I am 43years old and live in Nottingham UK ,originally from Scotland I moved south for work and liked it so much i stayed met a good woman and set up home here.  I've been running for about 3 years , I started out just running round a local park with some friends and to be honest it was a real struggle for me,I had been weight training at the gym and thought this was fitness, until I tried running. Trying to run a mile without stopping was tough but I stuck at it ,from that we progressed to…

After reading The Cool Impossible, I have realized that there are many similarities between reading and running. For those who have not read The Cool Impossible, Eric brings his readers to Jackson Hole where you visualize running in the mountains while you dream about your next adventure.  The difference between his book and others is that he gives you the tools to accomplish your cool impossible.  

Reading allows me to unplug and loose myself into the readers world.  Many of the…

Big party of friends and relatives on Boxing Day. Someone spots the slant board in the corner of the room. Hey, what's that? Can we try? Suddenly, it's a party game - who can hold position for longest (made more fun by the wine/champagne quotient)? End result, two people have ordered the book and asked me to make them a slant board each... I'm doing my bit for getting a runner in every family!

So, apparently.........I don't have any core muscles at all! The upper work out was tough man! 

I only managed one set of the minimum reps on each but I am happy as I started to learn how to perform the exercises and I also realised how weak I am in the core. This must be why I often get a sore back after running and from my work (as a Nurse). 

Below is my Blogger blogg link.

My Cool Impossible is in motion! …

So enter the Cool Impossible strength program. I ended my season in 10/31/13 with persistent aches and pains that would flare even on shorter runs.  Over my 3 week break, my knee settled down, but my R achilles and heel flared a little. I was nervous that starting back up again would make things worse, that my knee would flare, that the heel pain and tight Achilles would get worse and that I wouldn't even be able to get off the ground with running again. OHHHH the humanity!…

Hi, just thought I would share. 

This is my training record (for 2 people) for the start of our cool impossible training which commences tomorrow.

Training%20record%20%28word%29.docx…

Eric's training has had other, unexpected effects.

Do you listen to music when you run? I used to. Fast salsa or French Caribbean music for speed sessions, loud, angry live Bob Dylan for the long runs. The fast stuff was great for setting a brisk rhythm, then loud stuff kept me going through the pain of a long hill, or the pain of the last 2 miles of a 13 mile run. It was a motivation and also a distraction - if I was listening to music then there was less of my brain reporting on the…

I badly need to improve my eating habits. Food is my weakness! I want to do the twenty-day sugar detox; does the detox include artificial sweeteners such as Stevia? How about gluten-free? Is this a good diet for runners? And how about beans like kidney and black, is it okay to eat them if they're canned? I've always heard you should eat fresh, frozen, then canned if you have to. If anyone has any suggestions to nutrition, I would greatly appreciate it! 

I've tried two different running coaches this year, hoping to get someone with an expert eye to look at my form, and suggest improvements. But finding someone who knows anything about forefoot striking is not easy. My wife eventually found someone styled as the Paleo Runner, and bought me a 2 hour 1 on 1 training session for my birthday. It was certainly interesting. On the one hand, there was a load of stuff I just don't buy - the paleo diet, for one. And as far as running went, he was a…

These CIs are going to seem terribly tame and mundane compared to some of the inspiring examples already posted. But as Eric says in the book, the real point of the CI is the process of getting there, not the actual accomplishment. So I plan to just concentrate on the process and let the accomplishments take me by surprise (at current rates of speed improvement, in six months I'll be completing a 10K before I've actually started, which would surprise everyone!).

So, for 2014, I want…

Taking some time out to let my calf muscles relax and unknot after their hour of cadence work. Soft tissue massage this afternoon. But even on the non-running days I get to have fun on the fitball - the children love crawling underneath while I'm doing rockers as they try to avoid being run over by the big white squishy ball...

This 13.1 mile trail race was certainly a learning experience for me. Earlier this year in July, I ran a 5 mile trail, and enjoyed every minute of it, and since then I have eagerly wanted to trail run again. The opportunity came about, and I took happily took it. Race day came; I was nervous because I knew I would be running along with experienced runners. I wasn’t running this race for time but for the experience and enjoyment. The gun fired.  Up the hill and through the woods on a trail…

Phase 1 Week 7 Day 1

Eric, I just want to say thank you. You've made an immeasurable change to the quality of my life. This program is incredible! Running feels so strong, so easy, so fast. My cadence Zone 2 run today was a 7.5 mile zip through the West Oxfordshire countryside, an amazing 35 seconds per mile quicker than exactly the same run just a month ago. My progress is just amazing - I never thought I could run like this. And all the old aches and niggles and stiffness and chronic…

Lots of strength work! I actually stared the upper body exercises from The Cool Impossible book about 4 weeks ago and added the lower body exercises 2 weeks ago.  I basically just follow the book pic by pic. Have not developed the strength/stamina yet to start the advanced exercises, but plan to start the stability disc this week...that should be interesting!! I can easily do…

Hi the swissball look seemed innocent, like a child toy, however after 2 reps of the excercises, I kind of changed my mind about it :-);

Anyway I think my cool impossible will be either the Zinal or the Zermatt sky-running, both places are stunning beautifull.

Due to a string of unrelated and non-running injuries, I was unable to run from May 2012 to late Sept 2013. This left far too little time to train for my 2013 Cool Impossible, but made it an even better goal.

The…