The Anglo-European Runner
London Marathon · April 22, 2018 · Bib #13730
The Anglo-European Runner
I didn’t always run. For a long time I drank and smoked instead.
When I finally stopped, I started moving. Slowly at first, then further, then with purpose. By 2018 I had a reason that made every early morning and every aching mile feel like the least I could do.
Why I run
My wife Sarah had lost her mother Linda to bowel cancer at 53. Her brother Anthony at 34. Her grandfather John too. Three people, the same disease, in the space of a decade. I had watched Sarah carry that — with the kind of quiet strength that doesn’t ask for recognition — and when a ballot place for the London Marathon landed in my hands, I knew immediately what I wanted to do with it.
On April 22 2018 I ran 26.2 miles through London in 4:00:36, wearing a Beating Bowel Cancer vest, carrying Linda and Anthony and John every step of the way. We raised £2,500. The local paper ran the story.
I crossed the finish line in sunshine, fist in the air, bib number 13730. Thirty-six seconds outside four hours. It was one of the best days of my life. I think about those thirty-six seconds constantly. I am told this is normal.
The local paper
Parvalux, the company I worked for, let me stand in their reception in my running kit holding a charity banner and took a photo that I will never throw away.
22.04.2018 · Finisher · 4:00:36
What happened next
I won’t dress it up. I became seriously ill and ended up in the care of the Renal Department at Dorchester County Hospital. The staff there were, in the words I used at the time and still mean entirely, simply amazing.
Recovery was long. Slow. Humbling. For someone who had just run a marathon, learning to be patient with a body that needed time was harder than any training plan.
But I got there. Off the medications, back on my feet, and with a very clear idea of what I wanted to do next. The London Landmarks Half Marathon. For the Dorchester Renal Ward. For the people who gave me back the ability to lace up at all.
I ran it on April 2 2023 — 13.25 miles through the heart of London, camera out at the good bits, grateful at every mile marker. 1:42:43. We raised £1,314 — 202% of the target, from 47 people who wanted to be part of the thank you.
London Landmarks Half Marathon · April 2, 2023 · 1:42:43
Dorchester County Hospital · May 25, 2023 · £1,363 to the Renal Unit
And then Italy
Sarah and I had always talked about Italy. Not just as a holiday destination — as somewhere that felt worth understanding properly.
Ferrara came first. In September 2025 we travelled down to Emilia-Romagna and gave it a proper look. Ferrara is forty minutes from Ravenna, a city of Renaissance walls and bicycles and extraordinary quiet. We laced up and ran the ramparts together on a warm September morning, the trees just beginning to turn.
Running in Italy does something to you. The pace of the place, the light, the way the cities hold their history without making a fuss of it. It felt like somewhere worth coming back to. So we did.
February 2026
In February 2026 we went back to Tuscany. Florence first, then Siena. I was out of the door at quarter past seven in Florence before the tourists arrived, running through empty parks and past a Medici fortress, alone in a city that hadn’t woken up yet.
Two days later I ran out of Siena and into the Tuscan hills, past vineyards and stone arches and a skyline I stopped to photograph because it demanded it.
I wrote it all down. I thought — this should go somewhere. This is where it goes.
Outside Siena · February 12, 2026
Leaving the city limits
The hills beyond · 7:43am
What comes next
Running changed things for me. Not just physically — though that too — but in ways that are harder to quantify. The thinking it creates. The conversations it opens up. The particular kind of honesty that arrives somewhere around mile three when there’s nothing left to do but keep moving and talk.
Thinking Out Loud Runners is a running and walking group for men over 50, based in Dorset. No pace requirement. No kit list. No competition. Just the South West Coast Path, the conversation it tends to produce, and the straightforward proposition that getting out and moving — with other people who are figuring the same things out — is good for you.
It’s early days. But the idea has legs. Possibly quite a few miles of them.
More details →
What is this site?
Each post is a run — route, photos, what I noticed, what was worth stopping for. The photography is deliberate — not illustration for the writing, but a record of the places in their own right.
The routes are in Italy and Spain and Croatia and Switzerland and a few miles from where I live in Dorset. They’re all part of the same thing: the attempt to stay curious, stay moving, and keep paying attention.
I run because I can. And because some people I loved never got the chance to.
Start here
Every route logged, every city photographed. Europe on foot, from the beginning.
All routes →The group
A running and walking group for the over 50s. Dorset-based. No pace requirement. Just miles and conversation.
More details →