Way back in January, I wrote this blog about our betting game:
fetcheveryone.com/blog/3/2023/1/461119
During the recent changes to our race listings engine, I retired the old version of the betting game - but promised those who had an interest that I would rebuild it, like a phoenix from the ashes. That day is today
The old version was focused entirely on scoring PBs in races. The last time I got a proper PB (i.e. at a race distance I'd done previously) was in 2016. I suspect I'm not alone in having to look backwards to see my best times.
So I wanted to replace it with something that would never go out of date for any of us.
Instead of using race times, I am now using benchmarks, looking back over the last 90 days. So for example, my lifetime 5k PB is 21:31, but my best in the last 90 days is a more achievable 24:22 (set during the Doctor K Cup). Let's use 90 day benchmark figures instead then, and no matter where you are in your fitness journey, you have a realistic time to conquer.
The second thing I wanted was a fair scoring system. Lucky for me, I remembered an old conversation I had with maths whizz @Boycie about 15 years ago! I got in touch with him, and he helped me figure out how to stop eating crayons and come up with a solution.
The old game just used "number of seconds inside your old PB" divided by "distance of race in miles" multiplied by "number of races at the given distance".
There are a couple of issues with that.
Assuming two marathon runners have recent bests of 5:00:35 and 2:00:35 respectively. Both go out for a run, and take a minute off their times. Whilst the 5hr runner can and should feel very good about their achievement, we have all seen the scale of human effort and difficulty of chipping away at the 2 hour mark. Yet with all other factors being equal, they'd earn the same amount under our old betting rules. A good rule would somehow be able to reward the scale of the effort in something other than seconds.
Secondly, how about this example. Two runners, aged 25 and 95 have both run a 30 minute 5k. After a month of training, they both run 29 minutes. Should both bets pay out the same amount? I'd propose that the 95yo has made the bigger achievement (but of course, both should be proud). This is how WAVA sees it too. The 25yo picks up 1.5% on their WAVA score, and the 95yo picks up 4.5%. You can make the same case for the difference between male and female performances. So it makes sense that a good rule would use something like WAVA in an attempt to level these two axes of the playing field.
With Boycie's help, I've come up with a new system that tries to take all this stuff into account
The game also relies on a good source of options for people to place their wagers on. So I've been working on some incentives to keep a steady stream of horses in the paddock, ready for your eagle eye to pick the one with the fanciest fetlocks (whatever they are). When you register as a horse, the system shows you your 90 day bests - and every day you update these to indicate which ones you hope to beat, you collect an extra 50 credits for betting with. Obviously, in order for those credits to go somewhere, you need to register as a punter too.
I've made a little incentive for those who play as punters too. Every day that you check up on the game, you earn a bonus 20 credits. So even if you're really really bad at picking winners, you'll never totally run out of credits to play with.
Register as both, and you can earn a small fortune just by sticking around. I wonder whether those who bet can outscore the ones who just save all their credits
Here's the game: fetcheveryone.com/horses.php
I have signed up all the horses who were willing to be part of this back in January.
I am fully expecting that once you all get your hands on this, there'll be some bugs found, and I may well end up deploying fixes and resetting the game. But we won't know until we try.
Badges for getting involved
fetcheveryone.com/blog/3/2023/1/461119
During the recent changes to our race listings engine, I retired the old version of the betting game - but promised those who had an interest that I would rebuild it, like a phoenix from the ashes. That day is today
The old version was focused entirely on scoring PBs in races. The last time I got a proper PB (i.e. at a race distance I'd done previously) was in 2016. I suspect I'm not alone in having to look backwards to see my best times.
So I wanted to replace it with something that would never go out of date for any of us.
Instead of using race times, I am now using benchmarks, looking back over the last 90 days. So for example, my lifetime 5k PB is 21:31, but my best in the last 90 days is a more achievable 24:22 (set during the Doctor K Cup). Let's use 90 day benchmark figures instead then, and no matter where you are in your fitness journey, you have a realistic time to conquer.
The second thing I wanted was a fair scoring system. Lucky for me, I remembered an old conversation I had with maths whizz @Boycie about 15 years ago! I got in touch with him, and he helped me figure out how to stop eating crayons and come up with a solution.
The old game just used "number of seconds inside your old PB" divided by "distance of race in miles" multiplied by "number of races at the given distance".
There are a couple of issues with that.
Assuming two marathon runners have recent bests of 5:00:35 and 2:00:35 respectively. Both go out for a run, and take a minute off their times. Whilst the 5hr runner can and should feel very good about their achievement, we have all seen the scale of human effort and difficulty of chipping away at the 2 hour mark. Yet with all other factors being equal, they'd earn the same amount under our old betting rules. A good rule would somehow be able to reward the scale of the effort in something other than seconds.
Secondly, how about this example. Two runners, aged 25 and 95 have both run a 30 minute 5k. After a month of training, they both run 29 minutes. Should both bets pay out the same amount? I'd propose that the 95yo has made the bigger achievement (but of course, both should be proud). This is how WAVA sees it too. The 25yo picks up 1.5% on their WAVA score, and the 95yo picks up 4.5%. You can make the same case for the difference between male and female performances. So it makes sense that a good rule would use something like WAVA in an attempt to level these two axes of the playing field.
With Boycie's help, I've come up with a new system that tries to take all this stuff into account
The game also relies on a good source of options for people to place their wagers on. So I've been working on some incentives to keep a steady stream of horses in the paddock, ready for your eagle eye to pick the one with the fanciest fetlocks (whatever they are). When you register as a horse, the system shows you your 90 day bests - and every day you update these to indicate which ones you hope to beat, you collect an extra 50 credits for betting with. Obviously, in order for those credits to go somewhere, you need to register as a punter too.
I've made a little incentive for those who play as punters too. Every day that you check up on the game, you earn a bonus 20 credits. So even if you're really really bad at picking winners, you'll never totally run out of credits to play with.
Register as both, and you can earn a small fortune just by sticking around. I wonder whether those who bet can outscore the ones who just save all their credits
Here's the game: fetcheveryone.com/horses.php
I have signed up all the horses who were willing to be part of this back in January.
I am fully expecting that once you all get your hands on this, there'll be some bugs found, and I may well end up deploying fixes and resetting the game. But we won't know until we try.
Badges for getting involved
Click here to suggest fetcheveryone's blog for today's highlights.
Beat that, Andy Dufresne
5:38pm, 18 Nov 2024
On Friday, I woke at about 6am. Katie and I had a funeral for a family member to attend at 11, followed by a short time at the wake, then a trip to the GP surgery to get the dressing changed on Katie's knee wound (she's ok - she tripped over on a run a week or so ago). I got back and tried to have a bit of a kip, but it wasn't happening. So Katie fuelled me up with a pasta bake, and drove me to the station in time to catch the 5.47pm from Bedford to Bletchley.
I got lucky in Bletchley, and managed to get on the connecting train that left just 3 minutes after I arrived. This meant that instead of sitting round for half an hour in Bletchley, I got to sit around for half an hour in Birmingham International, waiting for @The boy to arrive on his train. We'd had quite a discussion over WhatsApp about the sensibility of him coming at all, as he had a bit of white fur on his throat. Plus his "last seen" on WhatsApp was showing as 3.36am on Friday morning I gave him my best advice, but acknowledged that it was his call. And he was not willing to miss out.
A taxi from the station to Meriden was £12, and we arrived just before 9pm. We walked across the green, pausing briefly at the cross where the race would start, then piled into Budgens for some snacks and drinks to supplement our supplies. Katie had baked us some amazing chocolate chip cookies. Surprisingly, the workers in the shop had no idea what was about to descend on their green at midnight.
Snacked up, we headed to the Methodist Hall for registration. It had that "parfum de scout hut" about it, but the process was very straightforward. Collect our GPS trackers and corresponding pouches; collect our orange boiler suits; nod nervously when asked if we had the relevant mandatory kit; and get out of there to rest up in the pub.
There are two pubs in the village (that we know of). One looks like it's a dining-only sort of place, so we gave that a miss - and went to the Strawberry Bank Hotel across the road. There was some very dodgy karaoke going on, but we found a quiet room away from the singing, and nursed a couple of pints of Coke whilst watching the darts, trying not to burn through too many percent of our phone batteries, and earwigging other participants conversations. One such conversation was about a McDonalds that only served drive-through after midnight - and we hoped that this wouldn't be the one we were aiming for. The boy had a good laugh at the spelling mistake on the Fetch shirts (I'd brought one for him), and we agreed to dedicate our attempt to the pursuit of cyclitism
After a short while, @geordiegirl rocked up with @Skortedman and Nicky from Flanci (soz, I don't know her Fetch name). They sat with us, and kept us entertained and level - and we shared our hopes and dreams and harsh realities of our expectations! We pulled on our (very cheap and flimsy) orange boiler suits, and all discovered that they had no pockets, nor a slit giving access to underlying pockets. And we looked like goons!
At about a quarter to midnight, we all made our way up to the green, which was now buzzing, with about 250 people, the majority of which had bought in to the orange suited madness. If a UFO had descended, I think we'd have made them feel very much at home. I managed to meet up with @EdGreig who is very charming and funny. We spoke about the random memorial on the green to the cyclists who lost their lives during the war. And he made me very jealous by telling me he'd just had a 40 minute nap in the church hall. As a dad to a newborn, I guess the ability to sleep on command must come in very useful.
With less than a minute to go, I remembered I needed a GPS signal, and waited frantically for it to go from red to green. The countdown came and went, and we stood for 30 seconds watching all the participants disappearing in random directions from the start point. It's a fabulous experience!
There were lots heading down the road we planned to start on - but as our plan was just to walk, the majority disappeared into the distance. But that was ok, and The boy bought into the idea that we were just there to do our own thing. I'd brought my Wahoo bike computer with me, and had programmed the route into it, so it was chirping away as we worked our way along the road, and meant I could leave my phone in my pocket to preserve its battery life.
We had pretty much picked the figure of 2.5 miles per hour out of the air. This translates to 24 mins per mile. We can both walk 18:XX fairly well, so with each mile that passed early on, I was able to let The boy know how many minutes of spare time we'd earned ourselves. The first three miles were 18:04, 18:19, 18:38 - including a trip onto the A45. I'd eyeballed it on Google Earth, and was pretty sure there was a pedestrian track for just about all of it - and it proved to be the case - with only a short bit where we had to walk on the grass verge. It was quiet enough, and we were sensible enough to be able to hop on and off the road surface as vehicles appeared hundreds of yards away.
Our spare time was mounting up nicely - and we planned to have our first stop at McDonalds on the outskirts of Coventry. It was a very welcome stop, as I'd overdone it with the layers (thermal base layer, Fetch shirtm, Fetch hoodie, waterproof jacket, boiler suit on the top half; running tights, tracksuit bottoms and boiler suit on the bottom half). As the golden arches came into view, we strained our eyes (or more accurately, I did, The boy can see better than me in the dark) for signs of life inside the building. And expressed joy as we watched other customers going in and out.
Entering the promised land at about 1.45am with 5.7 miles on the clock, we got a food order in and bagged a table. There were some interesting characters, but we held our own in our orange suits. I got to work plugging in my charger and various devices, then got hold of our food (they'd cocked up The Boy's plain double cheese burger, but soon put it right), and I disappeared to the loos to shed my base layer.
Wolfing our food, another team (the Viking Warriors) turned up. They too had been walking, but had taken the long way around to avoid the A45. We chatted a bit to them, then they left us to disappear out into the night. And then at 2.19am it was our turn, after a stop of about 34 minutes. I made the call to restart my Garmin, as being inside the restaurant had added about a mile to my total (now trimmed) because of GPS wobble.
This next stage took us through the centre of Coventry. I thought this might be interesting - and we got a *few* comments, but not as much attention as I thought we might. Navigationally, we went a little way off course, and I had a few worries that the big buildings would converge around us and we'd not be able to find our way out. Then I remembered that was just a recurring fever dream, and got on with it. The boy also proved his worth. I was trying to figure out the most efficient way for us to reach the footbridge that crossed the ring road, but he pointed out that there were no cars in sight whatsoever. So we hopped the fence and picked our way across four empty lanes of road.
At 3.25am, I got the first proper sign that the boy was struggling. With 9.1 miles on the clock, he parked himself on a bus stop seat, in need of a rest. I'd been impressed by what he'd achieved, so we sat there as he tried to recoup the wherewithal to keep going. After a couple of minutes we were on our way again, motivated by another landmark, the TikTok-famous Binley Mega Chippy. We took a few photos, and sang the song
It also marked the furthest the boy has ever walked, having done similar for his DoE silver. And for the next ten minutes, we sang the song about every shop we went past. But the next sit down came at 10.3 miles (3.42am) outside a very closed Lidl. He declared that the grass looked very tempting, and I tried to keep upbeat whilst I figured out how this might pan out. Katie was not due to be awake until 5, and wouldn't be with us until gone 6am.
He got going again, and walked for another half hour, before another sit on a bench at 4.16am. At the time, it felt like the gaps between the breaks were pretty short - but half an hour is a decent chunk in hindsight. Another chunk of walking to 4.42am, and another sit on a bench. This sit turned into a lie down for him, with his head on my lap. And like an angel sent from above, Katie texted me to say that she was up (having not slept much in truth) and leaving soon. We made a plan for her to bring some blankets and pillows. The boy came to, and we pushed on.
The ten minute sleep had done him a bit of good; along with the knowledge that there was now a fixed time that we were working to. Alongside that, it was the last bench we saw for ages, so he had little choice but to keep going. But he did, and we covered the last 3 miles of the second leg in reasonable time. The boy played the Easy Street song that he'd taunted me with on my ultra - and I tried to gee him up by calculating our Katie Intersection Point (KIP) as we walked towards her, and she drove towards us.
We arrived at the rendezvous point maybe 5-10 minutes before her, so the boy sat on a wall whilst I waited at the roadside for headlights. And as I saw her approach, we also saw a couple of head torches bobbing along the other side of the road. Katie pulled up, and reported that the other head torches looked like they were struggling a bit. The boy perked up at this, and wanted to go backwards along our route (about a 100 metres) to check on how they were doing. We found them in a bus stop - it was our friends the Viking Warriors. They'd had a hard time, and were planning to tap out in Rugby. We offered them drinks and snacks, but they were ok - so we headed back to our car for a bit of a rest. 6.19am, and 15.4 miles on the clock.
The boy was hyped at this point, so despite being dead on his feet ten minutes previously, he took a bit of cajoling to STFU and go to sleep. But he finally got the hang of it, and snored like a bandsaw for the next hour, whilst Katie and I sat in the front of the car. I tried to nap, but it wasn't happening.
We made the decision to wake the boy at 7.25am, to see whether he had any gumption left to continue. Katie had very kindly offered to drive him back to his mum's house if he was not able to continue. A dazed conversation followed, during which he fell asleep another couple of times. But then we were up and out at 7:32am in the cold morning air (the coldest we'd felt the whole time). The plan was for Katie to drive on to Rugby, and we'd have a 3 mile chunk in which to test The Boy's resolve for continuing.
