January 2026

             

            Happy new year! 2026 is here and there’s no better way to kick it off than with a parkrun. It was a local one at Itchen Valley. Clare was volunteering as always and I ran around with John Peligrini and Mike Harper. Just an easy effort for me but a nice catch up with everyone all the same.

Two days later, we had another parkrun on the 3^rd. Mike Harper picked me up and we went back to Moors Valley. We were a bit concerned that it would be cancelled as it was so icy. We did a warm up around the lake to see how slippery it was and it was indeed very slippery. The parkrun still went ahead though and I just managed to sneak under 19 minutes with 18.59 and a P10. I was actually hoping to get nearer to 18.30. I was putting in some effort for my up and coming Romsey 5 mile race in a couple of weeks time. A lovely morning though and I decided not to queue for the terrible coffee this time around :)

I have been frequenting the running track lately. Trying to get some speed back into my legs. Making the most of my Wednesdays off before I go back to a 5 day working week. The track was icy the other week and I had to do 200’s instead of my 800’s. I actually really enjoyed them and shocked myself how fast I could actually run them. I will do more in the future. It was lovely to see Helen and Paddy at the track too.

 I had a long weekend off,  CC and myself went to Carmarthen in Wales with my Dad for my Uncle’s birthday. I have quite a big Welsh family and poor CC was to meet quite a few of them. I gave CC a tour of my old childhood haunts. The Plume of Feathers (the smallest pub in Wales), the market, the castle and the river walk through Johnstown.

We were hoping to do the new Parc Dewi Sant (Saint David's Park) parkrun but when we got there, there wasn’t a soul to be seen. It had been cancelled at the last minute and we didn’t have time to go elsewhere. I was absolutely gutted as I was so looking forward to doing this one. 200 miles each way is a long way to go for a parkrun. Will I come back again in the summer? Probably not. CC did a wonderful job of consoling me in the cafe. We did a lovely but very cold walk instead.

            We also went climbing at a church in Carmarthen called Overhang and to our delight, they now had a few auto-belays fitted in the last few months. I wasn’t used to the height, so it was a bit scary for me the first few climbs. CC as always just flew up there!

When I got back to Southampton, I decided to look at a few races to enter for the year. One of them being the ballot for the Great North Run as I had never done it and it always falls around my birthday. Sadly, I didn’t get in. I did enter the Winchester 10k for Feb and Yeovil 10k for the end of March. I am thinking about Plymouth 10k in the first week of May as I loved that one when I lived there and probably the Two Tunnels 10k near Bath for our the Vegan Running Club annual get together in June. The aim is to get faster on the shorter stuff this year and avoid the marathons :D 

The 17^th of Jan saw me jog around Ganger Farm parkrun with a brief catch with Darren and John. The next day would see me running the Romsey 5 miler at the Broadlands estate. How would I do? What sort of shape was I in? I knew I still needed to lose a few kgs from all the junk food. 

No sub 30 but very close again with 30.08. A 5 mile PB of 6 seconds, so I can’t complain. It was a good course but there was one very muddy turn around a cone on the dogleg. 3^rd V50 in, so a bit of work to do still to get those age category wins. Pretty happy with my time though.

My hamstrings and glutes were a little sore after the race and I felt a bit rundown, so had an easy week with no track session. Got to listen to my body at my age ;) I made it to Highcliffe beach parkrun the following week to meet up with fellow club mates from VRC. Kev picked up Clare and myself on a very cold and windy morning. Clare walked around while I claimed my 8^th P2 and a time of 19.44. The conditions were certainly challenging! Sadly I was 19 seconds away from the V50 course record. We had a lovely breakfast at Highcliffe Castle afterwards too. It was quite expensive but enjoyable. 

No parkrun this week (31^st) as I have a 7 hour event in Winchester held by Phoenix running Hampshire. I am hoping to get in shape for Solent half in March. The goal is to run a sub 90 half marathon and meet CC for breakfast afterwards. We’ll see what happens. Thanks for reading. Looks like I have a few 10k’s to run this year if I can stay off the injury bench. Stay rad people <3 

I almost forgot to mention that I finally managed to do my first handstand over 10 seconds. I've not really been practising and only tried one. It just happened!

