“If you risk nothing, you gain nothing”; or “If you risk nothing, you risk everything”; or “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”. 

I’ve heard all 3 versions over the years, I wrote the first one “If you risk nothing, you gain nothing” on post it notes for my 63 marathons in 63 days and put them everywhere where I would see them everyday – on the van dashboard, on the walls at home, in my backpack. The phrase has stuck with me since.

Fail Forward is another mantra I use in my running life - actually all facets of my life. I’ve written about overcoming the fear of failure and the mental strategies I use to ensure that when I don’t achieve what I set out to accomplish (I fail), I frame the experience to work for me, not hold me back.

Holy moly I experienced a lot of fear running across Australia. Some fear was real and present danger, some fear was in my mind - I have quite an imagination, after-all I imagined that I could actually run across Australia 😊

The real and present danger was the traffic. I ran along the side of busy highways and motorways for the majority of the 4,000kms, and the traffic was coming at me at 110kms per hour.

The “Say Yes More” bloke, Dave Cornthwaite, has a quote on his website “if you’re ever caught between two decisions always go for the one which makes the best story”.

If I go to university will I ever write these books, make the films, go on adventures, or make good stories for the next 3 years.

I sat with that thought …

When I lined up to start my 63 marathons in 63 days adventure at John O’Groats, Scotland back in 2017, I had not long turned 50 years old, I was feeling as strong as I’d ever been, as fit as I’d ever been and as ready as I was ever going to be to take on the challenge ahead of me.

Now that I have finished my latest adventure – RunAustralia – I can admit that I was not in a similar physical starting place as I was in 2017...

A brief little history of the adventures I’ve done - my Ta Dah list, and the things I want to do - my To Do list.

You know the saying “I wish I knew then, what I know now”, well there’s so much I would liked to have been able to tell my 49/50 year old self. Actually, I’d like to have known much earlier, but it wasn’t really a topic that was openly discussed. Here’s part of my tale of perimenopausal discovery, my best tip for navigating this phase, and my favourite websites for perimenopause/menopause advice.

There’s a lot of fancy kit available to runners, but do you really need it? Here’s my essential running kit list that I’ve honed over many years, but first and foremost I’m keen to get you out running, so throw anything on at the start and build it up from there.

My latest ‘throw myself into the deep end’ experience was to go on a multi-day bikepacking adventure in the highlands of Scotland with the truly Marvellous Mimi Anderson (@marvellousmimi).

Last week I was asked the question - “Why am I in the gym doing weights when I’m a long-distance runner?” They also mentioned that they thought ultra-runners were usually tall and thin.

On the 1st of August I set off on a treadmill adventure to virtually Run Across Oz, but Treadmill Oz soon became Treadmill 1000 when things didn’t quite go to plan.

With everybody having to stay at home, children being off from school, and huge changes to people’s routines, I thought that I would share the experiences from the multi-week adventures that Nikki has run and that I planned, crewed, supported, managed, driven, cooked…you get the idea!

Run fast is in the tough basket for me, for the past 3 years I’ve been concentrating on running at a cruising pace that allows me to cover the distance without overstretching myself…

“You know you can catch a bus?”
That’s what I’ve been told more than once since I started planning my Run across Australia, but where’s the fun, the extraordinary, the adventure in that?

The secret is to start off easy using your upper body to slowly ease your body weight down onto the roller, then work into it. When done like this, you can almost class it as an upper body and core workout – it certainly uses them.

Answer me honestly, do you warm up every time you go for a run?

‘Warming Up’ is all about getting the blood pumping and getting the oxygen delivered to the outer extremities – your arms, legs fingers, and tootsies – warming up your muscles ready for action.

Flexibility, mobility, and agility are as important to your body as your running style or the steps you take. As a runner, you hold your body in a fairly static position during your run, and as a marathon runner, you hold it in this position for a long time. This is why stretching should be an integral part of your routine