Those three miles were pretty tough. It was clear he was exhausted, and I was trying to find ways to let him know that it was ok to give in, that he'd done very well, and that I was (and am) very proud of what he'd achieved already. I told him this every time we stopped (which had now become just about every bus stop and bench), and every time I suggested stopping, he got up and wanted to continue. All the while I was feeding updates to Katie, and she was trying to find ways to help. The offer of a cheese toastie from Costa was very tempting, and helped drive him forward, even if the air was turning blue.
The traffic was building up in the centre of Rugby as we arrived - and coupled with my phone tracking lagging behind, it made it quite a chore to rendezvous with Katie. But I'd finally managed to lay it on the line to the boy that it was time for him to give in. He told me at one point that he wouldn't be holding me back any more - but I told him that if he said that again I'd be pretty upset. So we kept walking to the William Webb Ellis statue, took some photos, and then found the nearest side street where Katie could pull in. We had a ceremonial turning off of his tracker, and a hug, and he got in the car with Katie and a cheese toastie - and they drove off. I sobbed proud tears into my toastie, and resolved to get us the 30 mile radius medal. Boy taps out at 9am, 17 miles from Meriden, with 19 miles on the clock.
With no bus stop stops, I was able to make some quicker progress. I went past a petrol station, and made a good decision to go in and use the facilities. I don't think I went past anywhere else remotely suitable for the next 8-9 miles. I was turning out some 17:XX miles, and trying to figure out how I would chunk up the remaining distance. I knew that Katie wouldn't be back with me until about 11am, so I just focused on trying to knock off as many miles as I could before seeing her again.
My route took me onto the A5, which started off brilliantly with a bit of pavement, but soon saw me trudging along a grass verge for about 1.6 miles, which felt much longer. The joy was immense when I finally turned off it, crossing a road bridge over the M1. After the grass verge, I felt tip top and had a bag of cheese and onion crisps - and when Katie appeared in the car on the horizon, I told her that I was in a good place and needed to keep going. Due to some muddled comms and my addled brain, we screwed up the little plan we made to do a bit of walking together. So instead she drove on to the village of Little Buckby, and I trundled on to meet her there. Little Buckby is made of several hills, which was pretty traumatic - but Katie was waiting in a pub called The Pigeon with soothing words and a pint of cider. 29.2 miles on foot, just gone midday.
I shed as many items from my backpack as I could, and she took them off to the car and promised to meet me a little further on with a refill of my water and something to eat. The half hour sit down did whatever the opposite of wonders is for my hamstrings and knees - so the first mile getting going again was filled with grimaces, but things eventually loosened up. Katie was waiting at the mile marker with a tuna sandwich and a bottle of water, and sent me on my way.
Until this point, aside from a couple of drunks, not one person I passed gave one single hint of acknowledgement that I was wearing a bright orange boiler suit. It seems like people would much rather not know. Marching along with my sandwich, I was finally asked what this was all about by a bloke and his dog.
Worryingly, a 'Road Ahead Closed' sign popped up. Disaster!
I met two people walking towards me with a dog. They were clearly local, so I asked if the road ahead was open to pedestrians. They said that it wasn't - there was some problem with the railway line, so the crossing was closed. They asked where I was going. Then proceeded to give me directions that would have amounted to a 2.3 mile detour. And like a noob, I believed them.
I thanked them, and set off up the road they had directed me to. Then, some way up, I stopped. I'm not having this. I had a closer look at the map, and found a cheeky little footpath that gave me an off road route that would add virtually no extra distance. I set off, hoping that the footpath did indeed exist. And there it was - a beautiful concrete portal underneath the railway track to the farmland beyond. Actual amount of wasted distance caused by listening to local knowledge = 0.6 miles.
Swearing with delight into the open sky, I made my way through the gap under the railway! The fields I needed to cross were all freshly ploughed, but I could see a field boundary that I could use instead. And that's when my legs properly started hurting. My left knee felt pretty unstable, and the bottom of my right foot felt like someone had stuck a little knife into the skin. The uneven ground was not helping at all, and I wobbled and swore my way colourfully around the fields.
I reached the relative ease of tarmac, and started trying to figure out how much I had left to go. There was about a mile to go until I hit the village of Great Brington, and then maybe about 1.5 miles after that. My left knee was happier on the tarmac, and I was only getting the occasional stabbing pain under my right foot. It felt very much as though my skin had somehow split, and I regretted not taking the opportunity to change socks at the pub.
Arriving in Great Brington, the first thing I did was take a wrong turn - the product of an addled and tired mind. I don't think it added much to the distance, but it forced me to a complete standstill. My head was getting properly slow at working things out, so I needed to just focus on one thing. I gambled on a footpath that led through a little wood, and repeated the instructions to myself over and over again. Right at the end of the wood. Left at the T junction. Keep going until I see Katie.
The wood was probably lovely, but I was beyond caring. I made it to the road on the other side, and found it to be an absolutely undulating b*stard. A kite circled above, eyeing me with hope of a meal. Finally I hit the T junction, and turned left. A deer poked its head out from the bushes, as if to say "I reckon I'm standing on the 30 mile radius bossman", and then disappeared. Shortly after that, Katie and the car. Screenshotting the tracking website to gain proof that it was showing me outside the 30 mile circle. 35 miles and 14.5 hours to do so.
Blessed sitting. A bath I fell asleep in. Fish and chips. And bed by 7.30pm. The boy is doing much better after catching up on sleep. And Katie is, as always, amazing. What an adventure!
I got lucky in Bletchley, and managed to get on the connecting train that left just 3 minutes after I arrived. This meant that instead of sitting round for half an hour in Bletchley, I got to sit around for half an hour in Birmingham International, waiting for @The boy to arrive on his train. We'd had quite a discussion over WhatsApp about the sensibility of him coming at all, as he had a bit of white fur on his throat. Plus his "last seen" on WhatsApp was showing as 3.36am on Friday morning
I gave him my best advice, but acknowledged that it was his call. And he was not willing to miss out. A taxi from the station to Meriden was £12, and we arrived just before 9pm. We walked across the green, pausing briefly at the cross where the race would start, then piled into Budgens for some snacks and drinks to supplement our supplies. Katie had baked us some amazing chocolate chip cookies. Surprisingly, the workers in the shop had no idea what was about to descend on their green at midnight.
Snacked up, we headed to the Methodist Hall for registration. It had that "parfum de scout hut" about it, but the process was very straightforward. Collect our GPS trackers and corresponding pouches; collect our orange boiler suits; nod nervously when asked if we had the relevant mandatory kit; and get out of there to rest up in the pub.
There are two pubs in the village (that we know of). One looks like it's a dining-only sort of place, so we gave that a miss - and went to the Strawberry Bank Hotel across the road. There was some very dodgy karaoke going on, but we found a quiet room away from the singing, and nursed a couple of pints of Coke whilst watching the darts, trying not to burn through too many percent of our phone batteries, and earwigging other participants conversations. One such conversation was about a McDonalds that only served drive-through after midnight - and we hoped that this wouldn't be the one we were aiming for. The boy had a good laugh at the spelling mistake on the Fetch shirts (I'd brought one for him), and we agreed to dedicate our attempt to the pursuit of cyclitism
After a short while, @geordiegirl rocked up with @Skortedman and Nicky from Flanci (soz, I don't know her Fetch name). They sat with us, and kept us entertained and level - and we shared our hopes and dreams and harsh realities of our expectations! We pulled on our (very cheap and flimsy) orange boiler suits, and all discovered that they had no pockets, nor a slit giving access to underlying pockets. And we looked like goons!
At about a quarter to midnight, we all made our way up to the green, which was now buzzing, with about 250 people, the majority of which had bought in to the orange suited madness. If a UFO had descended, I think we'd have made them feel very much at home. I managed to meet up with @EdGreig who is very charming and funny. We spoke about the random memorial on the green to the cyclists who lost their lives during the war. And he made me very jealous by telling me he'd just had a 40 minute nap in the church hall. As a dad to a newborn, I guess the ability to sleep on command must come in very useful.
With less than a minute to go, I remembered I needed a GPS signal, and waited frantically for it to go from red to green. The countdown came and went, and we stood for 30 seconds watching all the participants disappearing in random directions from the start point. It's a fabulous experience!
There were lots heading down the road we planned to start on - but as our plan was just to walk, the majority disappeared into the distance. But that was ok, and The boy bought into the idea that we were just there to do our own thing. I'd brought my Wahoo bike computer with me, and had programmed the route into it, so it was chirping away as we worked our way along the road, and meant I could leave my phone in my pocket to preserve its battery life.
We had pretty much picked the figure of 2.5 miles per hour out of the air. This translates to 24 mins per mile. We can both walk 18:XX fairly well, so with each mile that passed early on, I was able to let The boy know how many minutes of spare time we'd earned ourselves. The first three miles were 18:04, 18:19, 18:38 - including a trip onto the A45. I'd eyeballed it on Google Earth, and was pretty sure there was a pedestrian track for just about all of it - and it proved to be the case - with only a short bit where we had to walk on the grass verge. It was quiet enough, and we were sensible enough to be able to hop on and off the road surface as vehicles appeared hundreds of yards away.
Our spare time was mounting up nicely - and we planned to have our first stop at McDonalds on the outskirts of Coventry. It was a very welcome stop, as I'd overdone it with the layers (thermal base layer, Fetch shirtm, Fetch hoodie, waterproof jacket, boiler suit on the top half; running tights, tracksuit bottoms and boiler suit on the bottom half). As the golden arches came into view, we strained our eyes (or more accurately, I did, The boy can see better than me in the dark) for signs of life inside the building. And expressed joy as we watched other customers going in and out.
Entering the promised land at about 1.45am with 5.7 miles on the clock, we got a food order in and bagged a table. There were some interesting characters, but we held our own in our orange suits. I got to work plugging in my charger and various devices, then got hold of our food (they'd cocked up The Boy's plain double cheese burger, but soon put it right), and I disappeared to the loos to shed my base layer.
Wolfing our food, another team (the Viking Warriors) turned up. They too had been walking, but had taken the long way around to avoid the A45. We chatted a bit to them, then they left us to disappear out into the night. And then at 2.19am it was our turn, after a stop of about 34 minutes. I made the call to restart my Garmin, as being inside the restaurant had added about a mile to my total (now trimmed) because of GPS wobble.
This next stage took us through the centre of Coventry. I thought this might be interesting - and we got a *few* comments, but not as much attention as I thought we might. Navigationally, we went a little way off course, and I had a few worries that the big buildings would converge around us and we'd not be able to find our way out. Then I remembered that was just a recurring fever dream, and got on with it. The boy also proved his worth. I was trying to figure out the most efficient way for us to reach the footbridge that crossed the ring road, but he pointed out that there were no cars in sight whatsoever. So we hopped the fence and picked our way across four empty lanes of road.
At 3.25am, I got the first proper sign that the boy was struggling. With 9.1 miles on the clock, he parked himself on a bus stop seat, in need of a rest. I'd been impressed by what he'd achieved, so we sat there as he tried to recoup the wherewithal to keep going. After a couple of minutes we were on our way again, motivated by another landmark, the TikTok-famous Binley Mega Chippy. We took a few photos, and sang the song
It also marked the furthest the boy has ever walked, having done similar for his DoE silver. And for the next ten minutes, we sang the song about every shop we went past. But the next sit down came at 10.3 miles (3.42am) outside a very closed Lidl. He declared that the grass looked very tempting, and I tried to keep upbeat whilst I figured out how this might pan out. Katie was not due to be awake until 5, and wouldn't be with us until gone 6am.
He got going again, and walked for another half hour, before another sit on a bench at 4.16am. At the time, it felt like the gaps between the breaks were pretty short - but half an hour is a decent chunk in hindsight. Another chunk of walking to 4.42am, and another sit on a bench. This sit turned into a lie down for him, with his head on my lap. And like an angel sent from above, Katie texted me to say that she was up (having not slept much in truth) and leaving soon. We made a plan for her to bring some blankets and pillows. The boy came to, and we pushed on.
The ten minute sleep had done him a bit of good; along with the knowledge that there was now a fixed time that we were working to. Alongside that, it was the last bench we saw for ages, so he had little choice but to keep going. But he did, and we covered the last 3 miles of the second leg in reasonable time. The boy played the Easy Street song that he'd taunted me with on my ultra - and I tried to gee him up by calculating our Katie Intersection Point (KIP) as we walked towards her, and she drove towards us.
We arrived at the rendezvous point maybe 5-10 minutes before her, so the boy sat on a wall whilst I waited at the roadside for headlights. And as I saw her approach, we also saw a couple of head torches bobbing along the other side of the road. Katie pulled up, and reported that the other head torches looked like they were struggling a bit. The boy perked up at this, and wanted to go backwards along our route (about a 100 metres) to check on how they were doing. We found them in a bus stop - it was our friends the Viking Warriors. They'd had a hard time, and were planning to tap out in Rugby. We offered them drinks and snacks, but they were ok - so we headed back to our car for a bit of a rest. 6.19am, and 15.4 miles on the clock.
The boy was hyped at this point, so despite being dead on his feet ten minutes previously, he took a bit of cajoling to STFU and go to sleep. But he finally got the hang of it, and snored like a bandsaw for the next hour, whilst Katie and I sat in the front of the car. I tried to nap, but it wasn't happening.
We made the decision to wake the boy at 7.25am, to see whether he had any gumption left to continue. Katie had very kindly offered to drive him back to his mum's house if he was not able to continue. A dazed conversation followed, during which he fell asleep another couple of times. But then we were up and out at 7:32am in the cold morning air (the coldest we'd felt the whole time). The plan was for Katie to drive on to Rugby, and we'd have a 3 mile chunk in which to test The Boy's resolve for continuing.
Those three miles were pretty tough. It was clear he was exhausted, and I was trying to find ways to let him know that it was ok to give in, that he'd done very well, and that I was (and am) very proud of what he'd achieved already. I told him this every time we stopped (which had now become just about every bus stop and bench), and every time I suggested stopping, he got up and wanted to continue. All the while I was feeding updates to Katie, and she was trying to find ways to help. The offer of a cheese toastie from Costa was very tempting, and helped drive him forward, even if the air was turning blue.
The traffic was building up in the centre of Rugby as we arrived - and coupled with my phone tracking lagging behind, it made it quite a chore to rendezvous with Katie. But I'd finally managed to lay it on the line to the boy that it was time for him to give in. He told me at one point that he wouldn't be holding me back any more - but I told him that if he said that again I'd be pretty upset. So we kept walking to the William Webb Ellis statue, took some photos, and then found the nearest side street where Katie could pull in. We had a ceremonial turning off of his tracker, and a hug, and he got in the car with Katie and a cheese toastie - and they drove off. I sobbed proud tears into my toastie, and resolved to get us the 30 mile radius medal. Boy taps out at 9am, 17 miles from Meriden, with 19 miles on the clock.