                                                   See video below:

We discovered a new coffee place in Romsey called Cult coffee. Great coffee, quirky place and nice vegan cake too.

December 2025

         

        December didn’t start too well for me. I was supposed to be running the Victory 5 mile race and aiming for my first sub 30 minutes for 5 miles. I had been doing quite a bit of speedwork (for me). It was constantly raining and I was recovering from a cold/bug thing, so I decided against it. December was to be a quiet month for me. I had also frozen my membership to the climbing gym as I hadn’t been going as much. Although CC and myself to manage to get to Gecko once or twice. 

 I did however, marshal at Itchen Valley parkrun with Clare. Not once but twice. Bringing my volunteer credits up to 30. I always do close down too so get extra volunteers, which is a total of 39 now. Volunteer credits are not to be confused with volunteers as you can volunteer more than once at one event but you only get one credit ;)

 I did a different marshal point. Point 3, which I had never done before, so was a bit nervous about it, but it was fine and I love it now. I did the 6^th of Dec and Xmas day. Xmas day was really fun with all the Merry Xmases and funny costumes. No coffee shop open for coffee but Clare did make me a flask of coffee which a runner knocked over by accident as they ran past me..lol.

I equalled my volunteer credits of 7 for the year, which I did last year too. I feel that I get a lot more from marshalling than any other role. It’s so good to be directly involved with all the runners and walkers and encourage them around. Next year, I plan to aim for 10 volunteer credits, which shouldn’t be too hard as there are 54 parkruns in the UK alone in a year!

 

I had been inspired by my mate Kev D to start “Intermitent fasting”. He had done 5 days in a row with no food! I decided to do some research first and buy a book on it. Then, it was time. I wouldn’t eat after 8pm and then I would skip breakfast and have a later lunch at work. Usually this would equate to around 18 hours fasted. It was so hard just to do this for a couple of days, but it got easier. I was so used to eating all the time. It really changed my mindset about how and why we eat. I was feeling more energised and more mentally astute. I would do Monday through to Saturday morning of 18 hour fasts. Anything went on the Saturday and Sunday though. I did this for 3 weeks and had gone from 82kgs to 78kgs. I was feeling great too!

My body fat was still at 14%. Did you know.. that to lose any muscle you would have to get down to 4% body fat? There’s a common myth that people think you lose muscle when you fast.

Anyway, it was a good thing to do and I plan to go back to it in the new year when I am targeting a race time.

          I made a rare appearance at Southampton parkrun. It doesn’t feel like I run there very often but have now run it 120 times! I was targeting to run my first sub 18 minutes. I was confident that I could do it too. It was very hard and it felt like a struggle more than normal. My nose was blocked and my breathing not great. Anyway, enough of the excuses. I was waiting around for my time to come through but it never came. I looked for the results and noticed that I came up as “Unknown” in the results. I emailed them and they sorted it very quickly and I got the time of 18.04. My third fastest time. So close again!

       In November I ran 18.03, in the summer I ran an 18.06 and in the spring I ran an annoying 18.00. Anyway, I think I’ll have that sub 18 in 2026. I was planning to head back after xmas and get it done but sadly had bruised my hamstring doing some speedwork only 3 days after my 18.04 attempt. I obviously needed more recovery time. Silly me.

Instead, I got a lift to Moors Valley parkrun with John Pellegrini.

He wanted to be paced for 22 minutes. I was happy to jog around and enjoy the course, even my hamstring was happy with it. It was great to see Lin and Martin Lascelles too. Martin was only 2 seconds away from the V70 course record too. He ran 20.23! Lin ran 22.08, her age grading was 87.65%. These two also belong to the best Vegan running club in the UK :D

It was a beautiful sunny morning, only slightly marred by the shit coffee at Moors Valley that I queued ages for. I also acquired a P-Index of 9. This means: 9 different parkun locations, run 9 times, on 9 different occasions. If that makes sense? Note that P-Index includes your volunteers, so you don't have to run necessarily. 

