My watch can connect me to not just one, or two, but three global satellite networks. It can pinpoint my location down the exact spot I am standing on the earth right now – and all I can think is:  “Did the United States and Russia spend trillions of dollars/rubles in the mid-century Space Race to throw all these satellites into geosynchronous orbit so that Fiona from HR knows if she’s running 10 minutes 38 seconds per mile or 10 minutes 37 seconds per mile in her local  Parkrun?”

When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and proclaimed: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind“. NASA didn’t ask him to check his watch to see if he’d run 0.01km or 0.02km. They just celebrated one foot placed in front of another. In the decades since we boldy went where no one has gone before we seem to have forgotten that running started with one simple purpose: to escape dinosaurs. 

In 2023 scientists revealed that one of our very earliest ancestors may have lived at the same time as dinosaurs ruled the earth. And while these early ancestors may have as much resemblance to modern man as Blackpool does to Monaco they must have shared the same thought as us when seeing a t-rex in Jurassic Park: run.

Because, if they hadn’t run, they wouldn’t have been our ancestors, and we’d be extinct after great-great-great-great-great-many-times-over-grandpa Todd became a dino snack.

Today, our watches can tell us our speed, location, our heart-rate, our pace. They can provide directions and maps, let us listen to music and even make an emergency call if we suddenly stop. 

But do you need to wear it? Is your life improved by having a graph of your perceived exertion level while jogging round a park? Next time you run, don’t record your run. Or, if you feel you do need to record, add the details manually afterwards. 

Or, if you currently don’t wear a watch, then wear a watch. See if knowing your max heart rate is a sign of fitness or a critical early warning sign of catastrophic cardiac failure. Heart rate of 230 beats per minute after standing up? Maybe, just maybe, wearing a watch will save your life? In which case, I take everything I just said about how pointless they are back. Watches are great. Get your blood pressure checked.

If you say “I’m not lost” then that is a sure sign that you are, in fact, lost. Not that I was lost when I said it. I knew exactly where I was – in a wood, near Elgin, at night, in the dark, surrounded by deer – but I admit I may not have known quite exactly which path to take to get back to Elgin, and not end up, hours later, in Inverness.

Last week, I decided to try some night-time trail running. I was in Elgin and, while there are a lot of nice varied routes to run, there is one thing missing: hills. Elgin is flat. If you dropped a slinky, it would not slink. Run through town – flat. Run through Cooper Park – flat. Run to Maggot Wood (one of my favourite place names, as it does make you think how many maggots there must have been to name a whole wood after them) – flat. All completely flat.

For a change, I decided to run out of Elgin and try some trails through the hills on its western edge. I brought my head torch, found a willing companion who didn’t baulk when I said “fancy going to the dark woods tonight?”, and we set off to find a route through the trees.

Problem one: we didn’t know where we were going, or where any path might start.

Problem two: we didn’t know that everything looks like a path when you only have a head torch to guide you. A flat bit of grass between two trees looks like the start of a track when you can’t see further than three metres ahead.

Problem three: dear God, what are those glowing eyes in the woods? Head torches, we discovered, make every deer that glances in your direction look like it’s possessed by the Eye of Sauron.

Problem four: sometimes the darkness in front of you is not just darkness but a twenty-metre drop from the side of an old quarry. A good tip, quickly learned: only step where you can see the ground.

Problem five: if you hit an A road, turn back. A roads have no pavements, and cars racing at 70mph towards Inverness pass very close when you venture onto the verge.

Problem six: if you turn back, remember where you came from — so that when you finally meet three mountain bikers with powerful beams, you don’t have to say “I’m not lost, but do we turn left or right to get back to Elgin?”

Night running is genuinely good fun. Just remember where you are, what’s in front of you, and – probably most importantly – what isn’t.

Got up. Had breakfast. Feet up. Race done.

My goal of running the Edinburgh Marathon was derailed in Lille, France, two weeks ago.

I had a throat infection, I thought it was going, but it ballooned with a vengeance when I was in Lille, on holiday. In the morning, I was fine. By evening, I couldn’t swallow anything. Even gulping was a problem. My throat was a golf ball and Rory McIlroy was trying to chip it out of bunker. Every swallow was painful.

By morning I was checking local hospitals and rules for getting treatment abroad. By lunchtime, I was in the A&E department of Lille University hospital. By 2pm I’d been attacked by a scalpel wielding doctor. By 3 pm I was on my second IV drip. By 4pm I was back in the hotel and feeling a lot better. Drugs work. Bladed assaults work. Merci, French healthcare!

