The Young Feller

I recently received a message from the team at Limitless Pursuits, a website dedicated to delivering stories of men and women from around the world who show great spirit and strength to achieve things they never thought would be possible.  Sounded good to me!  They asked if they could interview me in the form of a Q and A.  I'd never answered one myself before but once I saw the questions I was immediately intrigued and went ahead.  I've copied the conversation below with the images used on their website.  The link to the official posting is here;  https://limitlesspursuits.com/land/fell-running/the-young-feller-calvin-jake-fergusons-ambition-to-take-the-fell-running-world-by-storm/ The interview took place in September 2017 and was published in October 2017. Traversing Lords Rake, Lake District, while supporting a Bob Graham Round attempt (pic by Ross Spalding) CALVIN JAKE FERGUSON took part in some fell running when he was just five years ...

Science in Sport.  Science in general.  A very interesting subject that helps us to get to grips with the human body, how it works, how it performs and why it does what it does in given situations.  In recent years, science has become integral in sport performance, especially at an elite and professional level.  Marginal gains.  Something you may have heard of.  It's basically the art of doing lots of little things that will add up to bettering yourself. In 1992, Science in Sport was founded in London.  SiS, as they are known, are now one of the worlds leading sports nutrition brands.  They have a manufacturing facility in Nelson, Lancashire (wonderful county!) and they currently have three main product ranges; SiS GO , SiS REGO and PROTEIN . The Caffeine shots are under the SiS GO bracket, while the overnight protein, as you might have guessed, is under the PROTEIN product range. First of all, protein.  I've tried the odd...

The Nine Standards Rigg.  A unique set up on the summit of Hartley fell near the boundary between Cumbria and North Yorkshire, just a few miles from Kirkby Stephen, which is where the race starts from.  The race is always on New Years Day and from my own knowledge, has always been the same 8 mile course. Nine Standards - 9 cairns atop of Hartley fell (photo credit Kreuzschnabel, Wikipedia) In it's 28th year, after being established in 1989, the race records are held by Carl Bell, 51:44 in 2013 and Victoria Wilkinson, 58:48 in 2016 and the race is currently organised by Howgill Harriers. It is a race I've wanted to do since I began fell running around 2 years ago after hearing about it so fondly from both my Grandad & Uncle.  I didn't really have it planned in my race calendar as my lack of driving license doesn't give me the most flexible of options, especially on New Years Day, but, I got a text from Bill Beckett on New Years Eve, asking if I fanci...

Usually I don't review my running shoes as I tend to buy them in cycles i.e. when my old ones are ready to be retired, so I often end up with shoes half way through or towards the end of their seasonal cycle and by that time, the shoes have already been reviewed time and time again.  For a change I've got a pair of the X-Talon 225's from release and with them being so new, thought I would take a bit of time to review them, or at least give people an overview on the new model of fell shoes and rather than just looking at certain aspects of the shoe, I'm going to honestly look at them from my own experiences of actually running in them, rather than a typical "shoe review" post. If I'm honest, the first thing that made me take a closer look at them was their actual appearance.  Now you're probably thinking why are you bothered about what they look like when they'll be several foot deep in bogs, splashing through mud and scraping on rocks fo...

Mount Snowdon, Snow Hill or Yr Wyddfa.  Whether you speak English, Old English or Welsh, this is the highest mountain in Wales and the highest point in the British Isles outside of the Scottish Highlands.  At an elevation of 1,085 metres (3,560ft) above sea level and described as possibly the "busiest mountain in Britain", this was going to be my toughest test yet. So, after an extremely disappointing Three Peaks race in April, something I rapidly wanted to move on from, the next "big" race in my diary was Snowdon.  Between those two races, I raced 12 more times - some local short ones but some of reasonable reputation, including the English & British fell championship counter Sedbergh Sports and even a weekend trip up to Dollar in Scotland for the Dollar hill race. A common theme was occurring in most of these races post-Three Peaks.  I found myself feeling very low on energy, with any form of incline proving difficult to run.  My strength was f...

The title is one of the things that bugs me about the new year starting.  I love the thought of people wanting to make positive changes, but a new calendar year shouldn't be used as such a hang up for making these changes.  If you feel like a change is needed, go through the steps to make those straight away, after all, if you feel a need for change, there is probably something you are unhappy about... You might be asking yourself why I open the blog with a paragraph like that, but once my planned 5-6 week low mileage "break" was over, following the Tour of Pendle, I had next level training planned, changes to be made.  My return to what I call proper training, began on the week of Christmas, what a week to choose eh? haha!  Monday December 21st I got my mileage up to 20 miles again after only running 10 miles a week previously to recover from a heavy year of running & racing.  Since then I have hit a minimum of 30 miles a week, normally 40, depending o...