        Hopefully CC and myself have a new house of our own to move into in the new year. It’s been mentally draining and stressful trying to sort out all that legal stuff. To be fair, I haven’t got a clue about a lot of it. All hail Queen CC. She has been amazing with all this stuff. I have felt more than useless for most of it. Sorry CC, love you. Xx

 

Now it’s time to set some goals for 2026.

 

I already mentioned 10 volunteering credits at parkrun.

A sub 18 parkrun at Southampton.

I would like to get under 38 minutes for the 10k again.

Do I take a free place at Manchester marathon after saying I would never run a marathon again at Abingdon?

Some more parkrun tourism inc. Fordingbridge, Brickfields, Thoulstone, Parc sant dewi, Sandhurst memorial, Bevendean.. and any that friends want to drive me to ;)

82 minutes for a half marathon maybe?

More adventures with CC. More climbing. Back to swimming? Continuing with my strength and flexibility.

Yoga classes? Skateboarding. Making a skateboard documentary.

Going back to Germany. Running a race in Germany. Learning to Breakdance. Raise money for an animal charity on a multi-day run over the summer. Go back to working 5 days a week to pay the mortgage. Turning garage space into a home gym before Clarey fills it up with junk.

 The above book is a great read and very inspiring. Makes me want to run faster times too! 

 

Some of these goals seem a bit vague I know, but they’ve been in my head for ages, some even years. Could 2026 be the year that I finally start writing my book?

Thanks for reading. Hope you all have some great goals for 2026. Hopefully our paths will cross again :D xx

        P.S:  It's easy to think, am I doing enough when you work with at least 3 ex-Olympians , one with an MBE, an ex professional footballer and a woman who runs 2.37 marathon times. I am 51 though, I guess ;) 

It's all about being the best version of me and staying fit and feeling youthful. x 

November 2025

         

        The first day of November just so happened to be “World Vegan Day”. It was a Saturday and after a bit of decision making, I decided to go to Bartley parkrun, near Totton. Clare would drop me off and I would run back to Totton to meet up with her for coffee and cake afterwards.

The warm up run didn’t feel particularly good. There were lots of friendly old faces I knew from Vegan Runners there. It was nice to catch up with a few of them at the start. I was wearing my lovely new, bright orange Vegan Running Club vest which I think, stood out nicely.

It was a muddy course, with some unavoidable puddles. Off we went. The guy leading went off like a rocket as they say. I dodged a few puddles to begin with and overtook a buggy runner. I was about a mile in when I realised I was in about 3^rd of 4^th place. I’ll go for a position I thought. Keep pushing! It felt very tough and not very fast today. It’s a 4 lap course too, so can be a bit tough mentally too.  

After 2 laps I was chasing down this kid who looked about 12. He seemed to slow a bit and I managed to overtake him. Wait there a minute, is that the leader up ahead? He looked quite far ahead to be fair but I caught him on the 3^rd lap and he was struggling. I kept pushing as I overtook him. Wouldn’t P1 on World Vegan Day be amazing in my new bright Orange vest? Get on with it Dean, I said to myself. Stop dreaming and run. I kept pushing while other runners and walkers shouted encouragement to me and I did the same as much as I could and thanked the marshals.

Anyway, I went and got my 2^nd P1 at parkrun. My 1^st one only coming in September after 13 years of parkrunning! My time wasn’t fast at all at 20.10. P2 was in at 20.40 in the end and the little kid was actually an under 11 running on his own, looks like he really blew up with a time of 22.28! He was a nice kid though.

It was a great start to the month as I ran back to Totton smiling away to myself to meet my wonderful girlfriend. My legs caked in mud.

I hadn’t been climbing as much but managed to go a couple of times with Clare at Golden Gecko. Always great fun and I love watching her push beyond her limits. The marathon the previous marathon had taken it out of me a bit but nowhere near as much as I thought it would. I was impressed with my recovery this time around.

