Google “marathon mistakes” and you’ll find lots of articles giving advice about how to avoid things going wrong in a marathon. You shouldn’t overtrain or undertrain, don’t forget to taper, get to the race in plenty of time, don’t get cold at the start, don’t go off...
Women’s endurance running history articles
An Olympics timeline – women’s running
On Friday 30th July 2021, the athletics programme at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games gets underway. Female athletes will compete in a full range of running events with eight distances from 100 metres through to the road marathon. In addition, the programme includes 100...
Women’s History Month – marathon stories
Find out about some of the women who have made their mark in the history of the women’s marathon, from Violet Piercy’s solo run in 1926 to Paula Radcliffe’s world record in 2003.
IAU 24 Hour Championships Milton Keynes 1990 – the greatest race yet
An ultramarathon in a shopping mall Until 1994, nearly all shops in the UK were closed on Sunday by law. Small “corner shops” and newsagents, garden centres, chemists and and garages were allowed to open but large shops were not. This meant that the big shopping...
Book review “Broken” by Ally Beaven
The subtitle of Ally Beaven’s book, “Broken”, is “2020: the year running records were rewritten”. 2020, our first year of living with Covid-19, was a year when plans were thrown in the bin and runners looked for new ways of motivating themselves to keep running and...
Hell in Paradise – the 1994 Telecom Tasmania Run
“The organisers dubbed this race “Hell in Paradise”. I am sure that when they coined this phrase they never anticipated how right they would be.” This seven-day stage race lived up to its nickname in more ways than one. Eleven of the 27 starters didn’t make it to the...
The perfect day – Melbourne 24h track race 1989
It isn't too often that everything goes well and perhaps this is part of the attraction of the 24 hour race - the waiting for the perfect day and the perfect performance. Eleanor Adams The period from 1985 to 1990 saw top performances from Eleanor Adams (now Robinson)...
Women’s marathon history – the 1960s
Imagine a time when women did not run in road races. Imagine a time when women were told distance running would harm their health. Imagine a time when running in a marathon meant risking being jeered at or even assaulted. This time was in my lifetime. I was born in...
IAU 100km World Champion Eleanor Adams Robinson
The first ultrarunning World Championships were created in 1987 when the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) held the inaugural 100km World Championships in Torhout, Belgium. What attracted top-class ultrarunners like Eleanor Adams to take part in this new...