With no bus stop stops, I was able to make some quicker progress. I went past a petrol station, and made a good decision to go in and use the facilities. I don't think I went past anywhere else remotely suitable for the next 8-9 miles. I was turning out some 17:XX miles, and trying to figure out how I would chunk up the remaining distance. I knew that Katie wouldn't be back with me until about 11am, so I just focused on trying to knock off as many miles as I could before seeing her again.
My route took me onto the A5, which started off brilliantly with a bit of pavement, but soon saw me trudging along a grass verge for about 1.6 miles, which felt much longer. The joy was immense when I finally turned off it, crossing a road bridge over the M1. After the grass verge, I felt tip top and had a bag of cheese and onion crisps - and when Katie appeared in the car on the horizon, I told her that I was in a good place and needed to keep going. Due to some muddled comms and my addled brain, we screwed up the little plan we made to do a bit of walking together. So instead she drove on to the village of Little Buckby, and I trundled on to meet her there. Little Buckby is made of several hills, which was pretty traumatic - but Katie was waiting in a pub called The Pigeon with soothing words and a pint of cider. 29.2 miles on foot, just gone midday.
I shed as many items from my backpack as I could, and she took them off to the car and promised to meet me a little further on with a refill of my water and something to eat. The half hour sit down did whatever the opposite of wonders is for my hamstrings and knees - so the first mile getting going again was filled with grimaces, but things eventually loosened up. Katie was waiting at the mile marker with a tuna sandwich and a bottle of water, and sent me on my way.
Until this point, aside from a couple of drunks, not one person I passed gave one single hint of acknowledgement that I was wearing a bright orange boiler suit. It seems like people would much rather not know. Marching along with my sandwich, I was finally asked what this was all about by a bloke and his dog.
Worryingly, a 'Road Ahead Closed' sign popped up. Disaster!
I met two people walking towards me with a dog. They were clearly local, so I asked if the road ahead was open to pedestrians. They said that it wasn't - there was some problem with the railway line, so the crossing was closed. They asked where I was going. Then proceeded to give me directions that would have amounted to a 2.3 mile detour. And like a noob, I believed them.
I thanked them, and set off up the road they had directed me to. Then, some way up, I stopped. I'm not having this. I had a closer look at the map, and found a cheeky little footpath that gave me an off road route that would add virtually no extra distance. I set off, hoping that the footpath did indeed exist. And there it was - a beautiful concrete portal underneath the railway track to the farmland beyond. Actual amount of wasted distance caused by listening to local knowledge = 0.6 miles.
Swearing with delight into the open sky, I made my way through the gap under the railway! The fields I needed to cross were all freshly ploughed, but I could see a field boundary that I could use instead. And that's when my legs properly started hurting. My left knee felt pretty unstable, and the bottom of my right foot felt like someone had stuck a little knife into the skin. The uneven ground was not helping at all, and I wobbled and swore my way colourfully around the fields.
I reached the relative ease of tarmac, and started trying to figure out how much I had left to go. There was about a mile to go until I hit the village of Great Brington, and then maybe about 1.5 miles after that. My left knee was happier on the tarmac, and I was only getting the occasional stabbing pain under my right foot. It felt very much as though my skin had somehow split, and I regretted not taking the opportunity to change socks at the pub.
Arriving in Great Brington, the first thing I did was take a wrong turn - the product of an addled and tired mind. I don't think it added much to the distance, but it forced me to a complete standstill. My head was getting properly slow at working things out, so I needed to just focus on one thing. I gambled on a footpath that led through a little wood, and repeated the instructions to myself over and over again. Right at the end of the wood. Left at the T junction. Keep going until I see Katie.
The wood was probably lovely, but I was beyond caring. I made it to the road on the other side, and found it to be an absolutely undulating b*stard. A kite circled above, eyeing me with hope of a meal. Finally I hit the T junction, and turned left. A deer poked its head out from the bushes, as if to say "I reckon I'm standing on the 30 mile radius bossman", and then disappeared. Shortly after that, Katie and the car. Screenshotting the tracking website to gain proof that it was showing me outside the 30 mile circle. 35 miles and 14.5 hours to do so.
Blessed sitting. A bath I fell asleep in. Fish and chips. And bed by 7.30pm. The boy is doing much better after catching up on sleep. And Katie is, as always, amazing. What an adventure!
Click here to suggest fetcheveryone's blog for today's highlights.
Comments
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An excellent achievement by everyoneminardi
5:50pm, 18th Nov 2024 -
What an adventure indeed. Congratulations to you and the boy.laterunner6:02pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Sounds like a good effort all round! Loving the attractive boiler suits, really flatteringJamieKai *chameleon* The Boy looks haunted in that last picture, glad he gave in and went to catch up on sleep.6:09pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Shame you didn’t do it ten years ago when we were still living in WatfordFizz :-) Brilliant effort, well done to you both.6:18pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Superb effort by you, the boy, and Katie. Excellent team work.GetOutTheDoor6:23pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Well done. Great team effortDocM6:32pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Well done to you both!Garfield6:34pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Fabulous, well done both! But when did The Boy who used to draw pictures for us turn into a fully-fledged adult?!Carpathius
This sounds an amazing adventure.6:38pm, 18th Nov 2024 -
Great work team WilliamsElsie Too6:49pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Brilliant, great blog, really well done all!Sweetie6:57pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Yes, but did you remember to throw the ring into mount Doom?Raemondo7:22pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Well done!Sigh7:29pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Proper adventure! Well done Williamsesjennywren7:38pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Great job both of you!Pothunter
8:13pm, 18th Nov 2024 -
Katie is indeed amazing. And what an experience for you and the Boy! 35 miles is bloody great going!cathrobinson8:18pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Lovely to meet you @fetcheveryone and @The boy, thank you for brininging my Fetch buff which I wore with pride almost the whole way to King's Cross (I'm now keen to get a shirtm to go with it!).EdGreig8:19pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Well done, both!Ness8:23pm, 18th Nov 2024
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I loved reading this! Huge congratulations to you and The Boy!LazyDaisy8:30pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Wow that’s amazing stuff almost as amazing as your hair in the last picture …..until I realised it’s a tree 😂runnerbean
Congratulations to both of you.
8:47pm, 18th Nov 2024 -
Loved reading this, makes me want to attempt something similar.Diogenes8:56pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Loved meeting you at the beginning and we tracked you through the night and day too every time the phone was out. Hugely well done to both and extra kudos to @The boy Stirling effort following his 1 5k! Next year?geordiegirl8:57pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Fabulous job from you and the boy as well as logistics coordinator KatieCorrah9:02pm, 18th Nov 2024
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chunkywizard9:04pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Amazing. Well done both of you and KatieLindsD9:07pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Fantastic effort! Well done!GemmaLouise9:30pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Great blog and terrific experience for all involved.i hope you've all managed to catch up with some sleep.Fenland Flier9:35pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Great stuff - congrats all xxAutumnleaves9:38pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Oh well done, both. Good going.3M9:56pm, 18th Nov 2024
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What an adventure! Great narrative and excellent performances from you and the Boy! Very well done!♪♫ Synge ♪♫10:07pm, 18th Nov 2024
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wow, awesome work and great write up. Congrats!!FunkyPOM10:39pm, 18th Nov 2024
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excellent adventuringRosehip10:42pm, 18th Nov 2024
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You almost made it sound fun! Congratulations to you both, a memorable adventure.Alice the Camel10:43pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Was wondering if we could arrange a Fetchie version - using Garmin live track or something?Rosehip10:45pm, 18th Nov 2024
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wow, well doneD211:17pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Brilliant well done all 3 of youriggys9911:25pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Wowser, what an adventure 👏👏 well done all 👏👏Qwerty11:38pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Oooh, I like that idea, @Rosehip ! (also, well done, all!)ishep 🇪🇺11:51pm, 18th Nov 2024
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"A kite circled above, eyeing me with hope of a meal." made me laugh. Well done!rhb
@Rosehip that'd be a great Fetchie event I'm sure. "Escape from Everyone"? It wouldn't show all dots live on one single map with Garmin Live track I think though? That might not be needed though. EfM Race organiser Richard does bespoke rental of the trackers so maybe a Fetch version could be done for a fee via his service expedition-tracking.com12:03am, 19th Nov 2024 -
An adventure! Well done. Now I'm wondering how far I could wander through the night and day. Probably not in a boiler suit.Dvorak5:20am, 19th Nov 2024
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Blimey! Well done all!JustCommando!6:53am, 19th Nov 2024
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Well done, team Williams! Excellently planned and executedBadger7:43am, 19th Nov 2024
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Great effort - well done!AndyJ578:27am, 19th Nov 2024
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Excellent effort from all involved! Going through the night is never easy, but hopefully a good experience for both you and the boy.Sam Jelfs8:41am, 19th Nov 2024
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👏🏻🤩🙌BRAVO 😀DIY Diva9:51am, 19th Nov 2024
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Excellent - well done! and great write up tooSnail10:13am, 19th Nov 2024
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A great effort and a great blog.Canute10:29am, 19th Nov 2024
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Brilliantbigleggy11:15am, 19th Nov 2024
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Great write up sounds fab!jelly1:20pm, 19th Nov 2024
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A fantastic blog and great performances from the boy, Katie and yourself! @runnerbean 's comment about your hair and the tree did make me laugh.TeeBee1:31pm, 19th Nov 2024
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Woohoo. Awesome job. Great write up too, as always. I may have leaked a bit out proud boy hugs. What a lovely father son experience. So very, very well done to him too. 19 miles is a big shift, more than double his DoE. I hope he is proud of himself too. And it's the sleep deprivation that gets ya. My couple of 20 hour plus ultras, I hated the sleep walking. So well done again.HappyG(rrr) G2:24pm, 19th Nov 2024
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what a great read, thank you for sharing. Well done to you and your Boyclare19762:27pm, 19th Nov 2024
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It sounds fabulous in a masochistic wayRunningbauble21 well done to you all2:42pm, 19th Nov 2024
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A great achievementMcGoohan
and you visited the Binley Mega Chippy. That one's on my bucket list3:24pm, 19th Nov 2024 -
@McGoohan you've just made me aware that I forgot to include the BMC picture. I've put it in now. It was, unfortunately, very closed.fetcheveryone3:26pm, 19th Nov 2024
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Splendid. I'm singing the song right nowMcGoohan4:16pm, 19th Nov 2024
On the train, and making good progress towards Birmingham International for rendezvous with the boy and a taxi to Meriden.
I have the water bottle that @northernslowcoach sent me 🤠
The water from it is cool and delicious.
More blogs when I get a chance.
I have the water bottle that @northernslowcoach sent me 🤠
The water from it is cool and delicious.
More blogs when I get a chance.
Click here to suggest fetcheveryone's blog for today's highlights.
Comments
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Good luck!EvilPixie7:59pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Good luck 🍀Ness8:10pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Enjoy!Gooner8:16pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Enjoyrunnerbean8:17pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Good luck!Sigh8:23pm, 15th Nov 2024
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good luck!Llamadance8:26pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Best of luck, can't wait to see how you get on.ptr_runner8:26pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Have fun!!stilldreaming8:30pm, 15th Nov 2024
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HELLO! HELLO! I'M ON THE TRAIN! I DON'T WANT PPI!Ocelot Spleens
Good luck.8:30pm, 15th Nov 2024 -
Oh have fun!StuH8:48pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Have a great timeVelociraptor8:48pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Good to hear you’ll be hydrated 💦northernslowcoach
Have much fun you and the boy8:56pm, 15th Nov 2024 -
Great water bottle. Good luck!!TeeBee9:00pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Bon chance! Hope you enjoy yourselves a lot!3M9:06pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Have fun!LindsD9:06pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Wishing you a splendid fun-filled dayishep 🇪🇺9:15pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Good luck! Try not to look quite so terrified 😂LazyDaisy9:27pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Best of luck 🤞DIY Diva9:30pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Have fun xminardi9:33pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Have fun!alpenrose
9:36pm, 15th Nov 2024 -
Good luck.pedroscalls9:41pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Have funRosehip9:59pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Wishing you and the boy the best of luck 🍀Corrah9:59pm, 15th Nov 2024
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The magic water bottle of power will see you right. Have fun!jennywren10:09pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Good luck and enjoy!clare197610:18pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Have funD211:04pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Enjoy!Pothunter11:40pm, 15th Nov 2024
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See you 60 odd miles awayDiogenes12:25am, 16th Nov 2024
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GreatDvorak Have a most excellent adventure!12:40am, 16th Nov 2024
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Pob Lwc FetchRascal2:40am, 16th Nov 2024
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Have a great timeDocM7:15am, 16th Nov 2024
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Enjoy!SarahWoo7:30am, 16th Nov 2024
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Best of luck!JustCommando!8:07am, 16th Nov 2024
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Enjoy!!Winniefree8:54am, 16th Nov 2024
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Good luck!laterunner9:16am, 16th Nov 2024
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I miss he beard. Cool hat and bottleSpanners9912:06pm, 16th Nov 2024
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Enjoy !!bigleggy12:32pm, 16th Nov 2024
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Good luck!Garfield2:25pm, 16th Nov 2024
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Enjoy! Nice bottle tooAndyJ573:15pm, 16th Nov 2024
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Bonne chancefleecy8:18pm, 16th Nov 2024
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m - poor show from company but don't fret on my accountPeterFay9:22am, 17th Nov 2024
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Oops wrong blogPeterFay9:22am, 17th Nov 2024
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Have an amazing time!Carpathius1:32pm, 18th Nov 2024
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Late catching up but it was so lovely to see you and meet The Boy. Great effort from you both too!geordiegirl5:12pm, 18th Nov 2024
The letter 'm' kept me awake until nearly 1am last night. I would be writing this blog a bit sooner, but I've only just got back from an early-start drive to Nottinghamshire this morning to meet the builders at the flood house to implore them to start work :-/
Yesterday, Phal posted some lovely pics of her beaming in her new shirt. I went back for a look at the comments on them as I got ready to turn in last night, and my heart went through my stomach.
The letter 'm' is right next to the comma on a keyboard.
One of them belongs after the word 'cyclists' towards the bottom of the shirt. The other most definitely does not.
The error was introduced by the manufacturer when I sent them my initial (correct) designs. Their designer must have accidentally typed it when converting the designs into their in-house format. They sent the artwork back to me for approval, and I pointed out the error. They duly corrected the 'm', and sent me a new set of designs, which I then approved.
The artwork gets sent to the factory for production. They do a test print before doing the whole batch, and I got sent some images - none of which contained a rogue 'm'. All seeming well, I gave my approval for the batch to be made.
And all was mostly well, until last night.
For those of you that have received or are waiting on an order, please accept my apologies - I'll make sure it gets put right. I think this only applies to the Phal shirts (so the Sombrero design and the Phal vests are all ok).
