Diary of a headless chicken: September 2025

The end of August saw me running the Totton 10k. I was still being cautious with a hamstring/glute injury, so it was a slower one for me. I got it done and the pain wasn’t too bad. The first HRRL (Hampshire road race league) was out of the way but the following week (Sept 7^th) would see me “racing” again at the Overton 5 miler, another HRRL race. All the while I am training for Abingdon marathon in October. I took it cautiously again, so no fast times to report. I had also been getting over a bug/virus thing. Talk about getting your excuses in!

It had been 10 years since I did the Overton 5. It’s a different course and I was sad to discover that it never went through the centre of the village and past the shops.

It was a downhill start which was very narrow and the road was full of potholes and quite uneven. I couldn’t get anywhere near midpack on the startline, unless I wanted to tread through the stinging nettles. This had already pissed me off but I reminded myself that I wasn’t going for a time today. Just enjoy it. And I did. It was great to see Clare cheering me on as the rain started to pour down. It was very refreshing and I was enjoying it.

Nice to catch up with some club runners at the end. I didn’t see the drinking glasses until my mate Dan from Hardley posted a photo of his up online. I did pick up a coaster though! :D

Three days later, on the Wednesday, saw me doing my longest run of 20 miles. I did many loops around the common in Southampton. Not something I would usually do, but I strangely enjoyed it. It also gave me a chance to test out my Mountain fuel Chia seed gels, which seem to do the trick.

It was to be a busy month, what with me liking to celebrate my birthday for as long as possible. CC and I had made some plans and I had booked some hotels in advance. She would be driving us around everywhere, so we thought it would be nice to break the journey down into smaller chunks.

On the 11^th of September, the day after my 20 miler, we headed off to Cwmbran and stayed at a spa hotel somewhere. It was ok, but a bit run down looking. The main reason for us being there was so that we could try out the food at a Vegan pub in Upper Cwmbran called “The Queen Inn”.

I had already booked a table.

We walked in and it looked like a proper boozer with a lot of locals sat around at the bar. Were we in the right place? We got taken through to another room where it was nice and quiet. We ordered some food and waited…

OMG, the food was out of this world. It seems so strange to have a Vegan pub with such high quality food, in the middle of nowhere! I would highly recommend the trip there.

I woke up on the 12^th and it was my birthday. CC bombarded me with wrapped presents, which I obviously unwrapped as quickly as possible. I was well and truly being spoilt. I am so lucky to have such an amazing girlfriend. Thanks CC <3

It was a rainy day (of course) and we decided to go to Newport for a walk. I loved Newport and CC had never been, so we visited the transporter bridge. Looks like they are turning it into a proper tourist place with a shop etc.. but not yet finished.

Another walk followed as we saw that “Waterfall Country” was on our route to our next destination in Pen Y Cae. We couldn’t work the routes or the distances out on the map at Waterfall country, so we just decided to wing it. It got a little bit dangerous and scary but we came out of it alive to tell the tale of our bravery and courage.

We were staying in a kind of shepherd's hut thing, just below the Brecons. We both had an image of what the place would look like in our heads, but it was so different. It wasn’t as isolated as we thought. It was in a small village next to a pub with a mini zoo and there was a road not too far away. It was still a very lovely place though and probably my favourite of the whole trip.

Why did we stay there, you ask? I wanted to do a parkrun of course! In Ystalfera there is a parkrun named “Cycle route 43”. I looked into it and thought, that sounds nice. So, here we were.

Everyone was so friendly and it reminded me of why I miss Wales so much. Every time I leave Wales, I want to go back.

I thought I’d go for it today and see what I could do. The marathon training has definitely taken some speed out of my legs though (More excuses!). I did a brief warm up on this chilly morning. It was nice and dry though. There were waterfalls on this route too. I noticed a slight downward path, which meant we had a gentle climb on the way back to the finish.

There was a lovely race briefing where we were made to feel very welcome. They even announced my birthday and location.

The ED read out a poem as a tribute to four miners who had died in the area. Everyone was silent and he was very softly spoken. It was very moving and I felt a tear come to my eye. This one was for the miners.

The mist had cleared which the ED described as “The dragon’s breath”.

And that’s how I’ll always think of it now.

Off we went and to my surprise I was leading. I looked around once but couldn’t see anyone chasing me. I’m in P1! Can I hold it though? It’s always a bit scary when you are leading and you have never done the course before but luckily, this was an out and back with a turnaround at a cone and a marshal. This gave me an idea how far ahead I was, or so I thought it would. I smiled for the cameras and thanked the marshals. In my head I knew the course was climbing slightly. Will someone be gaining on me? “You’re way ahead” a marshal shouted. I didn’t believe her of course..lol. I could see the finish line for my first P1 at parkrun after coming 2nd, Seven times and 3rd, Eight times. Don’t look back, just sprint!

