Look at me! Running. Not just running - WINNING. Oh yes. I was running a marathon in this picture above - and I bloody won it. At sea. Oh yes. Not just winning but setting a world record for mid-Atlantic marathons, and it wasn’t just a marathon - I BLOODY RAN 28 MILES! That’s more! Lots more! 3135 yards more! RUNNING! That’s a bloody ultra-marathon! They only put “ultra-” on things that are really properly amazing - like Always Ultra or Ultra-vox. I am marathons! Smell me!

So learn from me - an elite runner. An “ultra-runner” if you will. Or just “a runner”, if you won’t.

The Bristol Half Marathon is this Sunday, and is sure to be a joy and a privilege. I did the University’s Half Marathon in 2000 and finished in a respectable time, sadly now I am long past my peak despite my training for the Snowdonia marathon in a couple of months time, and will do well to finish in 2 hours. Partly because I am carrying almost 3 times the weight of Paula Radcliffe, who weighs only 119 lbs. I am still a better runner than her - because she runs for only 2 hours 15 minutes - whereas I run a marathon for almost SIX HOURS! that’s almost 3 times better!

So my top tips for running:

• Fight to get to the back of the pens. There’s no use setting off like a fifty-bob horse (my mother’s phrase) and then dying after 5 miles. It’s not a sprint, it’s er… half a marathon. Get to the back, and find your own pace, gently overtaking the slow/lame/fat, rather than starting at the front and being overtaken by everyone.
• Prepare yourself a playlist on your ipod. You have no iPod? Throw away your wax cylinders and cassette Walkmen and buy one. And then re-read this point. Then stick some ludicrous awful trance music that you would never listen to on there. And then the song Here It Goes Again by OK GO, yes that one with the running machines - which inexplicably seems to be a great running track. Also try Steppenwolf’s Born to be Wild. And Florence and the Machine’s Dog Days are Over - her wailing is really quite annoying yes, but inexplicably it’s a good running track - it worked for Eddie Izzard on his epic run last year, or at least on the soundtrack of it. I have mine full of Film Soundtracks - Moon is brilliant, Where Eagles Dare is a must, then add some of Dark Knight, Gladiator, the Bourne Trilogy. Save your playlist as “*****BristolHalf” - so it’s at the top of your playlistlist - you don’t want to be looking down at your iPod - you’ll end up slipping over on discarded Lucozade Sport bottles or bumping into an old man dressed as a telephone.
• Have an emergency song or two, a favourite one, which will give you some energy if you’re flagging - have this ready in another playlist: “*****Mile 11″ perhaps.
• Zone out completely. Put your brain onto screen-saver mode, and imagine you are watching Ceefax late at night on BBC2, with accompanying muzak.
• Read the blurb that the Marathon send people - but bear in mind that there are other products available than Lucozade Sport (though not on the course obviously).
• Take some Immodium and some painkillers. Don’t really - it might be bad for you. (but do - it will help if you don’t need a crunch half way through). Do not do this. Consult several doctors - who will all tell you not to do this (but do. it helps - especially if you are slow - imagine stopping for a crunch in the plastic booth toilet at mile 12 - it will have been in near constant use for about an hour. Really)
• Grease your nipples. Oh yes. Because otherwise your sweaty shirt will have long red bloodstains. Eugh. Grease everything. Toes. Crotch. nipples.
• Don’t try out any new kit on the day. Not even a t-shirt. or a sock. Or a watch. Certainly not a Scooby-Do costume - you’ll look like a twat even if you’ve been practicing in that.
• Don’t tell your wife to bring some Lucozade to the finish, but not be specific enough and have her bring the rank orange fizzy stuff that Daley Thompson used to drink, then drink it anyway because you are so tired and thirsty, and then vomit orange liquid all over Victoria Underground station. (this one may be specific to me in the London Marathon 2003).
• Bristol Culture’s advice here says that “A calm head is equally as important as a fit body.” which is perfect - as in my laid back state I will be as good as a frantic Paula Radcliffe. Race you!
• Enjoy it. It’s going to be a lovely day. Let’s all go to the Zoo afterwards, yes? I might even buy you an ice cream. I’ll be the one limping triumphantly. Because I’ll probably have won!

DISCLAIMER: All of this is true. Genuinely. Aside from any of the advice - which is probably dangerous, criminal, and should all be avoided.

Another Literally show coming up soon: November 4.

Details are here: http://literallysellinglikehotcakes.eventbrite.com/

My brother and I are running a marathon in 157 days time. Just over 5 months. Not just any marathon, but the hardest road marathon in the UK - the Snowdonia marathon.

The course map looks rather pleasant - a scenic lap of Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa to the locals). But Snowdon is the highest mountain of wales, and unlike Fuji, it’s not a lone mountain, so the whole course is up and down the surrounding mountains. It’s when you look at the helpfully provided profile that a little bit of wee comes out, and we wonder how ill-prepared I am thus far, and how much I need to train between now and then. I have run 3 marathons before, none since 2004, and they have all been a triumph of will on the day, rather than a predictably-executed run after a well-prepared training schedule. Looking at the massive uphill for miles 21 to 24, it’s going to take some proper training from now, as well as some serious mental strength on the day.

