Running Races – Charlierobinsonbooks

Where It All Began 31 The Finale

After eleven years in Hampshire, we decided it was time for a change. Well, someone did 😂. We’d enjoyed the time in sleepy Over Wallop. I’d got some running in, lots of hiking, and we’d had some adventures in Cuba, Italy, Spain and Greece. Although my running was still mainly for fun, I did a couple of races with good times.

York was a strong possibility but no teaching jobs were coming up. Eventually Beverley College advertised for a Carpentry Lecturer. I travelled up for the interview and it was less pay, but this was East Yorkshire, not Hampshire, and I was promised promotion to Team Leader. So starts the finale. (Yup last one in this series folks) I have to say the first 12 months were difficult! If you’ve ever worked in education you’ll know that there is a lot of BS. The promotion never happened. When I left Fareham college we had had been given Outstanding by OFSTED, voted College of the Year by TESS, and the principle recieved an MBE for services to Education. I’m not one to winge, so lets just say Beverley College wasn’t Fareham 😂.

Gillian and I continued to visit Greece often, and I took advantage of the hilly trails to get up early and test myself. I joined a running club for the first time and started competing seriously, finishing 1st, 2nd, or third in my age group regularly in races. I also started doing Triathlons, now these are fun, if you take out the swimming and the cycling 😂I fancied a marathon but Ultras seemed more attratctive. I tried a 35 mile Ultra and found it quite good fun. I completed my first marathon race with a time of 03:36:00 in 2022. I’d run long distances before but never competitvely, so fairly happy with that. After that I did the Hardwolds 40 which is good value as they give you an extra 7 miles for free. So 47 miles in ten and half hours was kinda acceptable.

I changed my job at the college to Apprentice Assessor, which meant no more classrooms, and spent my time on site assessing apprentices in the work place. But i wanted to write. I’d done a course with the Writers Bureau some years back and if you want a comprehensive writing course I’d highly reccommend them. I completed my first novel in 2022. The Siege of Mr Khan’s Curry Shop, loosely based on my experiences in Bradford in the early 1970s. It was intended to be a one off, but people kept asking me. “What happens next?” I decided to retire and take my running and writing seriously. I published a sequel in 2025 Who’s Got The Biscuits and both books have had some success, and I have to mention Esther Chilton here because I couldn’t have done it without her editorial expertise. And of course Gillian for her continued support, and I have to say “patience” 😂 That’s basically it! Thank you if you’ve stayed all the way through, I do really appreciate your support and comments 💜If you remember at the very beginning I said I’d asked my wife if I should get therapy and recieved and empathatic. “No! It would be too much for them.” Maybe now you understand her answer? 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x

Can You Do It?

Apparently I Can

Boston, that’s Lincolnshire, England, not USA. Its a market town, I know this because on Saturday the sat nav wanted me to drive through the Saturday Market. It became upset when I didn’t, so had to be switched off. I was in Boston for my first marathon of the year. It was going to be tricky as I’d missed nearly 8 weeks of training because of that broken rib, but the flattest marathon in the country? It’d be fine. Boston is quite nice, and the parking is cheap. We lodged at No 20 Hotel and Bar. It was a four minute walk to the start of the race. They didn’t do breakfast which was fine as I was leaving at 7am anyway. There’s a lovely church down by the river.

There is also a Mexican restaurant, if you’re a runner you’ll know how important carb loading is before a race, so I had no choice 😂

Sunday morning I found myself in the Market Place (the market had gone) 90s House Music blared out from some speakers, a man on a michrophone was sayin stuff (I think they were words of encouragement) Was I the only one shivering under three layers? It was windy! Gillian had her route map for photos, I found some friends, had a photo with one, wished each other good luck and waited until 8am for the start.

Boston Marathon — Trust me the sky is decieving

Boston UK Marathon — Trust me the sky is decieving

The flattest marathon in the country sounds great, but then there is a reason… the terrain is flat with no shelter. 😂

The first 10 miles were okay, averaging 5 min kilometers and looking at an overall time of 03:40:00, but it dawned on me, I had for the most time, a tail wind. By 11 miles the route had turned. 30mph head wind with gusts to 40mph, but I was still smiling when I saw Gillian and her trusty camera at a water station.

Around 13 miles the sciatica started playing up and the hips began to grumble, pace had dropped to 6-7 mins per kilometer, everyone was swearing at the wind 😂 I decided it wasn’t worth it, and the next time I saw her, I’d go home. The problem was I didn’t see her until 18 miles. Now, when you’ve run 18 miles in that wind and only have 8 miles left… well, you may as well carry on?

By 20 miles the rib decided it wanted to play too, I thought I’d broken it again😂 It was then I made some life changing decisions. I was going to sell all my races. Windemere Marathon, Hardwolds 47mile ultra, and 50k ultra, Jersey Marathon… yup, that’s me from now on, just your average fun runner. Spend the rest of my days, relaxing and not dragging Gillian round the country, carrying my gear and taking pictures.

I didn’t get the time I wanted it ended up at 04:17:00, I was in pain and a tad disappointed, but apparently there were 32 people who didn’t finish, I did finish at least.

Boston UK Marathon finish. — Smile or grimace?

But now I’ve slept, I’m warm, and I’m thinking. If I improve the hip therapy, reintroduce the sciatica exercises, get some good quality trail runs in, with lots of hills, Windemere Marathon is eight weeks away. I could probably do it 😂

Happy Trails, Folks x

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

A very busy few weeks lately. Not only getting the new novel ready for publishing, but there’s the running. Esther Chilton sent me the final edit of my book and as always she has done such a wonderful job. Now begins the formatting and final examination. Hopefully it will be published in the next two weeks.

Anyway… back to the plot. Yup yours truly is a winner (twice in fact) We had the Nothern Relay Championships here a couple of weeks ago and I found myself in the A team. No pressure then! Three in a team, and each one of us ran 5k each. Guess who went last of the three? When you take over as last man in a relay and your team is ahead, trust me its not fun haha. But best foot forward as they say. We won with a margin of five minutes.

The following day I had a 10k race, and I wasn’t sure how much the previous day had taken out of me. There was only one way to find out, I guess. An undulating road race with forecast rain, not something I was looking forward to. Luckily the rain held off and the undulations were not as high as I’d expected. Once again it was best foot forward. To have a team win one day is fab. To then have an indivdiual win the following day? Well what can I say! There was a bottle of red wine opened that night. 😂

News of the new book has been social media’d. Hopefully it will be well recieved.

Have fun and happy trails x