I ended up writing them an email at about 12.30am, and I'm waiting to hear back. To me it seems pretty conclusive that the fault lies with them, so I am hoping that a reprint is a possibility for those that would like it (I know that some of you may prefer not to, for waste reasons). And for this reason, I'm not releasing any spares until I know more.
Gah! Still, the lack of sleep is great practice for Mmmmmmmeriden tomorrow The boy has found a pub on our route in Coventry that is open until 4am. If we're making good progress, we might get there for last orders
Yesterday, Phal posted some lovely pics of her beaming in her new shirt. I went back for a look at the comments on them as I got ready to turn in last night, and my heart went through my stomach.
The letter 'm' is right next to the comma on a keyboard.
One of them belongs after the word 'cyclists' towards the bottom of the shirt. The other most definitely does not.
The error was introduced by the manufacturer when I sent them my initial (correct) designs. Their designer must have accidentally typed it when converting the designs into their in-house format. They sent the artwork back to me for approval, and I pointed out the error. They duly corrected the 'm', and sent me a new set of designs, which I then approved.
The artwork gets sent to the factory for production. They do a test print before doing the whole batch, and I got sent some images - none of which contained a rogue 'm'. All seeming well, I gave my approval for the batch to be made.
And all was mostly well, until last night.
For those of you that have received or are waiting on an order, please accept my apologies - I'll make sure it gets put right. I think this only applies to the Phal shirts (so the Sombrero design and the Phal vests are all ok).
I ended up writing them an email at about 12.30am, and I'm waiting to hear back. To me it seems pretty conclusive that the fault lies with them, so I am hoping that a reprint is a possibility for those that would like it (I know that some of you may prefer not to, for waste reasons). And for this reason, I'm not releasing any spares until I know more.
Gah! Still, the lack of sleep is great practice for Mmmmmmmeriden tomorrow
The boy has found a pub on our route in Coventry that is open until 4am. If we're making good progress, we might get there for last orders
Click here to suggest fetcheveryone's blog for today's highlights.
Comments
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I was going to say I didn't notice but I have a vest... that said I wouldnt mind the error... makes it specialgeordiegirl2:01pm, 14th Nov 2024
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thanks Fetch, clearly not your fault, I only noticed as my shirt has DocM directly below the MDocM2:07pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I just received mine 10 mins ago and clocked the spelling mistake right away. was away to send a message to Fetch but spotted a message highlighting this.-caz-
I do hope the manufacturer takes the responsibility for this error and duly corrects it.
Such a shame cause it’s a lovely T-shirt2:11pm, 14th Nov 2024 -
Grrr! Annoying for you.sallykate2:13pm, 14th Nov 2024
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mmm mmmm mmmm mmmMaclennane
Once there was this guy who
ran a running website and ordered up some merch
But when he checked out his shirts,
He found some ms where there should be commas
He wrote a blog explaining
How he had proofed the whole thing
mmm mmm mmm mm2:16pm, 14th Nov 2024 -
But both Fetch and Mac were gladfetcheveryone
Cos one kid had it worse than that.2:20pm, 14th Nov 2024 -
I would never have noticed without it being pointed out.Elsie Too2:30pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Never noticed the error. Not that many people will be able to see the error, when I’m wearing it unless they are on two wheels 😂Sunbed Athlete2:59pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I wouldn't have noticed it either, and even looking at the picture above I couldn't see it! Checked mine and sure enough, rouge M... I will be using this in the future to see who actually reads it, and pays attention!BareHeadEm3:05pm, 14th Nov 2024
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If I was the boss of the T shirt company I would reimburse Mr Fetch every penny he paid for those shirts. Then Mr Fetch could re-order the number required for replacements for those who want them and pay the same price for each as he paid before. If not everyone wants a replacement then Mr Fetch gets to keep the difference so he can spend it on more hamsters or whatever it is that keeps the wheels turning on this site. That seems to me to be a reasonable thing to do although still more faff than is necessary.BaronessBL3:16pm, 14th Nov 2024
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oops. Clearly there fault, but I like @BareHeadEm 's comment and I would go that way (or a bit of red felt tip pen) - so @BaronessBL 's solution would be good for coffer fillingRosehip3:27pm, 14th Nov 2024
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their, their, their - I would be useless proofreading!Rosehip3:28pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I have a vest so clearly not affected, if I had the shirt it wouldn't bother me, just hope you don't end up out of pocket with the extra postage if replacements need sendingMrs Jigs (Luverlylegs)3:45pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I hadn’t noticed it at all 🤪 Oh bugger. I hope they sort it for you! Most definitely down to them. What a palava.phal
Maybe it can be the start of a new ‘Is It Prague?’
Cyclistsm 😀😀😀 Could catch on 😀😀😀
All the best for Meriden adventures. I don’t think I’ll be able to stay up late enough to watch you start! I’d be Very Scared of pubs in Coventry that are still open at 4am….4:09pm, 14th Nov 2024 -
Bother. I can't remember what I ordered and I'm not at home. Sorry you lost sleep.LindsD4:18pm, 14th Nov 2024
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A particularly niche BDSM? CyclistSM?StuH4:22pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I have a vest and am not affected, however I think the Baroness’ solution would be idealHellsBells4:25pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I'd keep it. It's very Fetch. kwbaba and all that? By which I don't mean that things are slapdash in Fetch. Not at all. But they are niche, unique, one-off etc. No? Lots of loveHappyG(rrr) G4:51pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Meriden?um
Or ,eridan.
Can I change ,y user na,e to u, ?
Like the Fetch Fora, no edits!4:56pm, 14th Nov 2024 -
I’m just going to keep mine, it’s special like me 😛Jaks5:13pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I didn’t even notice, no problem to keep as is for me. 😊iaincr5:31pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I have just unpacked mine and I love it. I noticed the extra m and knew there would be a blog about it!mrs shanksi5:32pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I'd never have noticed and I'm completely not bothered. In fact I'm happy to tell anyone who notices that they shouldn't be such a pedant as they have obviously never gone through the stress and hassle of organising anything like this. @BaronessBL has a great idea - I don't feel I need a replacement, so it there's a way to feed the site coffers, I'm all in favour.AndyJ57
Good luck with Escape from Meriden, mad idea!6:24pm, 14th Nov 2024 -
Cheers , not sure if anyone will notice, though maybe a good conversation bit. Liking the shirt, it reminds me of a 70's football topSouthcoastpete6:57pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Is it going to be like postage stamps where a misprint makes them more valuable? 😁3M7:00pm, 14th Nov 2024
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i didnt notice the m and not bothered. i think the t shirt is ace.FurryH7:02pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I shall get a trusty sharpie on mine, if they do replace then please keep my replacement and sell it and buy an R2 unit for your office. A small one. Obs not life sizedSombrero7:11pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I agree with @BaronessBLWinniefree7:12pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I noticed the m immediately. I was happy to accept it when I thought the error was down to Fetch, less so now I know it’s the manufacturer’s fault. I’ll wait to see what they come up with. Obviously I don’t want Fetch to suffer any financial impact for something that’s not his fault.Fizz :-)7:51pm, 14th Nov 2024
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I did notice it but am fine for it to stay as it is 😊IdristheDragon9:01pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Lolz. Aren't typos what Fetch is all about? Did someone at the T-shirt company have sossig fongers? Roflcopter.RooA11:00pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Reminds me of my 2020 medal from the Green Man Ultraishep 🇪🇺 11:11pm, 14th Nov 2024
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At least the company name is spelled right, which is one better than this year’s Vitality 10,000 shirts.Fragile Do Not Bend11:22pm, 14th Nov 2024
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How did I miss these???? I’d love one if there are spares…or a new order…hayleybrewis11:54pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Hadn't noticed, and I normally spot stuff like that. But as I just bought a black marker to turn my retired black-with-white-trim running shoes into properly black ones, this is an ideal opportunity to get further value out of it. Although in another 20 years, it's possible that the ones with mistakes will be hugely valuable so maybe I should just leave itRunnyBunny12:16am, 15th Nov 2024
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I have a trophy for placing at the High Tech Campus Trial run, which while being the first time they organized it, was actually a Trail run. These things happen.Sam Jelfs9:34am, 15th Nov 2024
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I've not unpacked mine yet! Will look this afternoon, although I'm not bothered if there is a mistake or not.westmoors11:03am, 15th Nov 2024
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I can't remember what I ordered and to be honest, I wouldn't want a replacement if it were offered. I have my lovely new kit and have supported my favourite website. Thanks, boss!RichHL1:55pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Happy to buy one with the typoMaclennane2:37pm, 15th Nov 2024
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I hadn't unpacked mine until after I read this. Honestly, I don't mind. But oh my goodness, I feel your stomach drop. None of this distracts from Phal's gorgeous design and your hard work and commitment to this community.TheScribbler
I might use my m shirt as a test to see if there are any copywriters or proofreaders behind me in my next race.
Good luck for MMMMeridien4:29pm, 15th Nov 2024 -
I'm happy with my shirt, the extra "m" can be a talking point- have to think of a good backstory 😁 Happy for any compensation for my shirt to be fed back into the site.eMpTy7:33pm, 15th Nov 2024
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As above I’m happy with my shift but will be happier if you get a refund and can keep the coffers 👍Gromit7:45am, 16th Nov 2024
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The Fetch covfefe-ism?Tazsedai7:26pm, 16th Nov 2024
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m - poor show from company but don't fret on my accountPeterFay9:23am, 17th Nov 2024
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You know what I got the t shirt other day and live it by the way it’s very retro in design. And I saw immediately the cyclistsm but I thought it was a new funky slangy words I’ve never heard of and immediately forgot all about it !!!!runningmumof3boys5:06pm, 17th Nov 2024
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Poor show by the manufacturer, however happy to keep shirt and any refund go towards the running of the site.Neil_E_There9:42pm, 17th Nov 2024
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The funny thing is I'm normally a proper pedant and would find the error annoying. However, I'm not going to be looking at it so I can happily ignore itCarpathius I wonder if anyone will point it out?
I'm more sad about the little names being illegible as that's why I picked that design.1:40pm, 18th Nov 2024
Sefton Council have finally got things sorted with the bench we arranged for Swittle!
They've sent me three pics. The 'before' picture certainly offered context, and includeda dead pigeon so I'll spare you that - but the new bench looks decent:
and his plaque looks good too:
There's a bit of reflection in the pic, so if you can't read what it says, the words are:
Steve Whittle
1953-2024
"Running every day makes exceedingly good sense to me".
Thank you to everyone who contributed towards it. I hope that those of you who are in the area will go and see it some time. It's in a little green area accessible from the corner of Marine Terrace and South Road, in Crosby. I looked at Steve's training log, and he would often start his runs from this corner - I am imagining him checking his shoelaces on this bench.
They've sent me three pics. The 'before' picture certainly offered context, and included
and his plaque looks good too:
There's a bit of reflection in the pic, so if you can't read what it says, the words are:
Steve Whittle
1953-2024
"Running every day makes exceedingly good sense to me".
Thank you to everyone who contributed towards it. I hope that those of you who are in the area will go and see it some time. It's in a little green area accessible from the corner of Marine Terrace and South Road, in Crosby. I looked at Steve's training log, and he would often start his runs from this corner - I am imagining him checking his shoelaces on this bench.
Click here to suggest fetcheveryone's blog for today's highlights.
Comments
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Mebbe it's just me, but the pics aren't showingMaclennane4:05pm, 13th Nov 2024
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My bad - they should be there now.fetcheveryone4:06pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Fetch - was it foggy on the day of the photos?um
Or not public? Or wrong numbers?4:06pm, 13th Nov 2024 -
That does look good. Thanks.Ness4:10pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That's a very fitting tribute to Steve. Thank you for organising it and sharing the photos.GimmeMedals4:10pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank you - it's lovely. I really hope to get there sometimeMandymoo4:12pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That's such a lovely way to remember him xxLazyDaisy4:15pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Very nice!Garfield4:15pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank you for organising thisVelociraptor4:16pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Lovely!Maclennane4:17pm, 13th Nov 2024
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LovelyMeeps4:20pm, 13th Nov 2024
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If Swittle's spirit is still wandering the Earth, now he'll have a place to sit for a bit.RichHL4:21pm, 13th Nov 2024
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fabulous. and actually the reflection is rather lovelyDocM4:22pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Love thisishep 🇪🇺4:24pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That is most excellentNDWDave4:26pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That's wonderful. I am going to make my way to that bench within the next few months for sureMcGoohan4:27pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That’s great. Thanks for arranging this.Eynsham Red4:28pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank you for organising this.Jaks4:35pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Something in my eye. Thank youLindsD4:42pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank you.Flatlander4:44pm, 13th Nov 2024
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❤️Bob!4:47pm, 13th Nov 2024
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My eyes are leaking xxHellsBells4:50pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That made my eyes leak, thank you for organising, I hope to go and sit there for a chat with him if I'm ever in the area. xgeordiegirl4:53pm, 13th Nov 2024
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fraggle4:53pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That's great. Good work Ian!Badger4:54pm, 13th Nov 2024
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minardi4:59pm, 13th Nov 2024
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This is lovely. Thanks for sorting it out and sharing, Fetchcathrobinson5:05pm, 13th Nov 2024
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How wonderfulsallykate5:10pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thanks!3M5:13pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Lovely.Angus Clydesdale5:14pm, 13th Nov 2024
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BrilliantJamieKai *chameleon*5:24pm, 13th Nov 2024
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❤️Gooner5:30pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That’s fantastic. A wonderful place to sit and reflect.runnerbean5:36pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank you 😊stilldreaming5:40pm, 13th Nov 2024
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WonderfulDiogenes5:41pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank you. A pilgrimage to that bench and Swittle’s beach are both in our plans for next year.Winniefree5:41pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Meant to ask, could you give a what3words location for the bench? Thanks again 🙂stilldreaming5:41pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Ooo, my Parkrun has been cancelled this weekend so I was going to do Knowsley instead, but it'll have to be Crosby nowbigleggy5:54pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank youLizzie W6:06pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank yourichmac6:08pm, 13th Nov 2024
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phal6:19pm, 13th Nov 2024
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ThorntonRunner6:22pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank you FetchCarpathius I hope to visit it soon.6:23pm, 13th Nov 2024
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It's good to see it.Pegg6:23pm, 13th Nov 2024
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NiceSnail6:40pm, 13th Nov 2024
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What a fitting tribute to a man remembered so fondly by so many. Lovely. Thanks Fetch.HappyG(rrr) G6:57pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Lovely fetch. It also reminds me I may have overlooked my contribution - sorry. Fmail me pleaseBazoaxe7:23pm, 13th Nov 2024
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❤️Runningbauble217:28pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Wonderful, thank you!Sigh7:35pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That is so lovely. Thanks so much for organising. A lovely tribute ❤️Corrah7:55pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thank you1step2far8:35pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Excellent😀SooWoo10:05pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That is lovely - a wonderful tribute to a lovely person. Thank you for making it happen.BaronessBL10:14pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thanks for organising this fitting tribute. I may never get to sit on it but I hope it brings comfort to all who do #fetchfamLip Gloss10:29pm, 13th Nov 2024
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How lovely, thank you ❤️Qwerty10:35pm, 13th Nov 2024
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I’m going to go and sit with him a while ❤️jennywren10:42pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Love this!!!!D210:49pm, 13th Nov 2024
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That is lovelyeL Bee!11:10pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thanks for all that you doChrisity11:26pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Looks great - thanks for organising 😊Seratonin11:31pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Thanks for arranging it, it looks just right x.B.11:33pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Perfect. I will go sit with him and check my shoelaces before setting off to run another day.Iron_Mum7:44am, 14th Nov 2024
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Aawww that's brilliant, thanks for the update.cackleberry9:03am, 14th Nov 2024
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What a perfect tribute. Thank for organising it, Fetch. xSarahWoo9:40am, 14th Nov 2024
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PerfectBareHeadEm10:31am, 14th Nov 2024
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How lovely.jelly11:50am, 14th Nov 2024
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Perfect.westmoors1:20pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Absolutely perfect.Rebel2:19pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Amazing. Thank you.sparklecloud8:01pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Thank you Ian.Red Squirrel9:35am, 15th Nov 2024
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Wonderful xStrutbrother1:46pm, 15th Nov 2024
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Lovely tribute to SwittleNeil_E_There9:43pm, 17th Nov 2024
I doubt I'll push its limits on the day, but I wanted to know how long the battery on my watch would last without resorting to using a low power mode.