 

This month I bought some new dumbbells and have been working on ankle flexion and hip mobility which I think it has been vital to the longevity of my running. Also I seem to have relieved a lot of piriformis pain with a lot of stretching, especially doing the painful pigeon pose., which isn’t so painful anymore.

Sadly, it has been a month of weight gain too, which I will be addressing in December. This is pretty common with me post marathon I think though.

 

November the 15^th saw CC and myself volunteering again at Itchen Valley parkrun. We like to marshal and shout stuff at the runners. We think it’s the most you can be involved and give something back. It’s so nice to have the catch up in the cafe afterwards too and talk about the event. It was my 8^th time volunteering at Itchen. I have volunteered 35 times for 28 credits, which isn’t a great ratio for me but at least I’m not picking up the easier junior parkrun credits or pacing ;)

Marshalling at the Saturday parkruns makes me a superior being of course :D

 The next day was the day of Gosport half marathon. I hadn’t run this race for 9 years! It’s a fast, flat course and should be a PB for most but as I had only finished a marathon 4 weeks ago, I knew it wouldn’t be worth pushing for a faster time. I was hopeful of 85 minutes and got 85 minutes. It wasn’t easy though as I had to dig in after 9 miles. At least I only had to suffer for 4 miles I suppose! It was nice to run and chat to Josh Murray of Hamwic Harriers for about 10 miles, until he dropped me for a big PB of his own ;) Well done Josh, hope your marathon goes well.

A big thanks to another Josh (Chivers) for the lift and great to catch up with Paddy Connors too. Really enjoyed the day. Happy enough with 85 minutes but know I should be running around 82 I think.

We’ll see what Solent half brings me.

 

6 days later after running Gosport, I lie in bed wondering what parkrun to do on this rainy, miserable looking morning. Bartley or Ganger? In the end, I decided I’d stay in bed a bit longer and just go to Southampton parkrun for the 119^th time. I really don’t like the congested start and always worry that I’m going to get tripped with my long legs, so I often go out way too quickly with a shorter stride length. The aim was to run around 18.30 or sub 6 pace. This would be great training for Victory 5 miler in December.

I ended up running an 18.03 despite slipping on the mud on the final corner and almost stacking it. This is my 2^nd fastest time and only by 3 seconds! I was a bit surprised really. The sub 18 should be well within reach if I can lose a couple of kgs and do a few more track sessions. Exciting!

 

In other news, CC and myself have been house hunting, which was, at first, quite exciting. The process is still ongoing and proving to be quite stressful and a big challenge but we must stay positive as I know we’ll achieve what we want to in the end :) I won’t go to much into it.

 

The last parkrun of the month was a stormy one with torrential rain and strong winds. It was my first time to Victoria park in Newbury. A “V” for the alphabet and my 107^th different location.

The reason we were there was because of John Pelligrini who was running his 100^th different location and his 300^th parkrun on the same day. Picked a nice day for it John! It was lovely to see the other VR’s too and our VRC chairperson Mike Harper too who gave me a lift home as Darren who drove me there, had to dash off for his singing at Romsey Abbey. I do like to car share where I can ;)

 I didn’t really warm up much and couldn’t wait to start. It was a very complex course of muddy fields and it was a 3 lapper. Despite the trail shoes, it got very slippery on the 2^nd lap with a couple of swans to navigate around, which one of them disliked and made it known by hissing at me.

I was in 10^th place. That’s the great thing about running around a field, you can see where you are in the pack. I decided to see what position I could get to and target one runner at a time. I knew there was no P1 today though as there were clearly 2 speedies way out in front. I managed to overtake this kid near the end who was taking shortcuts along the way, as were many others, by choosing to run on the concrete and not on the grass course. They were cutting out a bit of distance by the fountain or was it a pond? Anyway, I overtook this kid which took me into 5^th place. We were now running on the last bit of concrete and I could hear him gaining on me, so I decided to sprint to the finish. I don’t think I’ve ever sprinted this hard at the end of a parkrun before. Anyway, the little git overtook me despite my hardest efforts. We turn right onto the grass for the finish funnel and he slips and falls, I step over him and regain the P5 position and take the token as he gets up and tries in vain to claim the position back. I asked if he was ok and unapologetically apologised. I felt bad for about 10 seconds and then proceeded to tell a marshal how I had made a 10 year old kid cry in a sprint finish at Cosmeston lakes parkrun to take the p4 token a few years back.

