“I’m going for a long run.” I said to Mrs TwinBikeRun and immediately I felt like a right pillock. 

 A “long run”. What the blimey is a “long run” and why would Mrs TwinBikeRun care. She’s only interested in knowing when I might be back. 

“I’m going out, I’ll back in an hour,” would be a better thing to say because how long is a long run? It’s meaningless. For me, a long run means I’ll be more than an hour. For Elise Kipchoge, a long run means 20 miles and he’ll be back in 20 minutes. For Jasmin Paris, ultramarathoner, it means three days, fifteen mountains, and a new world record. A long run means something different depending on the runner.

For anyone else, a long run is meaningless. If you don’t run, then a long run is just ‘a run’. Not long, or short, just something that someone else does.

So why do we have it? What’s the point a long run? 

I think we have a long run so that we have something to boast about when we’re training. No one boasts about a Tuesday night regular run or a Friday morning jog to work. But, on Monday, you might say when asked what you did for the weekend: “I went for a long run!”

Not that anyone is impressed. You can tell if they’re impressed if they say “how’s your legs?”. If they ask that then you know they’re not impressed, they’re just polite!

We rarely say “I’m going for a short run”. Instead it’s just a run. We don’t want people to know it’s short. We don’t do short. We don’t do easy. We either run or we run long, that’s it. 

But is that the right way to think? I’m training for the Edinburgh marathon and every week I need to have a run which is longer than others. An extended run. A run with additional miles. A run that I am absolutely not calling a long run. Instead I call it my run. And every other run in the week is my short run. In my head this run is normal and everything else is easy, Now I have one run a week and three short runs. Easy. 

By thinking about my long run as just a run, I’m trying to make the marathon appear shorter, at least in my head, because it won’t be a long run either, it’ll just be a run.

Sadly, while my mind is helping, my calves have yet to catch up and still complain my when I finish my long run run. 

“I’m going for a long lie down”I say to Mrs TwinBikeRun.

“Do you mean a lie down?” She asks.

“No! Everyone knows what a long lie down means!”

Coffee First, Then The World is the story of Scottish cyclist, Jenny Graham’s attempt to become the fastest woman to cycle around the world unaided. The “unaided” point is important because she makes clear in the book that wanted to do this fully unsupported, even down to making the people who would ride with her ride behind her so she wouldn’t benefit from any slipstream they might produce.

The book offers an interesting perspective on more usual adventure books as by usual adventure books I mean male adventure books. The challenges for a lone female cyclist, camping wild and meeting strangers along the road, are very different from a six foot bloke built like a tank after months of cycling. Even an offer of help comes with a healthy dose of suspicion as to why a man may be helping a woman in the middle of nowhere.

Jenny Graham comes across as very optimistic, positive and driven and is always thankful for the opportunity she has had to make this attempt happen.

Overall, an enjoyable and inspiring read.