FionaOutdoors

What is your skiing “type”? Are you happiest on long and flattering blue and red runs, whiling your days away enjoying the scenery and staying within your comfort zone? Are you a journey skier? The kind who spends delightfully long and frequently adventurous days discovering new ski runs and interconnecting valleys while making lots of [...]

Certainly, I reckon you’d agree, Scotland boasts a great deal of land that could be called “wild”. But how do you define “wild”? According to a new Scottish Natural Heritage project: “Wildness is a quality experienced by people when visiting places of a certain character.  Measuring wildness is inherently difficult, as people respond differently according to their experience [...]

My tri club friend Smiler Caroline says she struggles to find the motivation to run or cycle unless she’s planned to go out with other people. Other people I know only like to run or cycle on their own. I am somewhere in the middle. I love running and chatting with a friend. I like [...]

The “return” sports session, especially after months away, is always so tough. I was reminded of this fact on Tuesday when I returned to the Glasgow Triathlon Club swimming session after a gap of almost eight weeks. While I tried to keep up with the middle laners, and I did complete the full session, I [...]

If you know me…Or you read this blog… you’ll know that I am always on the look out for new outdoors challenges! Just after turning 40 I decided to run my first marathon, the Loch Ness Marathon. A couple of years ago I set a goal of cycling the Bealach Mor Sportive. Last year, I [...]

Romy Beard is one of my regular guest bloggers. I met her through Glasgow Triathlon Club and we have followed her as she explores Scotland on foot (she is from Luxembourg originally), becomes pregnant, gives birth to a baby boy – and now as she bids to beat her 10K personal best (PB) time. Here [...]

At 1150ft, St Johns Head on Hoy is the tallest sea cliff in the UK.  A route called the Long Hope was first climbed in 1970 by climber and poet Ed Drummond together with Oliver Hill.  They took seven days to climb the cliff, sleeping on ledges and in hammocks along the way.  Forty years [...]

They might have caused a dozen or more raised eyebrows, and certainly a few fellow tri club cyclists thought they were hilarious, but my new skiing mitts have become the genius solution to cold hands while cycling. One of the reasons that I don’t like cycling in winter is that my hands get very, very [...]

It’s great to hear about other people’s outdoor sporting achievements and goals. I “met” Andy Fallon on Twitter. His tweets about an epic cycling challenge sounded interesting. Here’s his story. Andy is 45 and married with a six-year-old daughter. He lives in Huddersfield West Yorks and spends his days working for Morrisons as a senior [...]

A cheap 12-day trial of a private gym, a month of illness, Christmas and new year celebrations etc meant that I didn’t attend the Glasgow Triathlon Club Thursday evening running session for a while. Sadly, I was then I was left with the thought that I might get left behind in a session that I [...]