When I started at university I joined the Nottingham University Orienteering Club. There were a number of freshers who joined the club at the same time, and one was Emma Moody. Emma had done bits of orienteering before and was encouraged to join the club by her best friend for many years, Sue Loughlin. Sue was also a friend of mine from the North West Junior Orienteering Squad. Emma and I really enjoyed being in the club, both going to orienteering events and the socials, and we got on very well. However, in the first year at university we were both in relationships with other people. By the start of our second year we were both single and started to see a lot more of each other, including many hours talking long into the night at parties. I thought that Emma was intelligent, beautiful, loving and kind and I also loved her inner toughness and determination. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask her out and we have been together ever since. We’ve now been married for twenty happy years.

Unfortunately, soon after we began our relationship I got badly injured. Where the tendon joins the bottom of the kneecap it became very inflamed in both knees. To say I was really bad at coping with not being able to run is an understatement. Emma was great at putting up with me when I got fed up of not being able to go out. My fix of running to remove the stresses and strains of my life was not possible. Swimming was just about OK on my knee, but ploughing up and down a busy swimming pool was a very poor alternative to the freedom of running. Eventually, after about twelve months, I was back to running short distances, but was still pretty worried about trying anything longer. In fact, my knees and legs hurt quite badly when I started running. After another eighteen months on a world trip – including a lot of walking and fruit picking – my knees seemed fully recovered and I could start running properly again.

After our world trip I wondered what sort of job to apply for. In the end I decided to continue my education and I pursued an MSc in hydrology at Newcastle University. I had some interest in hydrology and was keen to be based near the Lake District where Emma was working and had family. It was, of course, somewhere we also loved to run. However, I had clearly not been thinking for long about doing hydrology, as while orienteering at night during that year I fell over and banged my head on a tree. I concussed myself and was found wandering randomly around the forest in my running kit – which is obviously quite dangerous on a cold winter’s night. When I eventually got back to the warmth of a car I was asked what I was studying and I thought I was back at Nottingham doing a mathematics degree. When told I was actually studying an MSc in hydrology I replied ‘Why the hell am I doing that?’ The worst thing for my housemates and fellow orienteers in Newcastle who were looking after me – Jake Gilmore and Jo Durham – was that I had chipped a tooth, and every time I felt it with my tongue I told them what I had done but without remembering I had previously said it. After the thirtieth time Jake and Jo were both running out of patience.

Eventually they took me to hospital where I spent the night. I woke up the next morning back to my normal self but very confused as to why I was in hospital; I had no memory of what had happened. To start with I thought I had gone on a mad drinking session, but that didn’t really make sense as I didn’t have a hangover or smell of alcohol. Eventually Jake and Jo turned up and explained all. I was a bit annoyed about being told that I had to go home and rest rather than go orienteering.

Emma and I married in May 1995. A month before this we had the British Universities Orienteering Championships weekend. At the social on the Saturday night we got the chance to try sumo wrestling wearing huge padded suits. Unfortunately on my bout I rolled over the top of the guy I was wrestling, and fell badly on the big toe of my left foot. After two days of throbbing I got it X-rayed and there was a small chip of bone at the joint just near the ball of my foot. After only a week’s rest I started running (the JK orienteering event was taking place and I was desperate not to miss it) and ever since then the joint has been swollen and I scream in agony if I accidently kick a rock with that toe. By the morning of our wedding I was finally giving it a chance to heal so went cycling instead of running. I descended round a tight corner on a narrow road only to see a car coming the other way. I braked but the only way to avoid the car was to cycle off the road. I ended up on my back in amongst some nettles. Luckily there was no serious damage but I did spend the rest of our wedding day desperately trying to avoid rubbing my sore and itchy back.

After my MSc I continued with a PhD at Newcastle. Both Emma and I trained hard to improve our orienteering so we could get into the British team for the world championships. Neither of us quite made it, making the British orienteering squad but just missing out on the team. However, we also started to do the longer fell races and mountain marathons together. Emma seemed to be naturally good at the long-distance fell races; over a couple of years she was first lady in nearly all the Lake District classic long-distance fell races. She always finished with a big smile on her face whereas I would run in with a massive grimace and then collapse in a heap after getting over the finishing line. As a mixed team we also won the elite class at several mountain marathons.

Unfortunately Emma started to get injury problems soon after this. A slightly sticking-out heel bone rubbed on the hard heel cup of her running shoes and the bone gradually grew and started to interfere with her Achilles tendon. First running became painful, and then agony, and finally even walking any distance became really painful. Eventually both feet needed operating on (separately, six months apart) and the big lumps of extra bone on her heels were removed. Recovery has been good and she can do long fell walks and some short runs, but her heels still get sore after a long run. Since the injury and the operation she has been brilliant to me and focused her energies on letting me achieve my goals, and more recently also looking after our children when I am out on the fells.

After finishing my PhD I started a post-doctoral research post at Newcastle University while Emma was working in Carlisle, and so we lived in the Tyne Valley between Carlisle and Newcastle. First we lived at Haltwhistle and then at Haydon Bridge. As Emma was injured I was looking for a new mountain marathon partner for the KIMM. I was lucky enough to be asked by Mark Seddon – who would go on to win the KIMM/OMM elite class ten times – to run the 1997 KIMM with him. It was great to run with Mark and learn from his expertise. His attention to detail was extremely impressive. I had always tried to carry a light pack with me in mountain marathons but he had taken it to another level. He checked which batteries I had in my head torch as different ones have different weights. We also slept on bubble wrap and threw it away on the morning of the second day, which is allowed at the KIMM/OMM but not at many other mountain marathons. Another trick I stole from him is clipping a mug on to my waist belt so it is quick and easy to grab and drink water as I cross a stream. I was delighted to win the mountain marathon with Mark and we also won together in 1998 and 1999.

Since then I have won the elite class in numerous other mountain marathons (over twenty in total) including four others at the KIMM/OMM (to make seven in total). I have also completed the elite class at the KIMM/OMM nineteen times. The one I was happiest with I ran with Morgan Donnelly, a running friend who lived close by in the Tyne valley and who was British Fell Running Champion in 2011, in the Cheviot Hills in 2002. Running with Mark I always felt I was in his shadow. However, it was completely different with Morgan; although Morgan is a great runner his navigation is not good enough to do well in a mountain marathon, so it was up to me to get the navigation correct and I did.

Around this time I took up a new sport: adventure racing. This combination of off-road running or trekking, mountain biking, and kayaking or canoeing, all with a navigational element was just beginning to take off in the UK with ‘ACE Races’. I competed individually in these races and due to my running and navigational ability I regularly won them, including winning the ACE Race series of four races one year. For this I received as a prize a 4x4 car for a year. At mountain biking I was extremely bad at descending but OK climbing, and especially good at carrying my bike over the rough sections. My technique and ability at kayaking and canoeing was awful (particularly as I am missing one of the pectoral muscles on my right side) but my determination meant I didn’t lose too much time.

As well as winning individual races I was also part of several successful teams that won lots of UK races and the British championships on several occasions. As part of a team I also competed in international races throughout the world, coming seventh at the 2001 World Championship in Switzerland and getting a top-three position in several other races. The 2001 World Championship was a multi-day continuous race. I was in a team with the Davies family: Jim, Andrew and Nic. They lived nearby in Cumbria, and although mostly fell runners they had also...