Blog About Sam's Thoughts And Riting Diary

How relevant is the author’s interpretation of his/her own work? Whilst cycling home from Greenwich one evening recently I had an idea where a man rapes his shadow and is sentenced to live in the dark. I actually forgot about it, as I was preoccupied trying to stay upright, and luckily the idea resurfaced a few days later – at a time when I had access to a pen and paper. As with pretty much every other idea I have, I wrote a few thoughts down, left it, and came back at a later date. I’m still not completely happy with the final result, as I’ve managed to create a more concise version of the same story in just six words: Shadow rapist sentenced: lifetime of darkness I do prefer the six-word version, though I will continue to talk about the original for now. There are certain subjects that I don’t feel comfortable writing about – I won’t go into them now – but essentially it is because either I am not the right person to talk about such a topic, or I don’t hav...

Race three of four (see:  Beachy Head  & Box Hill Ballbuster ) was the Poppy Half in Bexhill-On-Sea. Held annually on Remembrance weekend, the Poppy Half commemorates the First World War and raises money for worthy charities. Last year I trained for and ran the Half as my first ‘proper’ race at that distance. I have completed Halfs (I know that looks wrong but ‘Halves’ looks wronger 😀) in the past but I haven’t trained adequately, or I've aimed to finish. Last year I raced the distance and completed it in 1:38:02. This year, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, my training has been somewhat different. Running took a backseat after Hastings Half in March and, truth be told, has hardly spent more than a long weekend in the front seat. Cycling has been my main form of training with running ticking along in ‘maintenance mode’. There’s no doubt I would get faster by running more but I have struck a good balance between enjoying the training (I’ve averaged...

The Ballbuster is a biannual event held in Tadworth, Surrey. The race starts and finishes atop Box Hill, which was used as part of the Olympic Road Race in the London 2012 Olympics. I decided to enter the event as it looked a genuine challenge and, aside from various marathons, there isn’t much locally that offers an opportunity to really test myself. As an added incentive the Ballbuster serves as a potential qualification race for the Long Distance Duathlon Age Group World Championships, held annually in Zofingen, Switzerland. The only criterion is to finish within 115% of the winner of your age group’s time.  For example, if the winner finishes in 3 hours, I’d need to finish within 3 hours 27 minutes. (3 hours = 180 minutes. 180 *1.15 = 207. 207 minutes = 3 hours 27 minutes.) Why not try and qualify for the World Championships in Switzerland? Might as well. That’s what I would try to do. As with every achievement in life, there would be a number of obstacl...

I haven’t written anything about training since finishing LEJOG back in July, so it’s about time I write up what I’ve been doing. Yesterday (Saturday 27) I raced the Beachy Head 10k (which is more like 9.3km but that’s not as catchy) down in sunny Eastbourne. Matt, who went on to finish third, signed me up as a birthday "present" and I have to be honest I wasn’t looking forward to it. The timing of the race – a week before my “A” race (more on that later) – wasn’t ideal and I hadn’t done an awful lot of off-road training, other than a semi-regular 10k run around Knole Park with Ironman Tom. I decided to treat it as a “B” race – I'd race all out but wouldn't taper or make any exceptions. E.g. I commuted 40 miles by bike the day before like normal. Regardless of how I felt about the race I’d only ever miss it if injured, and with not even a niggle to worry about, I’d no choice but to show up and see what happened. Over the summer Matt mentioned a possib...

Mike Hall, an awesome, highly successful endurance cyclist died in March 2017 after a driver hit him at 62mph while Mike was racing the Indian Pacific Wheel Race, in Australia. I am writing this article now because the inquest is to be concluded this week. A few things I'd like to bring to light, from the Guardian's  article : "The inquest heard Bobb had seen a truck parked in an unusual place on the Monaro Highway. When he  refocused on the road , he saw something briefly but  had no time to avoid  what he believed was an animal."  [my boldface] So are we going to ignore the fact the driver WASN'T LOOKING at the road when he hit Mike? What use is Hi Vis clothing, reflective lights, any kind of lights at all if the driver isn't looking at the road ahead? "An inquest on Monday heard Hall, 35, was wearing dark clothing, with limited reflective qualities." The colour of your clothes is irrelevant at night. The reflective qualities in  th...