Unleash the Monkey Army

Momentum, that sense of movement, of continuity of movement (sometimes when we’re stationary but that’s another story), and for a lot of us, the feeling that is missing this year. I’ve been lucky enough to have a go at a couple of truck pulls, scratching child itches that formed from an early age (Geoff Capes and Daley Thompson were childhood heroes) and reflecting on that and some of my other sporting endeavours helps draw out a couple of things which might be helpful in these times. The British readers of this will know the part of the Festive season ritual of sitting down with turkey leftovers or tin of sweets and watching World’s Strongest Man. With the growing popularity of strongman in recent years, others of you may have come across it in different ways.  The vehicle pull (mine are not even close to being in that league by the way) is a staple. It starts with a colossal effort, with every fibre of your being straining to overcome inertia, the “desire” of the object to remain...

I was asked to comment on the suggestion that running can be the fool's gold of fitness. It was a fairly easy request in some respects as I have on several running related ventures gone on the record as saying "running is for stupid people". No I blame that on discomfort as a product of distance but in my training practice I certainly adhere to the less offensive approach of not commenting on intellect and just reducing the amount of running I ask of others. But why? This is one of those occasions when I can think about what I do and talk to others about it. Just the other day, somebody came up to me at my dayjob while we both doing something else and started a conversation which ran something like this: "You alright mate?" "Not bad ta, you?" "Not bad. Look, I need to start running again, what sort of distance should I aim for to begin with?" "What? Erm, sorry, what are you shooting for?" "To go running but I'm not sure w...