Go Feet

We finally made it to Bude Sea Pool this week, 88m lengths of beautiful swimming on Summerleaze beach in Cornwall.

Seven Islands swimming pool in Rotherhithe is due to close later in 2025 to make way for a new swimming pool/leisure centre at Canada Water.

After a hot July evening Assembly League race around Sutcliffe Park this week, hosted by Cambridge Harriers, a drink was definitely in order and we were lucky enough to be able to enjoy the hospitality of the Old Roan Club just across the road from the pa…

Hilly Fields parkrun celebrated its 600th run today.

Detail from 'The Four Seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn', wood engraving by Tirzah Garwood (1927)

Good to see Tooting Bec Lido open to the public again after the winter break.

The beach at Camber Sands stretches for around three miles in East Sussex and at low tide is also very wide.

Had a quick dip in the cold sea last week at the Walpole Bay Tidal Pool in Margate.

Ongoing injuries have forced me to really cut down on my running but on a recent trip to Cork city for a family wedding I could not resist checking out a local parkrun.

Very pleased to have my piece 'Getting our breath back' published in Like the Wind magazine #24, accompanied by a fine illustration by Atul Vinayak and Jakob Owens.

This weekend I ran on a track for the first time in months.

Continuing my research on SE London sporting history, I came across this report of 'A Monstre Cycling Social' held at the Green Man Hotel in December 1886.

Interesting to see that a 'Louise Michel Sports Club' has been established in South East London, a radical group based around 'solidarity through fitness' with an initial focus on running, self-defence and hiking.

There is a scene in Céline Sciamma's 2019 film 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' where Héloïse, one of the two central characters runs towards the edge of a cliff from which her sister is believed to have jumped and killed herself.

Update 16/3/2020: Unfortunately this event has been postponed.

Really enjoyed 'Spinning Out', Netflix's new for 2020 figure skating drama.

I went for a swim a couple of weeks ago for the first time at London Fields Lido.

Secret Rivers, a recent exhibition at the Museum of Docklands, highlighted London’s lost and neglected waterways.

Dungeness on the Kent coast has a famously bleak beauty, a shingle headland between Romney marsh and the Channel.

I recently had a family holiday in the semi-desert landscape of Almeria in Spain - an area where many classic 'western' films were made, such as Sergio Leone's 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' and 'Once upon a time in the West'.

I recently came a couple of issues of 'Off our Blocks' a 'women's team sports zine' published in London in the mid 1990s, a time when women's sport had very little media recognition.

During the nineteenth century, and indeed earlier, a competitive run was often referred to as a 'foot race', presumably to distinguish the human event from a horse race.

Dunstable Downs rise in Bedfordshire on the edge of the Chiltern Hills.

I enjoyed 'The Ponds' (2018), Patrick McLennan and Samuel Smith's documentary following a year in the life of the famous outdoor men's, women's and mixed swimming ponds on London's Hampstead Heath.

One of the outdoor highlights of my year was a walk I did on Islay back in May with my son/long distance walking companion Billy.