This year was supposed to be my big year of racing. With plans to amass enough points to compete at the UTMB. However due to multiple surgeries and guide dog training that wasn’t meant to be. So I figured my 2012 racing wasn’t to be.

Until! A friend of mine Charlie told me that the Great North Run were using the commercial I shot in the emails they were sending out. This inspired me to email ASICS and ask for a slot at the GNR. ASICS granted me the slot and I will now be heading to the race and running with Charlie and a runner I met recently Bryan.

With my 2012 qualifying a wash, I decided to compete in 2013 to qualify for UTMB. Now in order to even get to the qualifying races I need to qualify for the qualifier! They don’t make this easy! So I will now also be running The Round Ripon again with Bryan. This will hopefully secure my slot at Thames Path 100 mile next year which makes up part of the Centurion Grand Slam, which in turns gives me the UTMB points. Stick with me here!

I then got an email from a runner friend of mine Neil Bacon. He said why don’t you ask ASICS to put us both in the NYC marathon. I thought, hell why not so I shot off an email. Amazingly they said yes and got us in! So I am now running the only marathon I have ever wanted to run! It has been on my list of races to run even before I started running. Its just one of those marathons that draws me in. Me and my wife have spent a fair bit of time over in NYC so I know it from back when I could see. So it will be wonderful to return there now and run the streets.

The racing doesn’t end there though. I get a lot of random invites to races all over the world. California, Andora, Africa, Cyprus basically loads of places. (If anyone out there wants to invite me to a race do it, I love to go all over the place and run). Well a few months ago I received a message on Facebook asking if I wanted to run a marathon underground in a salt mine. All I would have to do is get to Germany the rest would be sorted. So I thought, why not?

So now I have a wonderful race lineup over the next few months. My first ever half marathon and my first ever marathon. That does sound a little strange considering the distances I run, but I don’t really compete at the short distance.

(I did compete in the Sheffield Half as part of The Marathon Sandwich, but GNR will be my first straight up half!)