Leaving Hull at 4am to drive 150 miles just to reach a start line is nothing out of the ordinary for me however driving towards a mountain range to start a race is slightly out of my comfort zone. As I approached the turn for Keswick I was even worried or nervous about the size of the hills as this was just a kit check and final injury check before the Lakeland 100. (which I would later fail at badly but that’s another story).

When trying to balance running and family life I often try and find races in places were the kids will enjoy themselves while I’m running and we can have a day out so we get the best of both worlds. So Dalby Forrest ticked all the boxes and I’d seen a few others had done it and said it was good fun so I thought I’d give it a bash. NO EGO the race series is called and that sounded like it was made for me – men of my stature don’t usually have egos, we leave that to the people who aren’t as good as us…