12 Mar 2017 | My running story |
In May 2016 I applied in the ballot for a place in the Virgin Money London Marathon 2017. It was the second time I’d applied having failed to get a place the year before for the 2016 race. It was a record year for applications with 253,930 UK runners entering...
7 Mar 2017 | Interviews with women runners over 50 |
Women over fifty are not often in the public eye, and we don’t know much about older women’s experience of participating in sport or their attitudes to exercise. Through interviewing women runners for my blog I want to share and give value to their...
9 Jan 2017 | My running story |
This is the story of how I got to the starting line of my first marathon and what happened on the day. Getting ready for the Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon on Sunday 9th October 2016 I thought about the interview I had done with Sandy Poole in January that year. Sandy had...
19 Oct 2016 | Blog, Running and the menopause |
Today (18th October) is World Menopause Day. I’ve spent quite a bit of time on Twitter participating in an awareness raising campaign organised by Henpicked, a network for women over 40, using the hashtag #HotFlashMob. It’s probably the first time...
18 Sep 2016 | Blog, My running story |
I’ve been running for over five years. Thanks to my half marathon challenge I’ve run 15 half marathons since turning 50 in 2013. After completing that challenge it felt like time to have a go at the full 26.2 mile distance. I’ve always felt...
23 Aug 2016 | Blog, My running story |
Today it is one year since I completed the slightly mad challenge of running 12 half marathons in 12 months. Here are my two sentence race reviews and ten things I’ve learned. September 2014 – Robin Hood Half Marathon, Nottingham “The one that nearly got...
29 Jul 2016 | Blog, Interviews with women runners over 50 |
I met Christine Heaton when I joined Holme Pierrepont Running Club five years ago. I soon realised that Christine was a fast runner. And it seemed she was getting faster. In 2015 at the age of 50 Christine ran a sub-20 minute parkrun (5 km), a time which placed her in...
21 May 2016 | Popular articles, Women's marathon history |
On a sunny day in August 1980, 181 women from 26 countries lined up in Battersea Park in London to run a marathon. It was the first time the city’s streets had ever been closed for a race. It was the 3rd August. Two days before, the men’s marathon had...
27 Apr 2016 | Blog, Interviews with women runners over 50 |
In February this year the parkrun organisation reported that over 50s had run 2 million miles at UK parkruns in 2015. Their data show that parkrun is encouraging people over 50 to become more active, and it is helping people of all ages to start running. It was at...
9 Mar 2016 | Blog, Interviews with women runners over 50 |
Did your life change at 50? Karen Parkin started running shortly after her 50th birthday and says, “It’s the best thing I ever did.” The data from Sport England’s Active People Survey suggest that Karen is not alone in taking up running in her fifties. In the nine...