I charged it up, and left it on the patio yesterday morning. It was flat by this morning, but I was really pleased to see that it had retained what it had recorded before it ran out. It made it to 19hrs39mins16secs. I reckon it could go a bit further on the day if it's attached to my wrist, as I think batteries tend to run out quicker when it gets cold.
Despite not moving an inch, it gave me 1.48 miles due to GPS wobble. That's about 3.4 centimetres of free travel per second
fetcheveryone.com/t-23789301
Despite running more this year than any previous year (1020 so far, compared with my best ever of 1000 in the whole of 2018), I feel savagely under-prepared. But that's ok. My boy has only done one 5k run, and came home with a big blister on his foot. His training may extend to agreeing not to go out with his friends on Thursday night So the chances are we'll be walking the entire thing.
But I'm totally ok with that. I am very pleased that he's still up for doing it with me - so we'll enjoy* (*may not be the right word) the experience. We have orange boiler suits, and will be carving our way through Coventry city centre at about 2am, aiming to meet the indomitable and fragrant KatieB (and the dog) at some point on the other side. What could possibly go wrong?
If you'd like to follow our progress through Saturday (we start at 23:59:59 on Friday evening), here's the tracker where you can watch the dots of all the participants:
track.trail.live
(and in case you don't know it, my real-world name is Ian Williams)
Here's the latest edition of our route:
fetcheveryone.com/routes-view.php?id=1869321
(I suppose I should do a further test where I load the Garmin up with the route, and see if route tracking burns the battery more quickly)
I charged it up, and left it on the patio yesterday morning. It was flat by this morning, but I was really pleased to see that it had retained what it had recorded before it ran out. It made it to 19hrs39mins16secs. I reckon it could go a bit further on the day if it's attached to my wrist, as I think batteries tend to run out quicker when it gets cold.
Despite not moving an inch, it gave me 1.48 miles due to GPS wobble. That's about 3.4 centimetres of free travel per second
fetcheveryone.com/t-23789301
Despite running more this year than any previous year (1020 so far, compared with my best ever of 1000 in the whole of 2018), I feel savagely under-prepared. But that's ok. My boy has only done one 5k run, and came home with a big blister on his foot. His training may extend to agreeing not to go out with his friends on Thursday night
So the chances are we'll be walking the entire thing. But I'm totally ok with that. I am very pleased that he's still up for doing it with me - so we'll enjoy* (*may not be the right word) the experience. We have orange boiler suits, and will be carving our way through Coventry city centre at about 2am, aiming to meet the indomitable and fragrant KatieB (and the dog) at some point on the other side. What could possibly go wrong?
If you'd like to follow our progress through Saturday (we start at 23:59:59 on Friday evening), here's the tracker where you can watch the dots of all the participants:
track.trail.live
(and in case you don't know it, my real-world name is Ian Williams)
Here's the latest edition of our route:
fetcheveryone.com/routes-view.php?id=1869321
(I suppose I should do a further test where I load the Garmin up with the route, and see if route tracking burns the battery more quickly)
Click here to suggest fetcheveryone's blog for today's highlights.
Comments
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Good luck! 🍀Ness1:54pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Good luck!Garfield1:56pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Lots of luck Ianjennywren1:58pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Good luck and I hope the weather is reasonable for you.Fenland Flier1:59pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Good luck, and I hope you finish resting in sandy beds.Diogenes2:00pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Meant to ask - chained pair or not?jennywren2:01pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Using the maps screen definitely uses more battery than a data screen, since it is constantly having to re-draw the screen every time you make progree, or slightly make a turn (assuming you don't have North Up, and have Direction Up). So if following a Course and using the maps screen to navigate, then switch to a data screen when you are on a section where there are no turns or you know where you are going.K5 Gus2:02pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Lol, no not chained. We are actually entered on two solo tickets, so not even a 'pair' - but we'll be operating as onefetcheveryone2:02pm, 12th Nov 2024
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That's good advice, thanks Gus. We have the potential to have map available on at least four different devices, so I'm hoping maybe I can keep the watch just for tracking.fetcheveryone2:04pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Good luck - hope you enjoy it!AndyJ572:22pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Switching the HR off helps assuming it’s usually on. Getting a battery pack and recharging on the go is an optionDerby Tup2:47pm, 12th Nov 2024
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OH, DS Sheetfeeding Here We Come! That's as close to a straight line as you could possibly manage - hope it goes well.Groundhog2:47pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Exciting!sallykate2:57pm, 12th Nov 2024
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I'm sure it will be a memorable experience for both of youcathrobinson3:12pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Have fun, good to spend time with the boy!!D23:21pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Good luck, will be watching your progressElsie Too3:24pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Have a great time and like you say its going to be an experience you'll both remember for a long time no matter what happens.Gromit3:27pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Pack a powerbank & charger? (That's my plan) and if I'm in any eatery that has a USB I'll give it some juice. Look forward to seeing you both! and there won't be any startling efforts from our lot neither. Sam will remain the chief escapee for another year!geordiegirl3:36pm, 12th Nov 2024
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And the GPS hop is interesting as I know when I run I mostly stop my watch crossing roads, when running with my friend who doesnt she always has more miles on the watch than me!geordiegirl3:37pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Good luck. Hope you both enjoy it.laterunner4:16pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Has your support crew got a battery pack?um
Have fun!5:34pm, 12th Nov 2024 -
good luck, going to be a tough one but one youll enjoy (after )DocM5:56pm, 12th Nov 2024
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I look forward to reading your post Meridan blog. Good luck!GimmeMedals6:47pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Not sure which Garmin you have, but if it has the power management options you can tell it which of it services you need to use, how long you need it to last, and it will regulate its power usage to last that long.flanker7:06pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Have fun 🤩Jaks7:09pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Have fun with your son on Friday night / Saturday morning. May your legs carry you all the way from the Shire to Mount Doomtipsku
About maximising battery life: I found that it helps if you switch from recording every second to smart recording. It'll give you a bit less accurate GPS tracking if it's only every 5 seconds or so but it will give you a few hours extra of battery life. Some watches have an ultra mode which optimises battery life.
Deactivating the optical HRM and especially the pulse ox function (major battery drainage from that) will also extend battery life. If you use the watch as a smart watch, you could probably also reduce the amount of notifications you get by limiting the apps that are allowed to send you those.7:48pm, 12th Nov 2024 -
I’m sure you’ll enjoy it! Will watch the tracker with interest. Walking is just fine - you’ll be amazed how many miles you can cover at 3mph. (Anker power packs can be very lightweight.)♪♫ Synge ♪♫8:46pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Hope you have a really great timeLindsD8:46pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Good luck 🍀Runningbauble218:50pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Don't forget to stop if you reach the sea.Chrisity8:58pm, 12th Nov 2024
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I hope it goes well!Canute9:05pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Best of luck. Will hopefully remember to track you.Corrah9:23pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Wishing you the best of luck and hope you have a great experience 😃DIY Diva9:28pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Good luck, sounds like fun.StuH
Some good tips already on saving battery life, turn off bluetooth, don't leave it on map screen etc. but I would never use Ultratrac mode.9:31pm, 12th Nov 2024 -
Have funRosehip
Agree with Stu, Ultratrac is rubbish!10:38pm, 12th Nov 2024 -
^^ Yup.flanker11:54pm, 12th Nov 2024
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Good luck, have fun!Goofee7:16am, 13th Nov 2024
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Oh wow, it's this weekend! Very best of luck, and enjoy. All ultras are 90% walking and eating (and in your case navigating), and in santababy's case singing S Club 7! Have fun and well done in advance for both toeing the line and for your undoubted successful completion!HappyG(rrr) G8:35am, 13th Nov 2024
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Have a great time! Fourth StuH's commentBadger2:04pm, 13th Nov 2024
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Routes with a lot of points can perform very slowly, especially redrawing when switching screens. Suggest splitting into smaller parts.Nightjar12:04pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Oh, and good luck!Nightjar12:05pm, 14th Nov 2024
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Turn off bluetooth, turn off heart rate, don't use ultratrac, don't lose your shoes in the mud, have a lot of fun!Sam Jelfs9:37am, 15th Nov 2024
If you’d like to join in with a Fetch secret Santa, you need to get over to this thread today:
fetcheveryone.com/forum/fetch-secret-santa-2024-63341/1
Bing bong.
fetcheveryone.com/forum/fetch-secret-santa-2024-63341/1
Bing bong.
Click here to suggest fetcheveryone's blog for today's highlights.
Comments
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Thank youWinniefree7:51am, 10th Nov 2024
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LindsD7:52am, 10th Nov 2024
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🎅Gooner10:00am, 10th Nov 2024
About Me
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!Blog Archive
Expand All
2024 (118)
November (7)
Saddle Up
Beat that, Andy Dufresne
On the train
m
Swittle's Bench!
Escape to Meriden
Secret Santa
October (16)
New KML export button
Triathlon Loitering
Tagging in blog comments
New blog buttons
Disaster Strikes!
New badges!
Bat renovation
HQ
Up-stickering
It's not magic, it's you!
Join us for the Doctor K Cup
The sun was shining...
My dear old things...
Copernican Revolution
A polite no
Pass the spanner
September (6)
The Doctor K Cup - 19th October
Big Scary Project! :-)
Tea towels on their way
Please excuse the lag
I'm back :-)
It was 20 years ago today…
August (12)
DESIGNS REVEALED: Fetch 20th anniversary shirts and vests
Schrödinger's Holiday
Look what I've got!
Finally, a bit of progress
May UCAS be fruitful
Get your pre-orders in :-)
13 spots left...
26 spots left...
Filling up nicely :-)
20th anniversary commemorative tea towel :-) GET IN QUICK :-)
Morienteering Badges :-)
Wheat Intolerance and Barr's Strawberryade
July (16)
Would you do it for a Scooby snack?
Play Along
Pilgrimage
Site down for a short while this afternoon
Attention Chrome users
Pace Analysis
Picture Usage tracking
Nice beats per mile graph
Thanks for the donation Jeff Bezos :-)
F'laps 2024 is done!
F'laps - three laps in
Me in Women's Running magazine :-)
Add A Race - Usability followup
#dogsandwivesatpollingstations
Cadence Filter - a little tweak
F'Laps Leaderboard - help me kick the tyres
June (11)
Today’s Task
Here's something cool
F'Laps - get togethers
Forum tagging
F'Laps - broken delete link :-/
F'Laps - your opportunity to withdraw gracefully :-)
Usability - look what's changed
RW Refugees welcomed
Oscar's Everyone Day
New training entry view is live
Snap Poll :-)
May (7)
Easy Street
Track me on Sunday
V2 Training Beta
New Training Log Beta
Five Noahs
Diamanté Celebration Spatula Kit
Marmite Excalibur
April (13)
In case you haven't cancelled it yet...
Weasels and spiders
Blog Listings Change (nowt major)
Six New Badges! Adding pics to Conquercise zones.
Night Races - Can you help?
Sifting Chunks: Gradient versus Pace
Audible Free Trial - You get free audiobooks, I get five quid!
A donation from JH
Andy Townsend :-)
GCU50: Citizen on Patrol
Fetchpoint: The Game - Where I'm Headed
Fetchpoint: The Game - a consultation
Heavy Roller please
March (11)
I can eat fifty eggs
Oscar the Grouch :-(
If a Fetch fails in a forest...
Trialling a new weekly update email
Lasting Power of Suspicion
Fetch Virtual Challenge 2024 *bunting*
Swittle's Funeral
Cadence
Tea & Trails Podcast
Down to my last pen
A bench for swittle
February (8)
The Lightning Struck Tower
Swittle
Cholesterol
This year so far in pictures
Three Noahs
Fetch is as strong as you make it.
100k - what do I need?
Paywalls are BS: I'm on a podcast!
January (11)
Chasing Round Numbers - A Cautionary Tale!
MOTM - Decision Made (and a competition for EVERYONE!)
MOTM - a chance to rethink
Training Home Page updates
How much walking will I do?
Training Plans - Further Updates
Training Plan List
Butter Police
Why no app?
Useful Chat!
Festive Fetch Calendar - Winners
2023 (136)
December (6)
Nearly forgot...
Jam today
Removing another bit of Google's invasiveness
Fancy an extra challenge over the next 12 days?
Chewie, we're home!
Two tips for today's advent challenge
November (13)
Spammy McSpamface
40 days and 40 nights
EfM confirmed!
New Training Log Beta! 😲 (aka Change Is Not Good)
Escape from Meriden
Waiting for your training?
Route of the Century?
I didn't know I owned a nutcracker
Design our anniversary shirts/vests!
Holiday Reading - plenty of fiction :-)
Swimming in a metaphor
Hello
Off World
October (11)
Fl'update
To think I tried to mop it up!
Vote Please: How many F'Laps will you try to do?
F'Laps 2024
Long Run
So it still needs a name...
Front Garden Ultra?
The Boy is a man!
Festive Fetch Calendar
Creative K's
Signs
September (7)
Training Edit Screen - time to ditch it...
Stock check
The Doctor K Cup - October 7th!!!!
Removing the training edit screen
A Happy Applecart
Happy 19th Birthday!
Forgotten pictures
August (14)
Just in case
Weekly Total Hours
Dim Brys Dim Chwys
All hail our robot overlords!
Your local parkrun
Fool on the hill
Survey Follow Up
A survey?
Did you know?
I made a thing
VC Day
FBI Agent
What keeps you going?
