It all started as a dare last November, on a friend’s birthday, going for a birthday swim without a wetsuit in our slightly chilly Atlantic water.  I’m known for wearing layers under a wetsuit, taking long hot showers and shivering on the regular, so this wasn’t likely to be enjoyable.  But I’ve watched The Revenant, […]

Read more "Robben Island to Big Bay"

   How do you review a set of wheels that arrive in SA, described as ‘the fastest wheels ever’? Probably best way to ask the most scarediest 40 year old female at Ironman South Africa, to race on the most pitted roads, with potential for some serious crosswinds, and a few tricky turns thrown in […]

Read more "Knight Composites: a wheely good review"

   You try every pair of running shoes available in your size, filtering out the ones that feel wrong at the heel, around the toes or under your collapsed arches. You rule out the most expensive, because – well – you have school fees to pay. Then dismiss the pair in the crazy colours that […]

Read more "New Shoes"

   I grew up cycling in the UK, decades ago, touring and time trialling, compulsory cycling proficiency tests in primary school, and bombing around the village streets with other free-range kids on bikes. Thirty years on I’m raising my own brood, trying to share the love, and living as a pretty well integrated ‘alien’ in […]

Read more "Cycling in the UK and SA"

  Standing still (when you just want to go).  2015 has been a challenge, two steps forward, two steps back. The first three months was spent between the dentist (repeatedly) and healing skin and ligaments in my neck and wrist. Learning to get comfortable and regain some confidence at speed on the bike. I thought I […]

Read more "Running to stand still"

As the parent of hormone-bursting, agonisingly-awkward pre-teen twins, I recently began having flashbacks to my own childhood cringe moments. There are so many, I’m amazed to have survived – at the time these things happened I just wanted to DIE of shame.   My parents were NOT NORMAL. I see them as the incredible human beings […]

Read more "The awkwardness of adolescence"

This weekend is 70.3 World Champs in Zell-am-Zee Austria, and I’m not there; 2015 didn’t quite follow my plan. Kona didn’t follow my plan either, so plan B it is this year. Plan B is nice and simple. Plan B is ‘Just f#%^ing race!’. It’s not a ‘nice’ trait, but if I find myself on […]

Read more "Just F#%^ing Race"

 I love the feeling of being fit and strong.  The lowest point I remember in my life so far, was when I had glandular fever (mononucleosis), 9 months in, and no sign of it passing.  Some days the virus would appear to have passed, only to leave me lethargic, flat on my back for whole […]

Read more "Efficiency"

Getting back into my regular training routines and finding a way to run outdoors, I agree to meet a friend on some of my 60 minute run. We are different paced runners and have different objectives. She is on a recovery run, I have a fun fartlek session. We both have to be back home […]

Read more "Poo story (a truly uneventful but shitty run)"

In early December, I felt my world shifting around me.  The children finished their third year at school in South Africa, and I decided they would change schools in January – a big decision.  My body was not yet healed after pushing hard in Kona, though I battered myself to race and win Coronation DC, […]

Read more "Forced rest!"