not, If I had just trained a little harder 'how hard can it be' oh yeah most important of all the use off vaseline (other products are available, just make sure you use one unlike me!)  Funnily enough I didn't do another run of any kind for approximately 7 years. Thats how much those acid burning sores haunted me!

So today I started this blog, I have to be honest I am not the most computer literate person around.  I don't really know what a blog is, where does that word come from is it like log book mixed together?? From reading a few others it seems like a bit of a diary correct me if I am wrong!

Any way, getting back to the running I have had a very pleasant pre-sunset run this afternoon on a chilly not too winters day.  It was great to get out again, seems like only yesterday, hang on it was ha ha! Wrapped up like I was summitting Mount Everest or something, ready to be frozen.  It started off quite mild which sent many questioning comments through my head like 'why I am wearing all this?' and 'isn't it meant to be winter?' and 'shall I take the hat and coat off and put in my bag to put on later?' or 'maybe the thermal top may not have been needed' or 'what shall I do with this buff?'.  By now a good 2 miles had gone and I hadn't answered any of my questions I'd just kept going, which is what you have to do right!

This all brought me to a couple of major questions that people keep asking me which I suppose are quite interesting debatable points really.  The first being, 'why?',  now I have read many running books recently and this question comes up in all of them.  The answer is pretty much the same just often given more time than  is needed.  Its quite straight forward surely, only the person doing it knows but don't ask them because they can't answer you as its something you have to experience and feel and it will be different for each person.  There is no answer, all I know is it makes me feel great, it keeps me fit and its bloody addictive! (Oh, and it usually warrants a pint afterwards)

Ok so this brings me on to my main point or question, 'what do you think about while running, don't you get bored?' This is really tricky, because as it happens I was thinking about things to write here and how I was going to do it.  Many funny things went through my head, good topical points, interesting discussion points, just focusing on one foot in front of the other, how many miles I had done and how many to go, where I was at the point in time, how low the sun was and was I going to get to the point with street lights in time before it was too dark and unsafe on the road, how warm I was because of the all the extra clothing I'd put on but actually the temperature is falling now so was I right to put it all on, how many miles would that mean I have done this week if I do this many today, how far shall I do tomorrow, can I actually do 100 miles, how would I do it psychologically, would I break it down in to 10 runs or 4 marathons or 8 half marathons, will it hurt er yes stupid it will hurt, how much will it hurt, how can I prepare mentally for this, and so on and so on?  Breath.........

  I don't see a problem myself, never bored and never run out of questions to occupy my mind. These got me through about 5 miles so you can imagine how many more I had floating around ha ha!  Again, this is only me I don't know about others, one mans madness is very unlike anothers!!!

So here is where I will leave it today, what do you think about when you run?

Sunday 25th,
.... early start after my first night run around the streets of York which was a strange feeling.  Either running in a direction where you barely have enough light to see my feet or the path, to passing people going to the pub or a party singing and cheering.  Great feel about being out there while others are sitting down to watching TV or even just doing nothing.

Its been around 18 months since I started this running malarkey, with no particular goal or aim just a client Mathew who said I should meet him one morning and go for a run.  I quickly agreed as was intending on beginning a new regime so this looked like the perfect starting point.  Well I started ok but after about 4k I had to stop for a second as started feeling a bit sick.  For someone who has always trained, loved being outdoors playing sport and pushing my body to the max. I realised my fitness had dropped and my weight increased!  It was time to do something about this.........