’twas a night before Christmas 2014 when a small group of Leighton Buzzard and Milton Keynes runners were out celebrating the end of a fine year of running. Young Pete Mackrell had run a new marathon PB of 2:40:29 in Cologne in September and followed that up with a fine 2:42:04 in a bitterly cold and windy New York two months later….New York marathon…..one of the six marathon majors….one beer led to another, and another beer (or three) led Pete to an idea….a wild idea….’what if I could run all six marathon majors in a two year period he questioned?’ ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Gary, ‘you’ll never do that!’ read more

Loch Ness Marathon

by Conn Bardi

10th February 2012 – the beginning of my diagnosis with fibromyalgia

25th September 2016 – I ran my first marathon, in Loch Ness.

My journey into running took off in February 2016. I cycled a lot up to then, but it used to leave me tired – both physically and mentally. Physically because it simply did not agree with me. Mentally, because I had to deal with traffic, cars, roundabouts. With the aggression on the roads on the increase, going for a ride became a chore. So my running jaunts in my old pair of trainers became more frequent. The jog round the block grew into a commuter-run. The commuter run turned into a longer trail round my town on my rest days. In time, distances that left me sounding like a nuisance caller, were not challenging enough. My body was growing stronger, my energy levels were rising, and – unlike cycling – I was not dodging cars. The bike was left parked and a new pair of trainers took its place. I learnt about parkruns, gait analysis, and wondered why 6.2 mile races were called 10k. read more