Be careful what's in your paste buffer (and July training update)
July (13)
Delight
Respecting your eyeballs since 2004
Hot Stuff, coming through
Ocean Colour Scheme
18 years, 10 months, 13 days and counting...
Ooof #fail
Our listings need you!
Pics from the end of the swim
A whispered, half-remembered dream
Try the Heatmap!!!
Teaser
100 Running Words (and my June summary)
July Virtual Mile
June (8)
Last Big Swim
I can't be the only one...
Which is the real me?
#EveryoneDay
The legendary sixth samosa!
WSW Main Page Layout Changes
May Summary (contains swimming!)
Hoodies pre-order closes at 10am
May (17)
A new WSW challenge
Tagging images
Hoooooooooooooodies!!!!!!!!!!!
Another Sweatshop Competition
Did you get an email?
Fifty Years Ago - Part VIII
Fifty Years Ago - Part VII
Fifty Years Ago - Part VI
Help on a slippery slope
Fifty Years Ago - Part V
Fifty Years Ago - Part IV
Fifty Years Ago - Part III
Chuck-off: Round 2
Not my king?
Fifty Years Ago - Part II
Fifty Years Ago
And that was April
April (10)
Centurion Safari!
Sheep treats (and a routes feature)
And I’ll sail her up the west coast, through villages and towns.
15,746 places to 💩
Track Your Blood Pressure
A couple of quick fmail updates
Rusty Metal and a Cycling Grudge Match
Please help me kick the fmail tyres!
Onset of Summer Watch. Have you got Onset of Summer? +fmail!
Premium?
March (10)
And that was March
Try the new fmail system
Can you help my boy?
Tell A Friend?
Some Sweatshop Competitions
Sign up to our 2023 Virtual Challenge
Review: FORM Smart Goggles
UTMOST vs Treadmills
33,258
Embranglement!
February (13)
And that was February
This year's Virtual Challenge
What does Points make?
Automatic Everything Collector
Peaky Finders
FAO Fitbit users
My favourite training graph
You've got this.
Coffee Survey (for my stepson)
Access all the tips
Tiny Usability Changes
Cod science
Hot Tips
January (14)
Monthly Infographic Bug Fixes
No, but really...
Have a play with the monthly infographic
It's not ready yet, but...
Introducing Fetch Premium
Help me design a new Monthly Infographic...
Still following?
Fettle
Definitely Not Betting
Do you follow? (plus burp chat)
Advance warning for stalkers!
I'm back (and the Fetch LS, SS and NS shirts preorder is open)
Attention Fitbit Users
Review 50 albums in 2023 (badge!)
2022 (144)
December (8)
Treasure Hunt Day 1 - the best gift
Important updates to the Fetch Relay
Introducing the Fetch Relay 2023
Who Am I? (Solved, thanks) And How Am I?
Confessions :-)
12 Days of Christmas Treasure Hunt
Chewie, we’re home!
A few pics from the Foffice :-)
November (24)
Yesvember - Day #30 (and Festive Fetch Calendar Eve!)
The Fetch Festive 160.934 :-) [Yesvember #Day 29]
You'd better watch out... (plus Yesvember Day #28)
Brace Yourself (and there's one spare bobble hat!) and Yesvember - Day #26
Hats in the post! Plus Yesvember Day #25
Look what arrived!
Yesvember - Day #24
Training Graph Manager - usability update (Yesvember Day #23)
Yesvember - Day #22 - Cheating?
Last chance to enter the Advance Performance comp
Yesvember - Days #11 thru #14 (plus Jumpy Boy)
Weather on the training home page watch. Have you got weather on the training home page? (Yesvember - Day #10)
Oh, and... it's Yesvember - Day #9
Another bit of the internet fenced off
Yesvember - Day #8 - taking steps
Yesvember - Day #7
Yesvember - Day #6
Yesvember - Day #5
The curse of swimming GPS
Yesvember - Day #4
The Les Mis effect
Yesvember - Day #3
Yesvember - Day #2
Yesvember - Day #1
October (15)
October gives way to Yesvember!
Anyone fancy a threeway?
More thoughts on races
Racing, post-pandemic
Contracts exchanged!
Competition Time!
Last call for Flobble Hats
A record year for swimming?
Woburn Lido
Order your Bobble Hat! If you like.
I appear to have entered a race! (plus new Garmin import queueing system)
Eric the Eel
Get your hobbit on
The Doctor K Cup: Saturday 8th October!
I felt the touch of the kings and the breath of the wind
September (16)
Take This Bus To Cuba
Fetch Bobble Hats
Trumpeting
Training View tweaks (switch maps, game overlays, mile markers)
Training View tweaks (and a play button bug fix)
A long ride and a cold swim.
Play Button
UTMOST Wava & Bike Division Rebuilds
New UTMOST leagues for cyclists and WAVA fans
The Doctor K Cup
Chance encounters
Do I ditch our Facebook stuff?
A keeper, from my feedback inbox...
Ultra distances - update
Adding ultra distances to Fastest Fetchies league.
Try the new Training Groups pages
August (11)
Training Groups Update - Coming Soon
Garmin Queue Issues
Donations without reference numbers :-)
New Elbow Laws
No longer the 3398th fastest Fetchie over 10k!
Pulling counties into league tables
What was I thinking?
County Champion?
Just bear in mind that you asked for this.
Wahoo and Coros users
How to make half a million quid (batteries not included)
July (6)
Club Listings
Book giveaway :-)
Updated Race Portfolio
Updated Targets Page
Exactly ***1*** Spare Ladies L Cycling Jersey
Search All Blogs :-)
June (10)
Imagine you could search all the public blogs...
Banking Scandal at Fetch Towers!
7pm on Baker Island #everyoneday
#EveryoneDay - Sunday 26th June 2022
Spare Challenge Coasters
The North West Passage
Feature Request Voting - Know Your Limits!
UTMOST Division 8: YIKES!
Shepperton Weight Gain Programme
UTMOST Division 9! Sub-50 10k :-)
May (16)
Four hours left :-)
Division 10: No hope of escape?
Book giveaway :-)
Division 11: No place left to hide
New HR Analysis
They're here! Well, not exactly *here*, but...
A quick Darth Mode update
Darth Mode! And a few biscuits for the hyperdrive.
Division 12: Two hours of pushing broom
Dark Mode: Beta
PB Potential? Fancy a quickie? ;-)
Division 12: Running Out Of Road?
Thank you everyone!
Making UTMOST moves :-)
Do you want a Fetch shirt?
I did my UTMOST :-) (plus new sharing infographic)
April (7)
Today's plan
NEW UTMOST BADGES!!!!!
A plug for some races
Raspberry Pavlov
Win a book :-)
United Colours of Cross Training
A little Streetview adventure
March (11)
The lockers are a pound.
Advice for Gym Noobs!
Feedback made easier
#EveryoneDay June 26th 2022
Fetch Virtual Challenge 2022 🎈
Thanks Chunky: parkrun routes!
Sniffer Dogs
Yikes!
Fetch Cycling Jerseys - Update
Route Plotting tweak
The Crow: A Pipedream!
February (7)
Fetch Kit Spares
Updated Race Listing Pages
Introducing Rundle!
I appear to be training for an OWS event!
Fetch Cycling Jerseys!!!
Does you wantz free shoez?
Post Office tomorrow - kit spares
January (13)
Updated Flanci Design (now with more Fetchness)
Badge Collection Graphic!
Updated elevation trace
Book Lists :-)
Updated sharing infographic - do you like it?
Spare Fetch Kit
Badge page refresh / feature requests
Flanci / Fetch Leggings
New Badge Pages
New hill badges
Join me on my fitness journey!
Are you the farmer?
Blog every day challenge - finishers
2021 (187)
December (14)
Book List
Ten years ago today...
A big slobbery elephant snog.
If you don't like hills, this must be getting tiring :-)
When does a hill end?
Hill finder - prototype v2
Hill Finder - prototype
2022 Targets
Chewie, We’re Home! Happy Fetch Independence Day!
Embed badges, plus a new badge :-)
Updated people page
Seeking map
Streak Watch
The new Fetch buffs are here…
November (23)
Almost there...
The Fetch Library
Update your thread titles
Ascent dissent
Mute a thread
Shortcuts
Training Import Queue
I fell off (but not really!)
Croeso i Fetcheveryone. Ydych chi'n siarad Almaeneg, Swedish neu Eidaleg?
New mobile nav
Last call for shirts
@
Just a trim please
Brought to you by wind power
300 miles later
Golden Ticket Shocker!
Banjobax (aka KOG)
Home and Away kit preorder - with long sleeve option
A little competition - win a copy of Daniels' Running Formula
Garmin testers - thanks
Add your grub stops!
Points Of Interest: Grub Stops
Garmin-owning testers wanted
October (19)
New home and away shirts and vests
Benchmark league - a few more updates
Benchmark league table
Hill areas
Preorder is now open!
'b'uffs then
Necktube design #1 & #2
Buffs (well, neck tubes)
Report dodgy GPS stuff
An apology for people who follow my training
New cycling and swimming badges
New Conquercise Feature: Grids
Sprouting a tiny biking antler :-)
Have a try of the cycling gradient analysis
Struggling with my big ring
Cycling: gradient vs pace
A question for cyclists
For Doctor K
Shan't.
September (14)
New comments (FID 1212)
Forum post previews
Garmin imports with a snippet more info
Gallery upload options
Golden Tickets
"No need to panic donate", says Williams
Forum Quotes
Spoiler Alert!
20th of March and all that.
Have you signed up yet?
This bit of crappy Upminister nearly cost me my f***ing life.
A guide with no pages
To steal a catchphrase from a wise lady...
Multiple choice polls
August (11)
Pre-Race Training - Updated
A connection!
New Member of the Month sponsor
Best Weeks - bug fixes
Your Best Week Ever
Rainbow Kit - preorder is open
Age Bests - filtering out the mistakes :-)
Sign up, sign up, for the Doctor K cup
A message from my lovely wife ❤️
Another batch of rainbow kit?
Spares: Event Clips, Swim Hats and a few rainbow tops
July (10)
A bunch of site goodies :-)
Hello kitty
Holy Simmering Mercury Batman!
Settings
A heart rate question
Sleepy Shuffle?
365 graph
Slipping on ma noob shoes
Meatronomes
World's Sexiest Bridges
June (11)
Benchmarks - a *tiny* little improvement
Race Leaderboards - some small improvements
Race Finder - Update
Up there ^
Routes - more updates
Last call for FE Event Clips
Server update
Minor code problem
Some little updates to your route list
Feature requests - two years on!
More than just a rainbow
May (8)
Rainbow Kit - update on delivery time...
Fetch Ron Hill Cycling Jerseys
Pre-order your rainbow kit now :-)
Jimi Hendrix vs Run DMC
The return of parkrun - a poll
Something in the woodshed...
Default to walk
A tour of the Fetch Office
April (11)
Instabanned :-)
I has Instagram
Fetch Event Clips
FERC
Castle Challenge Coaster!
My chess rating
Jab - symptom watch
This just in...
REVIEW: XMiles selection box
Let FE pay for your coaching qualifications :-)
Castle Challenge - A Quick Blog
March (18)
The Fetcheveryone Castle Challenge
Running vs Cycling Cadence
Fetch vests and shirts (and swim caps)
Elevation vs Follow Roads
£500 of England Athletics courses up for grabs!
TomTom users
Music by year: 1993
10k Analysis: Part 7 - Length of Training Runs
Music by year: 1992 (plus some 1991 additions)
Bot sniffing win :-) plus daily blogger count!
User profiles
10k Analysis: Part 6 - Training Pace Again
Time to update your injuries :-)
User profile - sticker button.. EDIT and race standard
More user profile adjustments
User Profile tweaking
Cute story of the week*
10k Analysis: Part 5 - Training Pace
February (17)
Year on Year mileage comparison
Elevation graphs
It's all kicking off in chess club!
Music By year: 1991
10k Analysis: Part 4 - Weekly Training Habits
Tagging virtual races
Chasing rainbows
Rainbow Shirts
Lance!
Blog writing improvements
10k Analysis: Part 3 - Accuracy of human predictions
Music by year: 1990
Smacking bots
29 slices - my seven days of dinner
10k Analysis: Part 2 - Age and Performance
Pass it on
10k Analysis: Part 1 - Distribution of best 10k times
January (31)
January
Mobile Usability Team Helping All Fetchies...
Salmon Ramen Recipe :-)
Salmon Ramen (for TBR)
Backup dog
The best GPS watches in the world... volume 1
Pick it...
People who liked...
Obscure bugs
Zen & The Art of Heart Rate Training
FIT file import - temporary issue
Keep the change, ya filthy animal
The honeymoon is over
Dirty data
Mobile Usability
Oops
Readership!
Stay sticky
It's Hip To Buy Squares
Related Threads - Exposé :-)
The Batshit Association
Jobs
Tag Team
Feed the monster!
An ad for Fetch Chess Club :-)
Estimating VO2Max
Three little birds
A not uncommon swelling
Church Mouse January
Honey, where's my super suit?
Not here.
2020 (128)
December (6)
Blog A Day 2021?
9 years ago today
Chewie, We're Home! Happy Fetch Independence Day :-)
Be Prepared
Becoming an effluencer
A few Fetch Mugs left
November (10)
The Festive Fetch Calendar is back!
FIT file import
Mugs!
Thank you, mysterious Fetchie!
Chess
UTMOST in the age of COVID-19
This'll cheer you up for sure...
Lost in translation?
Annual Infographic... updating now.
In theory...
October (11)
Training Plan Analysis
Mini plans with the training plan
5k with The Boy :-)
Welcome to tomorrow
Thank you
Become tradeable!
Pre-Race Training Volume
Doctor K Cup Week
Last orders
Advice for a friend
Trader Makeover
September (6)
The shop is open!
Hoodie Colour!
New Fetch Hoodies
A big up/holler!
VO2max
A benchmark derailed by GPS data *nerd*
August (8)
10k analysis
Officially a Sheepy Shuffler!
Pi Watering
Pre-order Avoid Everyone Face Masks
I got sent these...
Other sites? :-O
Benchmarks - an infinitely configurable set of ladders.
Try the monthly infographic :-)
July (10)
Update on Monthly Training Infographic
New Infographic
Monthly Summary (with a little tweak)
A quick Garmin update
Open Water / Wild Swimming Database
Avoid Everyone - spares
OWS Locations
Thread-level search
New Sharing Graphic & New Pastures
My first lamp post
June (16)
Replacing the Who's Training page
Combining some pages
In pursuit of the Gridmaster Ultra
15th Anniversary Kit - Spares
Shoelaces
A new How To video
Training Plan Updated
Black Lives Matter
Avoid Everyone Spares + Second Batch
Wikipedia page
Another YouTube video for sharesies :-)
Getting data to Fetch from **other places**
Feature Voting - some further updates
Feature Voting - speeded up
Another How To video - this time, Conquercise
Fantastisches Tweeten
May (13)
A video for sharing
Bees!
