Mercia Fell Runners Club

­A burst of Tertiary volcanic activity gave rise to a number of islands in the north Atlantic, among them the Faeroes, Iceland, Mull, Rum and St Kilda. The extent of the St Kilda crater is marked today by the isles of Hirta, Dun and Soay to the west, and Boreray, Stac an Armin and Stac Li 6km to the east. These islands, 40mi west of Harris/Lewis, are hard to get at – Islands at the Edge of the World.

­Date: 03 May – 10 May 2003
Flight: East Midlands to Toulouse bmibaby.com (£65 return plus £10ish each way for bikes)
Contenders: 6 male Worcester AC runners
Destination: Cauterets (Train from Toulouse to Lourdes)

­NOT REALLY THE TIME to be playing in the mountains is it? Middle O’January? Not if you feel the cold, can’t read a map, run on roads, have an ounce of common sense or are jus­t­ plain soft. No, it’s more the time to be knocking out road sessions on the dark nights, racing cross-country, thinking about the challenges of the coming summer, or just thinking bugger it and staying inside! But then I think we’ve always liked to set ourselves apart in Mercia haven’t we?

­A personal plea from Tim Werrett, as a result of one or two incidents at Shropshire races over the winter for which friends of ours (who we are all indebted to for their services to fell running) bore the brunt.­

­Running is a simple sport that people can make too complicated; the basic fitness for any distance runner comes from just going out and running for relatively long distances, on a regular basis, as you have been doing. There will always be days when you feel good and push the pace or run with someone else and get competitive, and this, combined with longer, steadier ­runs can be very effective. However as we discussed on Saturday all serious distance runners include at least one specific workout per week, similar to the one you did on Saturday.