The plan was to enjoy football, enjoy coaching, enjoy making a difference. The best laid plans of mice and men... I thought I could genuinely help, I was an okay footballer, a half decent hospitality manager, with my basic coaching badge tucked under my arm, I thought it would be possible to help a talented bunch of individuals become more of a team, more of a force and achieve something to be proud of. I think I missed a few tricks. I never wrote 'believe' on an A3 piece

Paddington Takes The Air Even though I've been here before, I still get sweaty palms. After all it's just like preparing for take off, statistically very unlikely to crash after you've left the ground, statistically very likely to finish, but you never know? After all, just like flying, 10 marathons (or more for some astounding people) is not quite the norm is it? Day 10, is a wonderful bit of theatre, just like any performance, there are a few nerves jangling. Apparently

Paddington Goes to Town Matt Damon, appears to me to be such a good guy, he may not be? I guess I'll never know. I like how he plays characters, Jason Bourne, Linus Caldwell, Mark Watney, Benjamin Mee and Will Hunting to name but a few. Yesterday, I thought I felt my hamstring begin to go, so for a long while I walked, probably about 12 miles, it was a long schlepp and boring. There's only so many times you can try to sing to kill a few minutes, or maybe kill a song for a

Paddington Marches On It's hazy, although some details crystal clear, the emotions, raw and unfiltered. Another nightmare. I'm in a house, I'm downstairs, with a child, not sure who's child but a young person, maybe 5 or 6 years old. The kettle is on, we're at the kitchen table, warm sunlight is streaming in but it doesn't feel like the afternoon. The click of the kettle, the muffled tick of a clock, light chirps of birds, but then a shocked, short shriek and a very defini

Paddington Abroad Have to say I wish I was on holiday in France at the moment. The quads were 'crying out' for help this morning and the doubts about finishing today resurfaced. You sort of need a plan a, b, c and maybe even d for this event. In my opinion you can only look as far as the day you're on, there's a lot can happen over the course of a marathon. Quite a long time ago, I was lucky enough to work with Steve Winch, he was hard working, funny and the team loved him

More About Paddington It was quiet in the physio room this morning, and a little subdued in the 10in10 meeting room. Perhaps people had things to worry about? Maybe it was the ominous shadow? Routine becomes established quite quickly, breakfast, treatment, briefing, run, treatment, prep fuel and hydration for the next day, dinner, blog, sleep, rinse and repeat. Personal admin they call it in the services, it's where we have to organise our electrolyte bottles and food we t

Urghh! Aargh! Yukk! My daily chore, twice, sometimes three times a day. Who likes sticking their hand in a plastic bag and wrapping...

Searching for human acknowledgement...