Fetch Introductory Zoom Presentations
A promise to all Fetchies
Fetch Virtual Weekend: Replacement Bus Service
How has Fetch use changed?
Fetch Weekly Virtual Races
Zoom Meeting - Thursday 9 til 10am
WAVA Standards Update
WAVA Standards + Poll
Fun with Age Grading :-)
New Badges Day
The test shirt fabric has arrived :-)
April (14)
Zoom Podcast - watch the video
What is WBC?
If you did the free Amazon trial...
Some small amends (and shirt version)
Pre-orders open
I was only joking, but...
If Fetcheveryone did lockdown merch
Site outage - Thursday 16th April 11pm
On exercising responsibly
My Sports Quiz - how would you have scored?
Your creative thinking required
WBC My Favourite Teacher (a bit later than the deadline)
Updated Training League
Server Downtime, Thursday 9th 00:01BST to 04:00BST (and thank you!)
March (13)
New Fetch Game: Hide and Seek
Free trial of Audible
Do you have a good memory?
New Opt-In for Fetch Miles
New Badges for Fetch Miles
The Fetch Five: Don't Let CV19 Win!
Amending event dates and notifying of cancellations
A green light comes on over your head, and you can get on with life
Most Popular Shoe Brands 2019
A review
Android: Session I
Compare Your Training
Book Now to avoid disappointment :-)
February (10)
Imports from Suunto, Fitbit, Polar and TomTom.
Plot A Route - mobile improvements
Happy tugging!
Something to play with
Adding A New Feature
February Treasure Hunt
Server Downtime
Miles = Smiles
Build Your Mile
Pop Will Eat Himself: Update
January (11)
Clarence the Cadence Kitten
Trim your trails :-)
Seven Day Leaderboard
Let's try that again
Some minor blog amendments
Try the new Forum Search Prototype
Pop Will Eat Himself
A card from HowFar?
Thank you HowFar? (Statement, not a question)
Take the red pill
Climb every mountain
2019 (134)
December (7)
The Christmas Poem
Where your treasure is...
Listen to the dog breathe
Chewie, We're Home
Thursday's Challenge
Which GPS?
Fetch Shop (of sorts)
November (12)
The zeroth challenge
Polar users - auto import
Calling all Polar users
Mobile Optimisation
Calling all Android users
Did your ads disappear?
Pin that sucker down :-)
Easier tagging
Category now editable from VIEW
Kit now editable from VIEW
Working towards tagging
Manual Add Training bug
October (16)
Boring Cricket Blog
Books Part 2
Books :-)
42
Training tags Part 2
Training tags
Let's Jazzercise
My precious
Cricket Week 4: Footage :-)
Forum Training Threads
Benny Neutrino Returns
Cricket Week 3: Wingardium Leviosa!
Benny Neutrino's Filter Tips
Cricket Week 2
Continuing Amazon Affiliate Saga
In case you haven't seen...
September (11)
Updated: Spare Anniversary Kit
Affiliate links
I did a cricket!
Fetch365 - enjoy responsibly
Filth
My dear old things
Buddies vs Follow
Server Invoice Day
Our new MOTM sponsor
Fetch Power!
Race Listings: Please Read
August (5)
Everyone *rainbow*
Almost there...
Quick blog
Country Badges
A new set of badges
July (6)
Pre-orders open
Anniversary Shirts v2
Fetch 15th Anniversary Shirts
Fetch Fest 2020
Shout Outs
Missing imports from Garmin yesterday
June (13)
Who Squares Wins: 64 screenshot
Who Squares Wins: 64 Player Edition
Training summary - older pages
Training sub-menu rejig
Try the infographic
Steady Edina
Annual Summary Infographic
The height of daft things
The training summary - the morning session
The training summary - a wordier blog
Try the annual summary thing
How to listen to the Fetch Podcast
12 month summary mega-graph!
May (15)
£79.99 off the bottom line
Competition
parkrun reviews - now with routes
Fix It Friday; Project Joker Week 2; and some shout outs.
Fetch Kit Cupboard Sale
The bonus ball
Project Joker - Week 1
Fix It Friday
A quick update on the server
Fetch 15th Anniversary Kit
There is a good service operating
Oof.
In case you're wondering...
Trouble auto importing from Garmin?
Fix It Friday: Stuff that came to me in dreams
April (12)
Feature Voting - now with virtual badges :-)
The moment of triumph!
New Feature Voting
Fix It Friday: What would your horse be called?
Marathon Pacing: tyre-kickers required
Fix It Friday: Back to Basics
Podcast Poll
Fix It Friday: The League Of Everyone
Dom, dom, dom, I've got DOMS, I've got DOMS!
Crouch, Touch, Pause.... longer pause... what am I doing again?
Training Log - Update
Site Update: New Font
March (15)
Fix It Friday: An Endless Mission
Naming and faming :-)
2nd in my age category!
Fix It Friday: Brought to you by Surprise Inset Day
New training log
Route Matching - Ready :-)
Fix It Friday
What's your unit of measurement?
Ciderthon competition
Fix It Friday: Stroopwafels of Doom!
Route Matching - Update
This week's cool list
Me in the river
Big Fetch Miles 2019
Fix It Friday: Fingerprints!
February (13)
A Maths Challenge
Fetch Legends: Activate!
Whose coat is this jacket?
Fix It Friday: The Fix Awakens
Joining the awesome list...
Fix It Friday
Naming and faming :-)
Fix It Friday - Monthly Summary
Training Month Summary
Podcast Q&A
If you can't read this, don't panic.
*redsaber* The force is strong with these Fetchies!
Fix It Friday *bluesaber*
January (9)
Some shout outs :-)
Fix It Friday!
Podcast Ep 3, plus some naming and faming :-)
Fix It Friday
Fetch Chaos
Oooh! Second chance Berlin trip! And new subbers, podcast episode, and Trader.
My week of running
Naming and faming - this week :-)
Naming and faming :-)
2018 (138)
December (8)
A Christmas Message (in podcast form)
Rungeon :-)
Hey, Everyone!
France Trip Vote
Happy Fetch Independence Day
Actual free trip to France (incl. flights)
Litter
Sombrero's Lovely Cards
November (14)
Hoodies + other spares
Spare Fetch Kit
Festive Fetch Calendar 2018
Avatars
Book Giveaway - Can We Run With You, Grandfather?
Fix It Friday
Bedford Harriers Half - place offered
Updated Kit Bag
Family Fortunes :-)
Any adidas experts out there?
No Fixes Today - just two challenges
Big Fetch Mile Cardiff
Fix It Friday
Festive Fetch Calendar 2018
October (14)
Hello landlubbers
Embedded polls
Member of the Month
Fix It Friday
Spare Fetch shirts and vests
Abingdon
Fix It Friday
My Fetch Mile
One thing's for sure, we're all gonna be a lot thinner.
Fix It Friday - 'Ave It!
Automatic route matching
Automatic route matching
One last reminder for those cycling jerseys
Fix It Friday - Forensics and User Experience
September (14)
Fix It Friday
Server Downtime 2.30pm 26th September
Never Again
Fix It Friday!
Handling your weirdness
Cards ordered :-)
Just wondering...
Fix It Friday :-)
Try the Fetcheveryone Tutorial
40 days and 40 nights
Fix It Friday
ARION insoles - review part 1
Fetch Shirt - Black Ones, and sizing
Shirts and Vests Pre-Order
August (14)
Fix It Friday
Blog Height squished
Site Outage Last Night
New Mobile Nav
Fix It Friday
New feature - how you doin'? :-)
Sunflower spread
Fix It Friday
A new pre-race mileage graph
Fetch Social: Draycote Water September
Fix It Friday: The Supermarket Analogy
A run with _andy :-)
Suunto 9 Review
Fix it Friday
July (5)
Fix It Friday!
Five Get Wet In Devon
Big Glasgow Weekend - Part 1: Gies A Cwtch
Tom Williams Interview - Final Part
Glasgow Big Fetch Mile Results and Pics
June (17)
Abingdon Week 17 - P&D Booster rockets
Interviewing Tom Williams: Part III
Walking League (and one just for Nellers)
Follow Roads - continued
Week 18 in the bag
Tackling turds
Abingdon Marathon Training: Week 18
Interview with Tom Williams - Part 2
Server
Five Questions (ready for serious answers)
Kick some tyres for me
Interview with Tom Williams - Part 1
Five Questions
Follow Roads saga
Google maps progress, plus Abingdon plans
Training Summary - Infographics
Who Squares Wins - ranking update
May (10)
Training log maps converted
More mapping updates
Who Squares Wins - The Wizard's Hat
De doo doo doo... another one bites the dust...
Invisible changes
Silverstone 10k
Three year throwback
Why your support makes the difference
Some high mileage Fetchies
dryrobe winner
April (14)
Interviewing Tom Williams
Swimming Caps!
#finishformatt
New batch of shirts and vests
You make big mistake my friend
Fetchpoint
Glasgow Big Fetch Mile announced
Two tickets to the Running Awards
Pics from Dudley Big Fetch Mile
Notes for London Marathon Fetchpointers
Results from today's Big Fetch Mile
Who Squares Wins - prototype board
Attention London Marathoners!
New game - coming soon
March (9)
Intervals, Solidarity, Swimming and Fmail
Ready to give the new fmail a try?
More on fmail
New fmail system
Win a dryrobe :-)
For jabberknit...
Updating the Training Home page
Pics from Bedford Big Fetch Mile
Sledgends :-)
February (13)
Buffs On Sale
Big Fetch Mile Bedford
Vlog :-)
Marathon Talk
Important GDPR stuff - PLEASE read
A page of historical importance
Vlog :-)
Road Rash, Marathon Prediction and T-Shirts
This :-)
Capturing the dog
It's BACK!
Enter Wilmslow Half Marathon
An advertisement
January (6)
Local Fetchies - Opt In
Revealed: World's Best Shoes
How I chose the Big Fetch Mile venues
Big Fetch Mile 2018 - Venues & Provisional Dates
Try adding an image to your training entry
Mileage Targets 2018 - Update
2017 (147)
December (12)
Mileage Targets 2018
Thank you
Brownie Recipe :-)
Phew
Fetch Hoodies + Buffs SALE Update
Chewie, We're Home
Fetch Hoodies SALE - what's left
Fetch Hoodies! SALE!!! (and Buffs available too)
Chewie, We're Home
Sharing pics
Fetch Jingle Mile Cambridge photos
Glorious Failure: Bedford Harriers Half Marathon
November (20)
Serpents, hamstrings and inversions
A special anniversary approaches...
Hamstring and prototype updates
Training Log Prototype - Today's Improvements
Red Venom sale
For what it's worth...
Training Log Prototype - Update #2
Training Log Prototype - Update
Big Fetch Mile - venue hunt
RT for a Garmin
Training Log Prototype - To Be Fixed
fetcheveryone.com/amazon
The Weekly vLog (by me)
Thanks :-)
New Training Log Prototype - Available Now
Thanks for following
VLog - footage from the Cardiff Big Fetch Mile
Big Fetch Mile[s] 2018
Win a place in the Surrey Half
I vont to scan your barcode.
October (12)
Big Fetch Weekend :-)
Fetch Mile Results
Festive Fetch Calendar :-O
Calling Parkers everywhere!
In which I decorate a cake.
Regent's Park Fetchie Discount
Elevation in colour
"I didn't come here to walk to Sparta!"
New elevation info
Chicken Ballot-ine, with a side order of beef
New training log headers
Ballot day tomorrow - help needed
September (19)
Weekly vLog - COCONUTS!!!
River Thames Half Marathon
The lollipop update
On failing gracefully
Doctor K Day
Fetch Kit Sale - Updates
Weekly vLog
Fetch Kit Sale
Training Log View Update
Fetcheveryone Weekly? Vlog?
Fetchie Race Discount - Regent's Park 10k
Training Log Tags - Live
Training Log Tags
Weekly vLog - Derby Mile, and a pause to salute the legendary Doctor K
24 hours later
Doctor K donation page
Doctor K
Fetch Weekly vLog
Derby Mile - tomorrow!
August (8)
Race Prices; and an alien earworm
Straight outta Cromford - the Fetch Weekly vLog!
A Fetch vLog! With prizes!
Quick search location for sharing
New WAVA graph
Weird FIT file thing
Back from me 'olidays :-)
Linking race results to training log entries
July (12)
Race Pricing - crowdsourcing
Appdate for Android and iPhone
Inhalers
Fetch Mile - Cardiff?
Bookends
Race listing omelette
Coding and town planning
Please review your races
A2B winners
Motivational Sounds - the final 10
Two more Big Fetch Miles? :-)
Bedford Fetch Mile Results
June (19)
Big Fetch Mile
Motivational Sounds
Fetch fug - updated design
Fetch fug (available at the Fetch mile)
I've done the naughtiest thing ever.
Donating Blood - my Vlog
Fapp In the App Store :-)
Can I kick it?
A***biscuits
This just in...
For Bean
Your app status is Waiting For Review
A2B
Fetch Caps
Garmin Communicator Plugin
Fetch App - strong and stable testing
HTTPS is here
Fetch App progress
https access to the site
May (14)
Fetch App
Apostrophes
[Untitled]
[Untitled]
Site down at 11pm
Round and round the garden
Try the new home page layout
Server down tonight @ 11pm
Browser testers wanted
The Big Fetch Mile!!!
Site *NOT* down tonight. [cough]
Bluffer's Competition - Winner
Bedford parkrun timelapse
Return of the cap
April (8)
Fetchpoint (London and Milton Keynes!)
Base camp, VMLM
Bronze!
Just for D2
Off to the awards
Bloodvlog
Hoodies - it's on!
Updated Training Home Page
March (6)
'Train' page
Project Joker
Hoodies and Londons
Hands up, hands UP! Draycote Water 10
Bluffer's Competition
Project Joker
February (12)
Draggable?
Running Awards shortlisted
Route Plotter now with OpenStreetMap
Plan for Bluffer's comp
Update to Route Plotter
First update to the route mapper
For Angus
Virtuous Circles
Competition coming soon
Race Guide Ads
Club La Santa vLog
Fetch Fixtures
January (5)
Word Clouds
Buckets Ready
New Home Page
Do me a favour...
Limited Companies, filing accounts, that sort of thing
2016 (128)
December (11)
Festive Fetch Calendar - Winners
Festive Fetch Calendar - Winners
Five Years Ago Today
Pantsfest! May the stains be ever in your favour!
#FEXIT
Photoshop SOS
Attention: Fitbit users
Bedford Half 2016
Luton Fetchmob: Breaking Point
Vote Fetch!
Breaking news: Paris Marathon
November (21)
How to end a LiveChat.
Define wrong
TomTom Runner 3 Review - Any Questions?