Saying that, I was prescribed steroids and antibiotics. When Mrs TwinBikeChild went to the pharmacy, the pharmacist asked her if I was the size of an elephant.

“More like a giraffe with a big nose,” she said.

“In that case, I can’t give him these drugs. If he takes these doses, he won’t sleep for a month. He can have half.”

I think I must be the first person to have had a drug intervention before taking the drugs to become addicted!

Even with the reduced dose, I was still awake for three days, and had enough steroids to star in a Marvel movie. And I had to take them until a few days before the Edinburgh marathon.

With the infection, the emergency room trip and a week long recovery, I wasn’t going to start the marathon just three days later. So, for this year, my report is a simple one: woke up, stayed in Glasgow, feet up.

Ah, the Scottish B&B experience. A warm welcome, a steaming cuppa, and… a packet of Lichfield’s Fruit Shortcake. It’s a culinary enigma, a biscuit that defies definition, a taste that lingers like raisin-tinged depression. You’ll find it nestled beside the half-empty hanky box and the kettle that smells suspiciously of boiled socks.

Let’s be honest, calling it a “fruit shortcake” is a crime against both fruit and cake. It’s more like a collection of fossilised raisins trapped in a dry, crumbly tomb. “Dead fly biscuits,” as they’re affectionately known, seem to be the preferred treat of grannies and funeral attendees. But how, oh how, did this culinary abomination become the ubiquitous offering in Scottish B&Bs?

You might get lucky. A packet of proper shortbread (the real Scottish biscuit royalty) might grace your room. Or perhaps an oat crumble, a fleeting moment of delicious normalcy. But the Lichfield lurks, ever-present, a testament to some unseen force.

Why? Why do B&B owners subject their guests to this? Surely, they’re not blind to the tragedy unfolding with each bite? If we’re going to inflict a badly named biscuit on unsuspecting tourists, can we at least opt for the glorious, buttery perfection that is shortbread?

Now, this blog is notoriously averse to actual research. But, in the spirit of journalistic… well, something, we delved into the depths of the internet to uncover the truth.

It turns out Lichfield’s is a “luxury catering brand” catering to the hospitality sector. They offer everything from “Fair Trade speciality teas” to “award-winning coffee beans” and, of course, those infamous individually wrapped biscuits. They pride themselves on “enhancing the guest experience.” (One can only assume “enhancing” here is a subjective term).

Apparently, in 2009, Lichfield’s expanded its range, adding muffins and flapjacks to their repertoire. They focused on individually wrapped treats designed to complement hot drinks and boost customer spending.

And there, my friends, lies the answer. The packaging.

Yes, the humble packaging. Lichfield’s has mastered the art of individually wrapped, seemingly convenient treats, designed specifically for the hospitality sector. They’ve cornered the market by catering to the practical needs of B&B owners, ensuring a consistent, pre-packaged offering.

It’s about ease, consistency and cost. It’s not about taste.

So, while we may lament the “dead fly biscuit” and yearn for the buttery embrace of proper shortbread, we must acknowledge Lichfield’s strategic brilliance. They’ve conquered the B&B world, one depressingly dry biscuit at a time.

But, let’s be clear: just because they’re everywhere doesn’t mean they’re good. And anyone with a modicum of taste will agree.

Paul Tonkinson’s ‘26.2 Miles to Happiness: A Comedian’s Tale of Running, Red Wine and Redemption’ is an alliteration in search of a story. 

Running, Red Wine and Redemption may all start with an ‘R’ and read well together as a tagline for a book but the book itself is not about red wine or redemption. It’s about running. And as a book about running it does a good job of explaining why the comedian Paul Tonkinson loves running marathons. But it’s not a tale of redemption. He sets out to run a sub-3 hour marathon, he writes about running a sub-3 hour marathon. There is no redemption, unless the redemption is the time he tried to do it and narrowly missed out. But that’s not redemption, it’s just a second attempt. He was just trying again. 

As for the red wine. He mentions having a drink at Christmas and that he likes a nice bottle of wine but for the attempt at a sub 3 hour marathon he decided not to drink. He also decides not to eat biscuits but the book doesn’t mention that in its alliterative title because ‘B’ doesn’t fit in with his ‘R’s’ theme.

Anyways, the book is pretty good, an interesting and quick read about the dedication required to run faster and Paul Tonkinson does a good job in sharing his enthusiasm for running. 

But it’s not a book about redemption and it’s not a book about red wine.

‘