I did it! What a birthday present. My first P1 in a time of 19.01. I was a bit annoyed about the .01..lol. P2 was over 90 seconds behind me with a time of 20.38. I should have believed the lovely marshal. Sorry.

It was a great achievement for CC too as she hadn’t been running for a while. Her last parkrun was over a month ago with me at Meon Valley. She did just over 40 minutes and was pleased to come first in her age category for the first time ever :)

We got into Swansea to meet up with one of CC’s sons who is at Swansea Uni. We had another lovely lunch at No.18 which is a Vegan cafe. When I lived on the Gower in 2020, it was called “Canteen 18”. Not sure if there are new owners or not but the food was still very tasty and good value for money as CC was paying :D

I managed to visit the cafe the day before we went into the first lockdown of 2020. Then I spent 6 months not seeing anyone in a small village called “Crofty”, where the ponies and sheep outnumbered the people. As beautiful as it was, it was quite a lonely time for me. Anyway…

I thought it would be nice to revisit Pennard castle as I remember there being wonderful views and what better time could you ask to do it than with the woman you love. The rain held off and some sunshine came out too. There were many showers over the visit but they didn’t last. The views were still fantastic and not too touristy either. I booked a hotel on the Gower in Bishopston and when we got there, there was a wedding in full swing. The noise wasn’t too bad and our room was called “A room with a Bath”. I opened the door to our room and sure enough, there was a bath right in the middle of our room! Bit random.

The next morning I got a bit lost but kinda knew the area from living here. I ran on a B road into Mumbles which I knew was going to be busy and fast with traffic later in the morning, so I was trying to work out a looped route in my head. It was still early and I escorted a hedgehog off the road and to the verge. He was very cute indeed.

I wanted to revisit an old cycle route I used to do. It goes from Black Pill to Gowerton via Clyne valley, Killay and Dunvant.

I ran up Three Crosses to the top. This is one of the biggest climbs I know of. I jogged up it a couple of times before but could never cycle up it. It had 400ft of climbing in just one mile! I strangely enjoyed it though. Annoyingly the only way back now was on a busy road past Swansea Airport. It wasn’t fun and I got to Kittle and back to the hotel before we headed from Wales to Wells.

We stayed in a place called “Worth” which was a tiny place in Somerset. I chose the nicest room but it was an attic room. So we would be bumping our heads on the ceiling a bit. Our first time to Wells and the place was very nice but we were now evidently both very tired and just wanted to chill out in our room.

My birthday had been dragging on a bit, so we decided to head home via Golden Gecko for a climbing session and a catch up with the owner Jeff, who we both love :)

On the 15^th I ran from Westend to Cadnam where CC picked me up and drove me to Fordingbridge. Sandy Balls to be precise! My old mate Sean had come back from Perth in Australia to visit everyone. It had been 13 years since we had seen each other and I was one of two best men at his wedding. It was like he had never left. We went for a nice breakfast and a walk. It was so good to see him.

The 19^th saw me doing a 22 mile run from my house. Into Lyndhurst (the boring way, A35) and a loop back round through Emery down and Minstead (the hilly way). I was happy that I managed to run an average pace at 7.30 min per mile pace. This would possibly be my target pace for my marathon? Those last Three miles felt very hard though! At least there would be water stations at my marathon.

No parkrun as I wanted to get the long run in on the Saturday and free up the Sunday to see Sean again and our other friend Greg. We went over to his house in Waltham Chase where he has his own skatepark and ramps where he teaches people to skate. Sean, Greg and I, have all been skateboarding for over 35 years now. We had a good catch up and skate together and I only fell off once.

I am still climbing most weeks and had a great catch up with my mate Clayton on the 24^th. We had a really good session and pushed each other. I think I need to climb with more people to improve really.

The last Saturday of September saw me rock up at Southampton parkrun. I was toying with the idea of Ganger Farm (couldn’t be bothered to run the 7 miles there) and Bartley park (that horrible tight turn at the bottom of the hill). I wasn’t going to go for a time. I had my Boston 13’s on, which aren’t the cheating shoes I would wear for a quicker time. I saw Josh Chivers, Paddy, Andy Costello with his dog Ripley too. I knew I wasn’t in great shape for a fast 5k, but would aim for a sub 19. Still pretty good I know. I ran pretty well but it wasn’t easy of course. I got a time of 18.48 which wasn’t bad but reminded me to get the marathon over with and get some proper speedwork training sorted out after my recovery.