Deliveryman
Movember: Project Beard: Day 24: Beardraggled
Festive Fetch Calendar 2016
We're gonna be in the Hudson
Hey Chiefy
I've written summat
Going Postal
A special mention
Training Log Beta
Spare Hoodies
Updates to Training Beta
Movember: Project Beard - Day 8 (The Seven Day Itch)
Vote for Fetch
Training Log Detail View - Some Changes
Aberdeen University Study
Consultation V2
[Untitled]
Fetchpoint - October Winners and November Prizes
October (16)
Alien nuggets!
Keeping a tight lid on the biscuit tin
Training Log Beta
100 Running Words
Pssst....
Fetchmob, December 3rd
Where to mob?
Little things
That All-Time Mileage League
The sudoku that keeps on giving.
Sub-25 for 1km :-)
Fetchmob - December 3rd
New Training Log Preview
Fixed the overlap...
Why the new training log isn't ready yet...
vLog
September (12)
Doughnut or Donate
Training Log - Sneak Peek
Fetch Shop Sale! Old stuff clearout!
vLog!!!
The consultation system...
Garmin support for timezone info
The GMT/BST/Timezone problem
Training Log Consultation...
Training Log - Consultation
Fetch Social Runs
Subscriber shirts, vests and hoodies, and determination.
Fetch Voluntary Subscriptions
August (3)
Ze Gryndylows! My first #OWS :-)
Testing Fetchpoint exclusion zones
Fetchpoint scoring system
July (7)
Conquercise Prize Draw?
Fetch Games: Checkpoints (and what's wrong with them)
More owls...
Your Favourite Fetch Game?
Even More Utmost Than Before...
Chiswick!
15 days later...
June (10)
Five days on...
[Untitled]
A quick thank you...
What do you think?
If you'd be so kind...
Poised
Which watch?
Run Bedford 10k
Import from a TomTom
Attention TomTom users
May (10)
Race Distance poll
An ungainly fish
A five year plan
What Club La Santa can learn from parkrun
Cream Me Up, Scotty
Greetings from Club La Santa
And a quick poll...
Club Charter
A poll about intervals
More owls!
April (11)
Robin Hood and his Merry Dad :-)
Warning: Dull - some screen res stats
Responsive Design Update
For all you marathoners
A Poll
Fetchpoint
Ditching the forum categories?
Moving to Responsive Design
Sandy 10: Be Kind To Horses
Owls!
For Adam and Jamie
March (11)
Bacon Smoke!
Benchmarks Update
Bath - Race Report
PB!!!!!!!
An annoying eight-year-old.
Let's Cook and Cut and Paste :-)
Let's Cook :-)
RIP Gramma
Book Winners
Dog farming
Site header update
February (5)
Book Giveaway
Pi Club
Pi Project Update
Because I'd like to check the blogging badges are working...
Crapruary
January (11)
Snooker Freak
Badges - Another Update
Unlockable Badges - Update
Unlockable Badges
TomTom Runner 2 Review
Gallery updates
Snowball coding and Fetch Unlockables!
Achievement Medals - what do you reckon?
Run The Sum
2015 Book List (and a bit of a review / plan)
Festive Fetch Calendar - Winners
2015 (175)
December (7)
Red Red Wine
A Poll
Gis a job!
Bedford Half
REMEMBER!!!
Vote for Fetch
Now you've hopefully got the idea...
November (13)
The Festive Fetch Calendar
Don't get excited or anything...
Slightly Dismal Friday
Pre-order your Fetch Buff now :-)
A message from our sponsor
Dr Fetch will see you now
Only the grumbliest, achiest chocolate... :-)
The Stanford Experiment
Buff Design
Snugs - Review
Love, Commitment, Support
The pre-wedding blog!
Good morning Fetchers, good morning Everyone
October (9)
Monthly Totals
Did you write a blog yesterday?
The First Rule of Web Server Maintenance
The gain line
Fectch
The zipper challenge!
Sugar daddy
Now in colour!
Competition Time!!!
September (14)
Teach your kids (or yourself) to code
Sticky Training Choices
Goodies: GetMore water and the Alcatel OneTouch Watch
Shirt size guidelines
This nearly made it...
Subscriber Shirt Design
I've got wood!
Humbled
New Beginnings
Some more questions answered
Swimming
Some responses to your comments
Standing on the shoulders of Fetchies
Funtleks
August (8)
24 hours in the south
24 hours in the north
Fetchies Assemble!
Thank you
Better knowledge than riches
Fitbit Urge
The villainous Mr Fetch!
Uncomfortable rear
July (8)
Why don't you play Conquercise?
Another week of strange training
Book Giveaway - Winners
GPS Reviews
Criteria for reviewing a GPS
Auto-bike-detector :-)
Win some bookses :-)
Half Way!
June (13)
Time Lapse Clouds
TomTom Bandit - very QUICK first impressions
My wings are like a shield of steel!
Running plus Cycling update
Embarrassingly...
Stalkers Paradise!
Recommend me a bike :-)
Holy Steamrollers Batman!
Rest day (no such thing)
Sqveeeeze!
We will now imitate the flight of a goose :-)
You made me ink! Snorkel safari :-)
Good morning from CLS :-)
May (10)
Club La Santa :-)
The AWESOME Power of Fetchies!
Home Insurance Shaftage :-/
Editing Forum Posts
The Future!
Some London Marathon stats
Walking On The Moon
Hardest parkrun?
New found wisdom
Week 1
April (11)
Marathon vLog
I owe some hugs!
And that concludes the voting from the Danish judges
Adventures in geocaching
Your video clips wanted!
Jelly with no spoons
Random Ultra
Suncream in my eyes - a review of 'Running and Stuff'
Books what I've read this year
Measuring the effect of wind
Wind Roses
March (18)
Watching the tide roll away
A great week of running!
Happy Jigs Wisdom!
Mobile Fetch
I don't do this very often...
Breathless Optimism
20 miles yesterday
This Week's vLog
Decision Trees and the sub-4!
Democracy Street
Mayan Maths
Bath Half (at last)
Still a chicken
Costume Drama in Bath
TomTom importing
Updated 'Train' page
Zonked
Nearly
February (29)
Pheasant
An Unexpected Journey
Wind picking up...
An unplanned kit alarm
Race Pace Test
2nd place
Week ends
Bounceback
Barking carrots
Bedroom pizza
Top of the mountain
Blogs get the mobile treatment
Supersonic Katie, and a marathon pace question
Back home
Racing parkrun ;-)
Unblocking the sink
Start in Darkness
Some times I'd like
Mobile Site - Forum Section
All-Time Leaderboards
Batteries
Sword fighting
PB Attempts
Duct tape and WD40
Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants
Lessons
Shoe horning
Training vLog Week 13
Big February Project
January (35)
Cake, invalidated
Small sips
LiRF, award shortlist, beginners, books, boy.
Dog Available :-)
Cutback
New Recipe Section
Lazy
Another threshold run
New Beginnings
Blah
But far more importantly...
Fetch Beginners Programme
Give it a go :-)
Training vLog - Week 11
Threshold Run (a running blog)
Long day, short blog
(Lack of) Pump Action
A thread to follow
This Boy Can
Local Leaderboards for Checkpoints
Choking.
February 18th
Godzilla!
The Travelling Checkpoint Salesman
Acorn Antiques
Bearing Up
Deleted Bridges and Dodgy Lasers
I'm Batman!
Healthy and Appy
Punch O'Clock!
The plan, then.
Ten mile toes
On Parliament
[Untitled]
Bold Claims, and a Challenge for 2015
2014 (262)
December (9)
A trip to Wales (vLog)
Christmas Messages from Fetchies
Various
FERC London Marathon Places - Draw
It's gone in my sock...
Festive Fetch Five
This Week's Training
To the Post Office!
Training vLog - Week 4
November (12)
I Am Groot!
Slightly Dismal Friday
Week 3 - in which I nearly drown my wife!
I said yes :-)
Free Daps! aka Test GORE-TEX® footwear this winter!
Training vLog - Week 2
More chances for VMLM entries
Marathon Talk
My first training vLog :-)
Second place?
In :-)
Questionnaire about personality traits amongst runners
October (16)
Adidas API
Horseplay minimiser
Running with the big dog
Flat and Windy
Who'd like to test the Garmin API then?
Advantage Borg
Deal?
Jumble
Milk Tray Reps in the Rain
Geneva
Quote
Hatfield 5k, and some other running thoughts
Site layout changes
Vote for Training Plans
Maths help
3-2-1
September (8)
A quick device poll
Garmin Connect API
Cake at the lake :-)
Empowering Women
This Week's Training
Tick :-)
Article help
First outing with the Harriets
August (7)
Book club and Harriers
A treasure trove for bookish types
What I did on my Summer Holidays
Local decoration
The Fisher King
Mojitos and no mosquitos!
Cake-athlon
July (26)
James Mason
Missing Week
Camping View
Wild Camping
Quick
Transalpine Race
In brief
Urgent! Pair of runners wanted!
Fetch Kit Available to Pre-order :-)
Fetch Anniversary Kit - Preview
API and FAK!
That dog has a puffy tail
More books
Reverse Moses
Zombies vs Plants
Shovel required
Nightfever
Dayfever
Catcher in the Rye
My sister the psychologist
Drink your strong limey drink
Keep me in the loop
Bread knives, hedgehogs and the dog in the night time
Whoops
Pinteresting
Q&A?
June (34)
Checkpoints video
Walden
Happy boys and giggly imps
Spring loaded
Elbow grease
Fetch 10th Anniversary Kit
Fetch YouTube Tutorial - Race Guide
Finding the Library folder on a Mac
Stoat!
Sonic screwdriver
Live wires
Wiring help needed
Garmin Express Experiment
Scalded sloth
Garminge
Potching
New Forum Layout
Further updates to the blog layout
New blog layout
First woodpecker
Beastin' parkrun
Pantoball
All was well
USA! USA! USA!
Marking Territory
The People's Poet Is Dead :-(
Holy Water
Throwing shapes
Life moves pretty fast
Recursion is beautiful
Win an OS Explorer / Landranger map of your choice
Intervals with a Suunto Ambit 2S
Tick
Economy done two ways
May (31)
[Untitled]
Vorsprung Durch Lego Technic
How do I liberate my boy from his XBox?
Questions?
Life in the Woods
Lazy
MovesMissed
Intervals with a TomTom
Electioneering
[Untitled]
Tree fluff
More camping
Zen and Camping
Not eaten by bears
Bear food
Camping List
Camping Venn Diagrams
Floppy dog
Routes but not Rathbone
Illustrator wanted
Masking
Highlights
The Cosmic Ballet Goes On
Silverstone 10k :-)
Quick one
[Untitled]
Superhuman snooker
Dogturdflagman
Numbers!
Whittlin'
Chapter 1
April (29)
King Bin
Quiet day on Feedback Mountain
Listing
42
Go directly to parkrun. Do not pass Godzuki.
A day in Wales
[Untitled]
Spanner
The Lost Diadem of Fetchbook
Falling asleep in my dinner
Egg
Sofathon
God gave rock and roll to you.
Sugar Mule
Not bad, consid'rin.
Tinkering
Can U Dig It?
A weekend in Wales
Looking forward to Oliver!
Thank you, and more App talk
RIP Nan
Blah
Appy
Pyjamas at both ends.
Thump. Saturday has started.
Sore tum :-/
Zombies aside... first impressions of the new TomTom
TomTom Runner Cardio Press Event
Am I pregnant?
March (31)
Cornflakes Cornflakes Cornflakes Cornflakes Cornflakes Cornflakes Cornflakes
Sandy 10
#bedfordhappy
Me on YouTube
New graphs live
Follow the dot
Only the best for the Captain's table
Mrs Diahann Wagner is GOING HORNY
Sport Relief Win
Hot dogs, quick blogs
Toton Sidings
A sign!
Owen Farrell visualisation technique
Kebabs!
Booster fails to ignite
Myton Rugby Run (5 Miler)
Rugby before rugby
Sweetcorn antidote
Custard factory
Pooped
I did some intervals :-)
Speed work?
Many things
A bit cabbagey here.
Angry Wasp
Minty
Rainbow's End
Core Dump
Bath Half (in detail)
A quick overview
Down to business in Bath
February (28)
Made it to Bath
Unexpected hugs
Slider
I like to go a-wandering
Spring cleaning
Tongue-lolling
Because We're Worth It
I don't know what!
Thanks Jim
Enough now
Clearing the pipes
Crouch, Touch, Pause...
Medication, that's what you need.
Symptom Tour
Hello FBI
Dazed day
Why I'm an optimist
Mobius birds
Snotty knuckles
In this house...
Retch Everyone
Carrots
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
Ultrahalfmarathoner
Angry Birds
Belching
Clarkson averse
Good day :-)
January (31)
*bunting* *cake*
Bigger Boys
Zombies!
Pretending to be Saga Norén
Waiting for the AA
Ship shape
Readthrough
Technology takes you further
Love Garden
Cushions
High Heel Striker
Bit of a rubbish one
Ta
Hot Re-fills
Coding Grinch
An august prediction
Some Running Goals for Q1
Wipe-clean dog
Breaking it down
Snakes and Ladders
Bigger Ponds
Drink Your Weak Lemon Drink
All in All
Panning the pancake
Does JK Rowling own a dog?
Back to the kitchen table
Steve Davis shoes
Pigs on a water slide
Sloshing
Protocol
19 books :-)
2013 (29)
December (3)
Oh...
Engine Management Light
Hannibal Vector
November (3)
Speed skating
Stew-pendous
Cool Hand Grandpa
October (3)
Bookish
Minecraft Cake
Random dump
September (2)
Blog by Email!
Catchup blah
August (3)
Big Green Caterpillar
Questions answered - final CLS blog
Last Days at Club La Santa
July (10)
A nice morning of swimming and tennis
Please Read: Questions for a sports coach
Snorkeltastic
Hitting the straps
First Impressions at Club La Santa
Mile High Blog
Clocking off
For the second week running...
Another Club La Santa catchup
The Floor In The Plan
June (3)
Club La Santa
Bulk Uploading, and win a book
FERC Charities 2011-2012
March (1)
Bath Weekend
January (1)
Meet Steve
2012 (39)
December (2)
Tired Now Boss
Bath - Week 14 + Foodbank
November (3)
White Level Reading
Bath - Week 15
Bath - Week 16
October (2)
Onwards!
C'mon Dave
July (1)
RIP Arnie
June (2)
Rub some bacon on it
18 weeks
May (9)
Techy not tetchy
Time for a techy blog
Time to walk the dog
Stevington 12k
Properly coldy
Still a bit coldy
New blog design live
A bit coldy
Blogs Redesign
April (2)
Easter
SERIOUSLY LORD FETCH, SORT IT OUT
March (8)
A long run up
Running Tick
Weekend
Sport Relief Mile
Back once again
Swimming sweetcorn and other vegetables
Joy Rides, Sticks and Medals
Training Tip
February (9)
And...
Katie, ICT, and some more MySQL
May The Ground Force Be With You
Functions
Well done Batman.
Optimisation Crossword
Snow Days
Gallery, and parkrun
Pleased
January (1)
There Are Some Really Sexy Girls On Fetch
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