I am new to blogging and i think it has taken me longer sitting at the screen to get this far than it took for me to complete most of my races last year.


Just to get the ball rolling I thought I would introduce you to my running background, my involvement in Nepal and how they have become intertwined. After stopping running at university in around 1968 or so, I started again around 1990. Firstly, just to try to stay fit for the mountain walking I was doing then and to shake off the stresses of work. It was not until four or five years later that I ran my first race at the behest of my son, a half maraton in Oxford, and another year or so after that until I was racing regularly and genuinely hooked. Coming to this kind of racing late did have a couple of advantages. I had an excuse for being slow and there was always a new age group category coming up. My racing in this early period was all road racing from 10k to marathons, incluing a couple of London Marathons which Ii got into via the 'good for age' category.

Then, my second trip to Nepal changed all that. After a trek we spent a couple of days in a village called Lower Jyamrung. A group called Tukee Nepal, formed by local people, was doing some great work improving education opportunities, tackling health problems, building toilets in an area that had never had them before. Much of it focussed on two particularly deprived groups, Dalits (untouchables) and women. I was impressed enough to commit myself to a sponsored run before I left them. But what was it going to be? I could not just do another marathon, I was doing them all the time and I felt it had to be a real challenge to me personally to justify asking people for money. After looking around I settled on the first running of the London to Brighton trail run in October 2008. In running terms completely unknown territory for me.

In the months before the race, as part of my preparation, I ran the Lyke Wake race (which I strongly recommend by the way), the Devil o' the Highlands (also recommended) and the High Peak 40 which most of you will know. Then after the London to Brighton, the Round Rotherham 50 which Vasque series runners will have a chance to get acquainted with later this year though not with the December start which added to the experience in 2008. I finished them all, some in what I thought were decent times for a 60+ year old and others in times I prefer not to dwell on. But I did finish.

By this time I was hooked on the change from road to trail, but what next for 2009? It had to be the Vasque Series. I see Nick Ham has beaten me to the concept of 'Quantity not quality' but it was exactly what I had in mind - the full series and finishing them all. Well, if you look at the records you will see that I did not quite make it. Having managed to finish all the early races despite a recurring sprained ankle (see particularly the Wuthering Hike which I started already limping) I finally failed in ther Lakeland 100. I pulled out at 82 miles. Physically I felt pretty good but I was sufficiently mentally disorientated at about 1.00 am on a very wet night to persuade myself that I was lost when in fact I was not. I spent a couple of hours meandering around before realising my error and making my way to the next checkpoint less than a mile away. Even then I could have made it but, again erroneously, I persuaded myself I could not make the cut-off time at the Ambleside checkpoint so pulled out. Failure. But I learned some lessons which at some time over the coming weeks, perhaps in the run up to this year's Lakeland 100, I will share with you. But I did persevere and completed the rest of the series and have my specially commisioned 'almost made it' running top to prove it. Thanks to all at vasque for that, I will wear it with pride in all the races this year.

At this stage Nepal comes back into the story. We (my wife, Jeanette, and I) were back there in October/November 2009 and after some excellent trekking visited Jyamrung again. Tukee Nepal have been doing some excellent work, now extending into a number of new projects. I will leave the detail until a later date, hopefully when I have found a way of uploading material without having to re-type it all. But, before I had time to think about it I had committed myself to another sposored run.

So, again the question of what to do arose but this time there could be no doubt - it has to be the Lakeland 100 2010. Having failed once it obviously presented a real challenge and when I get to 82 miles, with the whole of my sponsorship resting on completing it, I will have no option but to go on, come what may. Also of course, for my more affluent friends, £1 a mile produces a nice round number!

So, my diary is full for the rest of the year. The Vasque series (another failure that needs to be dealt with), the Lakeland 100 as an absoluite priority, three weeks in Montenegro in May/June for a bit of a break and back to Nepal in October/November, hopefully with a wallet full of sponsorship money.

I will have to find a way of getting information about Tukee Nepal into this blog or onto my site. I am sure there must be a way, I just have not found it yet. In the meantime you can visit their website at http://www.tukeenepal.com/ or email me at dickscroop@talktalk.net and I will add you to my sponsors mailing list without commitment.

Tha's more than enough for now.

Dick Scroop