 Thanks for reading. I currently have a crappy cold but hope to do Victory 5 on Sunday. My last race of the year. No doubt I’ll be parkrunning still though. Stay youthful :D

Here’s a couple of pics of good books that I read this month too.. 

October 2025

                

         Autumn soon came around. On the 4^th of October I was being picked up by my old running buddy Lawrence Chen who I hadn't seen in ages. 

In tow was his girlfriend  Apple, their dog whose name I forget and and old friend of Larry’s (Lawrence) whose name has also been forgotten. You can’t forget a name like “Apple” though, can you?

Anyway, Larry’s mate drove us to Salisbury, Larry acting in as SatNav. We had a lovely time chatting away and catching up until we got to Salisbury for the parkrun. Larry didn’t tell me this, but it was our friend Di Mattingly’s 500^th parkrun! Di said, she was trying to keep it quiet, despite carrying a massive cake with 500 parkruns scrawled across it.

       It was a lovely parkrun and I was very happy with my time of 18.40 and P6. Only 7 seconds away from my course pb. We had a lovely walk to the cathedral and into town for some food. It was so nice to catch up with Mike Mattingly too (Di’s husband).

      A week later, Clare and myself headed to Andover to celebrate another 500^th parkrun. This time, it was of a guy we had met climbing at Golden Gecko in Romsey. His name was Mark, it was also his birthday. I hadn’t done Andover parkrun for 9 years and barely recognised it. I quite enjoyed the 2 lapped course as I jogged beside CC. More tourism for her too. 

      After walking into town for coffee, we decided to go to Sunnyfields Farm near Totton. They had a big pumpkin display going on and I quite wanted to see the Ozzy Osbourne tribute, being a Black Sabbath fan myself. I booked two tickets to “Pumpkin time” and off we went.

      It was actually better than I thought it would be, although the food wasn’t great. We had a nice time wandering around. I was surprised how much the place had changed in 6 years from when we went to the Vegan cafe that used to be there. Shame the food is crap there now.

    ...And then, the weekend came that I was dreading and had been so nervous about for so long. Abingdon marathon!

CC and I headed to Oxford the day before on the 18^th of October. It was funny that we bumped into our friends Helen and Andy. Helen was also running the marathon and was representing England, despite having many issues making it to the start line. We went for a coffee and realised we were staying at the same hotel too. The bed was so uncomfortable and I didn’t sleep very well, if at all.

     The marathon happened to fall on the day that I would celebrate being Vegan for 6 years. Here I was, in my Vegan Running Club vest, feeling proud of myself but also nervous as hell. CC kept on reassuring me that I’d do great and would be fine. The weather didn’t look great with wind and rain predicted for the day. It sure looked gloomy out but I was ready to run.

       My marathon PB was 3hrs 20mins at the New Forest marathon from a few years back but I made the course over a kilometre short on my watch and the course didn’t meet UKA standards, so wouldn’t appear on my “Runbritain” or “Power of 10” either.

My aim was to run a sub 3.15 marathon. I had only done a couple of long runs. One of 20 miles and the other of 22 miles. I didn’t really feel like I had put much effort into the training but it became a slog towards the end and I just wanted to get it over with. I had been enjoying the shorter distances much more these past couple of years. I knew that I didn’t really have the discipline to be a good marathoner. Why was I doing this?

       Anyway, I jogged around the track a couple of times and my glute/hamstring felt a bit sore as usual. Would I even get to the end?

I had done my long runs at 7.30 min/mile pace. That was my original goal but wouldn’t get me a sub 3.15. I had changed the goal to 7.20 pace per mile and now decided to take a bigger risk of 7.15 pace. I had originally planned to put no pressure on myself and just go out and run a “soft pb”. Ok, I wasn’t going for a sub 3, but it was still way out of my comfort zone.

