The Young Feller

Last month I was delighted to be asked by Salomon to be part of the "trial team" for the new Speedcross 4 shoe.  Having reviewed shoes for other brands before, I was really looking forward to getting an off road shoe to trial, something that was new to me.  This was something that was open to anybody to apply for, I saw it through an advert online & applied.  I had actually totally forgot I'd done this until I received the email confirming I had been chosen, along with a handful of other runners. I have had the previous model of the Salomon Speedcross, the Speedcross 3, as well as other Salomon shoes in the past.  The Speedcross is, from my own observations, the most popular model of  Salomon shoe, at fell races anyway!  These were one of the first shoes I noticed as they seemed so widely used by the running community, both for trail & fell, so surely a shoe that is well trusted throughout the sport. One of the aspects of the new mode...

The Viper 369 - Saturday 28th March 2015 - Delamere Forest, Cheshire Back in October, I saw an advert for an event in Delamere Forest.  Viper 369.  It sounded interesting and the price was great considering how long the event would be held for, if indeed I opted for the 9 hour challenge, which, inevitably, I did.  The concept is simply broken down in to laps of a 3.2 mile trail circuit.  The 3.0 required 5 laps then 6.0 a further 6 laps and the 9.0 a further 7 laps. After reading in to the unknown concept, I asked a couple of friends if they fancied the challenge.  They both gladly accepted and there we go, we'd entered ourselves for the Viper 9.0 -  The full 9 hours, near 20 laps of trail racing on a route we had no prior knowledge of, what more could you want?!  (I am indeed serious too, no sarcasm there.  Going in to the unknown in running terms is something of a huge plus, 99% of the time) The months between mid-October and ...

ashmei have cracked it. The best & most comfortable running socks, or any type of sock in fact, that I have worn to date.  I've ran nearly 40 miles in them since ashmei kindly donated a pair to us ambassadors on Saturday morning and they honestly still feel & look like, brand new! As soon as you feel them you can just tell they will be quality, but, as we all know, some things feel good in hand but don't quite do the job you want them to.  I can't say that for this bit of kit though, they do exactly what they promise on the labelling. As I mentioned, I've ran nearly 40 miles in them already including every type of terrain you can imagine apart from snow!  I've tested them on the roads - flat, up hill and down hill as well as at a casual speed and a race pace.  I've ran up to Darwen tower in them on the trails and I made sure I crossed muddy fields and fells in them.  You can never test something too much can you?  Well, only up unt...

March 5th 2015.  I heard the ping of the email tone to my mobile phone just after 5pm.  Usually it's some advertisement or flyer about offers or discounts but this email was different!  I'd received an email titled; "Congratulations - you're invited to our Ambassadors' Day".  Normally an email beginning with congratulations would be spam regarding a long lost relative who had left me millions but for once I had received an email that would hold some very exciting news. I had been short-listed by ashmei as a brand ambassador.  Hundreds and hundreds had applied but I was amongst the lucky few to be considered on the final list to represent the brand near and far.  I had plenty of planning to do in order to make the journey down to Hertfordshire but the opportunity I was presented with was more than worth the time and effort and I gratefully accepted the offer to attend. ashmei - huge success is well on it's way, in my opinion So, I had my jo...