Alastair Humphreys Adventurer | Author | Motivational Speaker

How to run a marathon: 10 tips

This is the time of year when many people are training for their first marathon. So here are my 10 easy tips to running a faster marathon time. It’s not aimed at expert runners, nor is it for people who only want to cross the finish line. The list is for people like me – [...]

Life in the fast lane

I’m in the fast lane of the motorway, zipping past all the souls in less of a hurry than me. The winter sky is blue and sharply cold. But I have the window wide open. I am relishing the noisy buffeting of the freezing air. The cold gale flays my post-race, glowing face and feels [...]

Guest Blog – Top Tips On Effective Exercise Nutrition

Luke is a teacher in Ross-on-Wye. I met him recently when he invited me to speak at his school. After my talk he took me on a stunning 10-mile run down the Wye Valley. I wish that happened regularly after my talks!
As well as being a very busy teacher, Luke also combines a lot of [...]

Ballbuster Duathlon

I’m wallowing in the lovely self-indulgent idleness that comes after a decent bout of exercise. I watched the rugby on TV this afternoon from a soft sofa with a large red wine, and now I’m eating chocolate biscuits and drinking tea in anticipation of this evening’s Chinese Takeaway and Match of the Day.
This morning was [...]

10 Great Races to do in Britain

Here’s a list of 10 Races I am working to tick off in Britain. Please leave a comment to let me know how wrong my pick is, which classics I have omitted, and so on…
- London Marathon
- Ballbuster duathlon
- Devizes to Westminster canoe marathon
- Thames Ring 250
- Man vs Horse marathon
- Kindrocht Quadrathlon
- The UK [...]

Guest Blog: Steve Backshall. “Relieved that the evil nastiness was over and would never have to be repeated”

Each month I ask my guest blogger who I should invite to write the next one. Ed Stafford suggested I ask Steve Backshall.
Steve is is a naturalist, writer, adventurer and television presenter. He has kindly written this month’s guest blog post, an account of the miserable wonderfulness that is the 125-mile Devizes to Westminster canoe [...]

The UK’s longest ever non-stop running race, the Thames Ring 250

“There is more in us than we know. If we can be made to see it, then perhaps for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for less” – Kurt Hahn
The UK’s longest ever non-stop running race is the Thames Ring 250. 250 miles, to be completed within 100 hours. [...]

Phil Packer walking the London Marathon

Danfung, the photographer who accompanied Phil and I on our Channel row has now made this little video about Phil’s heroic last place (!) in the London Marathon. He is creeping ever closer to his amazing £1million target. You can read Phil’s latest news here.

Phil’s now training with Andy Kirkpatrick for his next challenge…

Mapping the Marathon des Sables

The route of the 2008 Marathon des Sables through the Sahara desert has been plotted on Google Earth. A consolation for Windows users, who no doubt are usually envious of the cool-ness of Mac users, is that for some reason this is only available to Windows users! Click here to see the map.
During the MdS the organisers played [...]

The extreme world of mountain marathons

Ben and I are currently training for an attempt on the Bob Graham Round. 24 hours, 42 peaks, 27000 feet of ascent: 65 miles of fun in the Lakeland hills. I learnt about this challenge in the fabulous book, Feet in the Clouds, by Richard Askwith.
The Original Mountain Marathon received huge publicity this weekend due to the horrendous weather conditions. [...]