        The course was two laps. I saw CC cheering me on at around 7 miles. I threw her my cap which was already drenched in sweat (lucky girl). I had been looking forward to seeing her. I got to 10 miles and wondered to myself what the hell I was thinking trying to run for 26 miles. I hadn’t even completed a lap yet and it felt like a long journey already. I didn’t really engage with anyone but I had two Northern girls chatting away behind me that were using me as a wind shield, after a couple of miles I got a bit sick of them and ramped up my pace a bit. I had already gone out a bit quick and even had a sub 7 mile in there. Think I did my first 10k in 44 minutes. I took my first gel just after 10 miles. I have been using the Mountain Fuel chia seed gels. Raspberry flavour.

I was looking forward to getting to that halfway mark. I got there in 1hr 34mins. Now, if I was going to run a negative split, that would be a sub 3.08 marathon. I got the feeling that I was going to slow down towards the end. 

I saw CC again at 16 miles and I was feeling very good, a bit too good. Only 10 miles to go I shouted. I was in good spirits and running well. I had just taken my second gel too. I got talking to a guy named Sam who lived in Brighton. He was a lovely guy and we also added a lady called Laura to our conversation. Laura was quite quiet to begin with and just sat behind us while we chatted away. I was saying how good I felt and seemed to yabber on about all kinds of stuff. When we got to 19 miles, I said something about 2 parkruns to go as I thought we were at 20 miles and not 19. Doh! Anyway, Sam said he felt strong and pushed on. I got chatting to Laura a bit more and mentioned that my hamstrings seemed to be tightening up a bit now. 

We got to about 22 miles and it felt like I was stuck in mud now and running much slower. My pace hadn’t dropped off much yet but the effort was much tougher. Laura went ahead of me and pushed on. Where is the finish I thought. I’m suffering now.  Everything hurts and I am actually slowing quite a bit on the last couple of miles but I get there eventually as CC cheers me onto the running track where I cruelly have to complete a lap to finish. I was feeling a bit of nausea from 22 miles onwards, so decided not to take my third energy gel and just pushed on. 

I finished it. 3hrs 10mins and 37secs. Average pace of 7.17, so not too far off. A big pb indeed. I was so happy. It was so nice to see CC’s smiling face and give her a hug. I told CC that I would never do another marathon again that day though…

        I also spoke to Sam who ran a 3.04, he really pushed on at 20 miles! And Laura who ran a 3.08. PB’s for all of us.

My friend Helen did a 3.03 marathon. A massive thanks to her husband Andy too who was out on the course cheering us on and I got a high 5 too. Cheers Andy, your lovely smile kept me going. 

We walked back to the car in the pouring rain and then poor CC had to drive us home in the crazy weather conditions that ensued.

         A few days later I was able to walk again and decided to meet up with my mate Damo for a walk around the "Mill trail" in Whitchurch. We got 3 trains there and only got slightly lost, taking in various mills, the Bombay sapphire distillery and an expensive lunch at the Watership down pub. I hadn’t been there since we did Overton 5 miler about 9 years ago. It was quite run down then but looks very posh now. The food was good too. I had a butternut squash risotto with vegan cheese :D

We had lovely sunny weather and a really good catch up.

        I overslept on the Saturday but made it in time for Southampton parkrun. The legs were still recovering from the marathon, so it was a slower jog around. My 382^nd parkrun and my 118^th at Southampton. It was a good excuse to wear my new Orange Vegan Running Club vest too.

            Sunday was another day for recovery. CC and I went to a coffee shop at Botley Mills called “Deveroast” which is owned by Pete Devereux, formerly of the artful dodger fame with Craig David. Pete seemed nice and bought our coffees over too. Then we went into Wickham for a visit to Pirate Pasties where we had spicy vegan pasties and a vegan sausage roll. I sure have been hungry since my marathon ;) “You’re always hungry” as CC would say.

      Thanks for reading. Hopefully I’ll recover for Gosport half in a couple of weeks time! 

I have also been sober for 5 years now too. Such a great decision to make. So glad I made the change in my life and what what a change it has made!