Exclusive: Featured Blogger - Kevin Wood ~ Feet Don't Fail Me Now

Foreword: Happy New Year! Starting today, we will be featuring bloggers who run to inject some “fun” into our blog. We do not want to be just another boring old blog that lists events and publishes press releases. So, every fortnightly, get ready to be awed and inspired by a series of interviews with tarmac-pounding, keyboard banging bloggers who called themselves runners. Some seasoned, some new. Some you might know. Some are just waiting for you to get to know them.

To kick start this, meet Kevin Wood of “Feet Don't Fail Me Now” blog. A fairly new blogger. His workmates call him Clyde (an orang utan, Clint Eastwood's pet sidekick in the film Every Which Way) on account of his all over body hair!



How long have you been blogging? About a month!

What do you blog about? It's a relatively new blog which has bloomed from using Facebook and Twitter and I felt a calling to annoy/agitate the world at large via a blog.

What motivates you to blog? To run? I've started the blog to hopefully give people who are not completely familiar with the area a chance to find out about what's going on in the local running community through races, sharing maps of popular routes, reviewing running gear that's available locally. Motivation to run? That's easy. To stop my middle age stomach spreading out over the top of my trousers.

Are your approaches to blogging and running similar? Completely different. My wife has to spell check and proof read everything I write but she can't run to save her life. I can't spell or proof read but I can successfully allow my body to fall forward safe in the knowledge my legs know whats going on and will catch up. Most of the time.



What do you do for a living? Make trouble and annoy people. A social agitator. A bon vivant. An all round good egg and snappy dresser. All of those things.

How long have you been running? I ran a lot at school and started again around 6 years ago.
Do you still remember your first run? Tell us briefly what you remember. Yes, it was a school 1500m race and i ran like hell on the first lap, way ahead of the field. Hairy Seamus Smith over took me on the last lap and I had nothing left to give, no kick. Damn that Seamus Smith.

Why do you run? It keeps me fit and I just find it keeps my head clear.

Where do you run? How often? How far? I do hill work and speedwork with the F1 Runners on a Monday and that's a great source of knowledge on running from Coach Mark Williams. It's also a really lovely bunch of folks to run with and no matter how gruelling the sessions are everyone has a smile on their face. That may be a grimace but it's a happy grimace. The rest of the week is filled with mostly fartlek and tempo runs in the gym or outdoors and long runs either on a Saturday of Sunday morning.

How do you reward yourself after a run? Pint of Chocolate milk.

Where is your favourite place for a run? In Malaysia it would have to be FRIM and in Scotland it would have to be my wee village in Scotland, Aboyne.

What are the memorable (funny, proud) moments in your running experience? Proud would be finishing the SCKLM half this year in under 2hrs. Funny would be possibly having to dive into the sea whilst running on the beach in Oman and pretend i was a triathlete. I had an 'Upset Stomach'.

What do you do with your black toe nail(s)? I tell my children that they are black sea shells and they keep them in a trophy cabinet.



What is your mantra for running? It's a temporary pain, I keep reminding myself that. You know, I'm extremely privileged to be living here in this lovely country, there are people out there that are in situations they can't escape from. You can't really moan about running pain can you?

What are the some of your running pet peeves? inconsiderate drivers, always the drivers isn't it?

What are the top three things/ factors that make up a successful road race? I think the SCKLM13 was a good example of a successful race. Very well organised. 1 -The course has to be carefully planned minimising contact with traffic. 2 - in this climate, adequate drinks stations are a must. 3 - Adequate medical facilities, again in this climate anything can happen.

Do you listen to music when you run? If yes, what are your favourite songs? I love listening to music while I run. I'm a big Northern Soul fan, each song 2mins 30 seconds long with a pounding beat. Magic.



What is your favourite running gear? I'm a huge fan of Newton Running shoes and have been injury free for over 18 months since switching to them. Hopefully Newton is reading this and then I won't have to buy another pair again.

Who is your running hero? Showing my age but it would have to be Steve Ovett. I grew up during a fantastic time for British athletics. You only have to do a quick search on Youtube to see the races between Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett and to see how intense a rivalry there was. Sebastian Coe was always portrayed as the upper class public school boy and Steve Ovett as the working class hero so coming from a working class family it was empowering to have that type of role model.

What is your dream race? Would love to run the Tokyo marathon.



Best advice a fellow runner has given you. Don't eat that, it'll give you the sh*ts

Best advice you have given a fellow runner. Eat this, it'll make you run faster.

Finish this sentence. You know you are a runner when....you eye non-runners with suspicion.

Your resolution/ plan/ target in 2014 (in running/ blogging). I'm not going to say run a marathon as I will only regret it.



Message from you to the readers of the blog. Yeah, if they wan't to share anything, routes, trails etc, let me know. I've only been here a couple of years but still finding out about new routes. Would love to see more.

Head over NOW to Kevin's blog - Feet Don't Fail Me Now