Dan Summers Running

* Montane Gecko VP12+ review * £110 – further details here Quick read This is a great pack.  It ticks all the boxes I look for in a race vest: size and fit; durability; accessible storage and poles storage.  It's light weight but sturdy and has loads of really well thought through features.  It's in the upper bracket of prices for race vests but you're getting a premium pack which I believe represents great value for money. Background Over the past 10 years I’ve been lucky enough to use a fairly big selection of vests and rucksacks.    I started with the Inov8 Race Elite 25 and then moved on to the Montane Dragon 20 and Jaws 10.    I enjoyed using both these packs and continue to use the Dragon 20 today for longer days out and when leading groups.   The Dragon was and is an excellent pack - the only significant complaint I have about it is a lack of accessible storage whilst you’re wearing it. With a degree of caution because of stories I’d heard about durability I mo

  “Controlling the controllables”   This is probably quite a familiar phrase to most readers.   But how do you really implement it and what does it really mean? The “flip-side” of controlling the controllables is not wasting any time or mental energy on things you can’t do anything about.   Then there is the middle ground – things you can do something about but they are still there and could still cause issues. Get this right and you weigh the scales in your favour for any challenge or race before you even start. Half way through the first day of the Saunders MM in 2018 - we totally failed on foot care and both our feet were wrecked.  We definitely didn't control that controllable!   I was out in the fells with my good friend, accomplished fell runner and ex-Gurkha, Patrick Wooddisse, he was telling me about the approach the Gurkhas adopted in life and as soldiers: a combination of fatalism (‘what happens happens’) and an iron refusal to give up (‘however hard the road gets you

Everyone will be familiar with these sayings: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” (Tim Harford) , “Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face” (Mike Tyson), “By failing to prepare, you're preparing to fail” (Benjamin Franklin)….. So, is it worth having a plan or not?   What’s the point if your plan is always going to change? Strategies – a plan for (almost) all eventualities Imagine this:   You’re 85 miles into a 100 mile race, chasing a cut off 5 miles from the last check point, you’ve been running for 30 hrs, it’s dark, it’s raining and you’re starting to get cold.   You’re GPS (planned navigation strategy for the whole race) just ran out of battery.   Then without warning your head torch dies as well.    This can end two ways: 1.       1.  You sit down on the side of the trail and curse your bad luck.   “Why did they both have to run out now?”.   Sitting on the side of the trail you have a little [cry]/[shout of frustration] and lie down to give yo

2020 was never meant to be a big year of defining races.   I had planned a couple of 50 milers and a flat 100 miles for the year punctuated by a second attempt at the Paddy Buckley Round in July.    At the start of the year training was going well but I skipped the first race (the Green Man Ultra) because I had a nasty cold.   To be honest, it was quite an easy decision – the Green Man is a great local race but it was not a big goal for me and clearly not worth the risk of pushing through an illness.   Two weeks after this we were all locked down by Covid-19 and all bets for the year were off. It soon became clear that the July Paddy Buckley was unlikely to happen and the two reccies I had planned came and went whilst we were still unable to leave our local area.    In late June it became clear that restrictions were starting to lift – I decided to go for it and set a date for an attempt without any further reccies.   I knew the route but wouldn’t have seen any of it for a year and