Last year’s winner managed it in 2 hours 36, and the last finisher exactly five hours later in 7 hours 36. I am aiming to split their times, and finish my fastest ever marathon, hitting 5 hours. So far it seems possible if implausible.

Possible because: 1) I live in Bristol, and it’s bloody full of hills. So if I run anywhere here pretty much - it’s hill training. 2) I have an iPod now - which makes marathon distance training much more interesting than a long cassette/Minidisc. 3) I enjoy doing painfully difficult things. 4) My brother is doing it, and he’s a runner’s build, and if he beats me by miles it will be annoying to have to kill him. (maybe I’ll just switch our numbers at the start. that could work).

Those previous marathons:

• Mid-Atlantic Marathon, June 2004 - WINNER - 5 hours 10 minutes. A peculiar affair, which I only considered after running a half marathon around the decks of the QM2 the day before (not ideal training). It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I was keen on keeping fit, whilst not pedalling, as I took the QM2 from Southampton to New York to continue on my way from A to B. I was joined for the last few laps by various other passengers who had seen me on QM2TV. Marvellous. It later turned out I had run over 28 miles, due to a rounded-down lap marker claiming that 3 laps was only 1.1 mile. Admittedly I may have only won because I was the only starter of this race, and the only person to have definitely run a mid-atlantic marathon.
• London Marathon 2003 - 5 hours 20 minutes. My first marathon.
• London Marathon 2004 - 6 hours 15 seconds. Am not sure how this happened. I took it easy as I was heading off from A to B on the bike a couple of weeks later. It was horrible. I sprinted the last mile to make sure I got in under 6 hours, but somehow failed.

Tonight again I had my fingers in many pies. This time literally.

Horrible photos of the curious occasion I grabbed a small packet of pork pies out of the fridge, forcing my fingers into their stodgy greasy cold centres to show I literally had my fingers in many pies. It was not very nice. It was weirder still when I had to take photos with the other non-pie-fingered hand, and yet weirder still when I could see one of my neighbours looking out of their kitchen window, and into my kitchen window, enacting some sort of Edward Pie-Hands film.

It turns out that it is hard to wave and look nonchalant with a camera in one hand, and pies stuck to all the fingers of the other hand.

Cue AC/DC's hit: "Highway to Hell" or Chris Rea's "Road to Hell"

Few people can honestly correctly say they’ve literally been to Hell and back for a cause they believe in. I am one of those very people. And Hell is a goldmine (figuratively) for doing things literally. Hell is a fairly small village on the outskirts of Stjørdal a third of the way up Norway with a population of just under four hundred people. It is thirty kilometres to the East of Trondheim (Norway’s third largest city), and therefore an obvious place for Trondheim-Værnes airport. Or Barcelona-Værnes as it is known to customers of one Irish airline, and a mere 3200km coach-ride to Barcelona city centre.

I wandered out of the centre of Hell, a little westwards, along the railway line, and towards the fjord, treading over a light sprinkling of frozen snow. The waters of the fjord were dark, and disappointingly ice-free. A few hundred yards further on, back in some residential areas, I found exactly what I was looking for. A couple of small ponds, frozen solid: Hell was literally frozen over.

Music snobs will be pleased that piped through the shopping centre of Hell, was the music of Keane. And predictably Hell was full of little kids rolling around on “heelies”, crashing into my shins. There is little to sell Hell’s shopping centre. After I’d drunk more black coffee than anyone could ever want, I judder around, accidentally grossly miscalculated the exchange rate and buy 4 moose salami and 4 reindeer salami for almost a hundred pounds. Note to self – learn the 13-times-table better. I chatted to a few people, meeting the mother-in-law from Hell, and the Neighbours from Hell.

I wrote a postcard to my office. It included the line: “It will be a cold Day in Hell before I come back to work.” It was not very well received, at one stage almost invoking a disciplinary procedure against me because of it. Still, that’s probably the last time I will work for a small Christian charity.

Postcard from Hell

Last week I crossed off another one of those “things to do before I die” when I appeared in the Bournemouth’s Daily Echo. Indeed for a few hours I was “7th most read story” before being edged down into 8th by a story about a spray-painted dead duck. I hadn’t actually spoken to them but they picked up the story from the earlier appearance in the Bristol Evening Post.

The curious thing was the headline: “Jamie Redknapp’s misuse of word is literally doing my head in”. A quote which was attributed to me. A worrying quote, not just because I didn’t actually say it, but because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a criminal overuse of the L-word. Adding nothing to the sentence, and only serving to devalue further the L-word. Outrageous.

I shall complain naturally. No one misquotes the Literally Tsar!

It seems the reason they picked it up, is that Jamie Redknapp is from Bournemouth, and apparently still lives there. But sadly it turns out (though they attribute it to me), they are misusers.