Mile 014 - Revolutions

There has been a revolution in cycling over the last 20 years, on edition 14 of a mile with me we explore how cycling training techniques and thinking can improve our running.

Im joined on the show by Steve Moss, an ex international cyclist, who was a former team-mate of Laurent Fignon, 2 time winner of the Tour de France. Steve is now a cycling coach and also a committed runner - so we compare and contrast running and top level cycling training.

Come with me on a local cycle as we explore the revolution in literature in the last 150 years and how many famous authors who lived and wrote in Bournemouth, from JRR Tolkein and Robert Louis Stephenson to Thomas Hardy. Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein is buried here, alongside the heart of her husband, the romantic poet Percy Shelley. Wilde and Henry James also visited so we go on a literary cycle tour and I tell you about all these connections. Find out why the residents of Bournemouth are not today running into the sea to drown like they did in the James Herbert book "The Fog"

Its a feature packed edition of the podcast

Podsafe music courtesy of music.podshow.com:
Amb26 - Summers Day (a Mile with Me theme)
Scanlan - Bike Ride
Jeff Rosiana - Another Trip Home

Website: http://www.amilewith.me.uk/
Email: Chopper@amilewith.me.uk
ITunes: amilewithme

Mile-013 William Penny Brookes - Olympic Champion

William Penny Brookes has been widely recognised as the founding father of the modern Olympic Games, but surprisingly not that many people are aware of him or his remarkable life.

Born in Much Wenlock in Shropshire, England in 1809 he was a local doctor, played a major part in bringing the railway to town and also introduced both a reading and an Olympian class into his newly created library.

In 1850 he set up his first Olympian Games and 40 years later a visit to those very games by the French aristocrat Baron Pierre Coubertin was destined to change both their lives. The Baron stayed at Brookes's house for some time and inspired by what he had seen Coubertin went on to launch the modern Olympic movement in 1894.

In 1994 the President of the IOC visited Much Wenlock to celebrate a century of the modern Olympic movement and in a moving speech said "I came to pay homage to Dr Brookes, who really was the founder of the modern Olympic Games"

Find out more about his extraordinary life and the Much Wenlock Olympian Games as I chat with Helen Cromarty, historian of the Wenlock Olympian Society on Mile 13 of the "A Mile With Me" podcast.

To find out more visit

http://www.wenlock-olympian-society.org.uk/

Music on this edition, supplied courtesy of the podsafe music network at music.podshow.com:

• Amb26 - Summers Day (A Mile With Me theme)
• Psykosoul - So Deep Orgasm Medley
• Jakit Patrick - Go for it

Email: Chopper@amilewith.me.uk

Itunes "amilewithme"

Mile-012 Digging Deep

Sometimes raw grit is what is necessary to get through!

On Mile 12 of the "A Mile With Me" podcast we look at digging deep, which is what the 2000 participants of Trailwalker needed to do to get through 100km of tough hills within a day. Hear my report from the event which will raise over £1m for Oxfam and the Gurkha Welfare Trust. A few pics of me on the run are above. Find out one of the 1000 unusual uses for an umbrella!

Also hear me off the coast talking about how Bournemouth Council is literally digging deep in the sandy seabed off the coast to create the northern hemisphere's first artificial surf reef. Bournemouth is sheltered from the Atlantic by the Purbeck peninsular and thats one reason why its beaches are regularly voted the best in the UK. Once the reef is open in the autumn it will provide an excellent 400 metre wide surf beach within 1.5 hours of London for the first time. Its even claimed it will be good for the local fish stocks. Hear about what you can see from the Bournemouth Eye and also about the designer developing the "best beach huts in the world".

http://www.bournemouthreef.com/
http://www.pooleandbournemouth.co.uk/content/view/88/55/

I also explore how focussing on improving concentration can help when you need to dig deep at that crucial point.

Music this episode from music.podshow.com

Amb26 - Summers Day (A Mile With Me theme)

Psychosoul - So Deep Orgasm Medley

Mangomad - Simple Theory

"Shafty" in his makeshift tent