Alpkit Squalline Jacket - first test/review.

Here's one I did earlier. 

It was my first look at the competitively priced Squalline Jacket from Alpkit.

It's been designed as stash-in-your pocket go-to waterproof/windshell for fast paced activities like trail running and mountainbiking. I like it, it's ideal for those days were the weather can be a bit mixed but there's no need for full-fat waterproof like the Gravitas Jacket.

At £49.00 it's well worth a look.

On the Up.

My post-op recovery seems to be going OK. It's only been a week and a half admittedly, but the pain has receded considerably and is more like a nagging toothache now.

I've been out walking quite a bit and I've had a few sessions on the turbo-trainer just to try and keep some fitness (and relieve the intense boredom).

Today I decided it was time to try a tentative cross-country run, so I popped out for an hour and ran gently on some familiar local paths. It was good actually, I enjoyed myself, and I was able to keep my arm stable in the sling, and, importantly, strain and pain free. I planned to do about 5km but ended up doing 8.5km. I had fun with a feisty Alpaca (not generally native to Derbyshire), carefully avoided some grumpy looking cows who eyeballed me with considerable suspicion (they had young calves), and spotted some beautiful looking wild flowers in a small woodland.  It was quite eventful.

The next three months will likely be a slow build up back to normal mobility. The surgeon suggested I might be able to get out cycling (on road) after about six weeks; that's something I'm looking forward to. I won't however rush proceedings in any way, I want to recover fully and without incident.

This week I have my first consultation with the physiotherapist and also my first post-op assessment with the Consultant Surgeon. I'll keep you posted on the outcomes.

As a means of alleviating the intense boredom further I am off to the Isle of Wight for a few days to visit my twin sister Helen. It's high time I went really, she's been living there for four years :D

My grumpy face. I'm not a fan of sitting on a turbo-trainer.

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Consume less, live more. Plant more trees.

Alpkit announce their #ContinuumProject

Perfectly in line with their "Go Nice Places, Do Good Things" tagline the good folk at Alpkit have announced their latest social & environmental initiative through their Alpkit Foundation.

The Continuum Project is a partnership with several other organisations to donate, recycle, and redistribute, your old and unwanted outdoor gear to those people in society who are less fortunate.

Here at Chase The Rainbow we love things like this and we'll be digging out as much of our old kit as possible. If you have some stuff kicking around then why not donate it to a good cause; you'll feel good about it and so will the people who benefit from your generosity :)

You can read all about the project here:

The Alpkit Continuum Project

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Consume less, live more. Plant more trees.

Review: Osprey Talon 6 Lumbar Pack - 2017.

Upper Mustang, Nepal. A great testing ground for the new Talon 6.

I'm a big fan of Osprey products. I've used their packs extensively for a long time; The Atmos 35 has been my go-to travel pack for everything in the last six or seven years.

And with good reason; the build quality, comfort, and durability, are as good as it gets.

So when I received the latest version of the Talon 6 Lumbar Pack to test during my recent trip to Nepal I was pretty excited.

Osprey Talon 6 Lumbar Pack.

I've been using an older Talon 8 for running, hiking, and mountainbiking, for a good few years now and it's been faultless. I did feel that it was sometimes a bit too voluminous so the smaller 6 litre version should be more user friendly. Let's see how it stacks up.

My first YouTube video - Welcome to Chase The Rainbow.

I posted my first video on YouTube. It's crap, but it's a start :)
I'm a one-take wonder. One day I'll learn how to edit and stuff.
Damn, I look an old git on camera :D

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Consume less, live more. Plant more trees.








The Longest Day - Ultra Tour of The Peak District

A great big inflatable elephant!

A couple of years ago Mitch Bryan and I went through a spell of running Ultra-Marathons which culminated in the successful completion of The UTPD - Ultra Tour of the Peak District - 60 miles (100km) event. To your average man (or woman) on the street this seems inconceivable, when we set out to do it it seemed almost that way to us too.

Both of us intended to continue to do other similar events, in fact we had our eye on the big prize - a 100 miler, but for various reasons we got distracted.

What may surprise you the most, as it did me, was that it wasn't actually as hard as I thought would be.

I'll quantify that rather bold statement. Running 60 miles in half day is very hard, it's just that I expected it to be brutally hard.

Review: Alpkit Atom LitePak.

Alpkit are a company that are going places (in more ways than one!), and they just won Online Retailer of the Year 2015 at the prestigious TGO Awards. Recent restructuring has seen them move up a gear in terms of product development and with that comes a measured increase in the range of equipment that they currently offer to customers.

The Atom LitePak is just one of these.

In the spring of 2015 I was tinkering about at home with some simple designs for just such a product when it conveniently popped up on their website. Plenty of outdoor manufacturers do a similar product but none of them were fitting in with what I needed. Most were way too big; the Sea-To-Summit Ultra-Sil Daypack, for example, is a whopping 20 litres. The 11 litre LitePak was just what I was looking for. I wanted something compact, light, and unobtrusive, for stashing food supplies during bikepacking trips, and for kicking around town when travelling.

Review: First look - Alpkit Kepler Merino Baselayer Range.

Alpkit Kepler Merino Baselayers.

Alpkit have been on a bit of a mission lately with a lot of new products being drip-fed to consumers throughout the course of the year.

One of these - The Kepler Merino Range - has been on my radar for a while.

I'm a huge fan of merino wool products, I have a fair bit of it in my wardrobe, so I was excited to check out their offerings to see how they measure up.

The benefits of merino wool are well documented, great breathability, quick drying, fast wicking, warm when wet, and extremely resistant to odours. In recent years it's become the de-rigueur product of choice for most outdoor users and manufacturers.
With the likes of Rab and Icebreaker retailing some serious high-end performance products the competition is stiff.

Shaken & Stirred. Earthquake Nepal.

Where to begin? Tough question.

Tough experience.

What remains of the magnificent Dharahara Tower in Kathmandu.

11.56am April 25th 2015

When the recent earthquake shattered the peace of Nepal I was caught right in the middle of it all.

Wilco Voulon, our friend Celine Hullemann, and I, were sat chatting and enjoying coffee on the first floor of Himalayan Java, on Mandala Street, in the heart of Thamel, Kathmandu (Just about the last place in the city that you would want to be under such circumstances, tall buildings, tiny streets, and packed with people and vehicles).
As we sat drinking I thought to myself "What's that noise?", a strange low rumbling sound outside; and then all hell broke loose. The building began to shake violently, stuff started falling off the walls. People screaming. Someone shouting "Get out of the building". We were already on our way.
Luckily we were close to the exit. The floor was moving under our feet, the doorway rocking from side to side, the whole thing was moving in three dimensions, and we were being thrown around. There was a lot of panic around us but I managed to keep my wits about me and remain relatively calm; perhaps it's a lifetime of solving problems, as an engineer, that gave me the tools to do that, or perhaps a lifetime of adventure that allows me to allows me to assess, and respond to, danger very quickly; who knows? I'm thankful for it now, whatever it is.
I was though still fighting the urge to panic.
We had to cross a small bridge, descend some stairs, and enter the street, before we could even consider anything else, and with debris falling all around us each split-second decision was gut wrenching.
I was shaken, like the buildings around me, to my very foundations.

The Kathmandu Ultra Marathon 2015.

Here's a quick one for you. 

The Kathmandu Ultra Marathon takes place on January 3rd 2015.

It's worth looking up if you're in the area. I ran the inaugural event in 2014 and it was brilliant. Fantastic trails around The Shivapuri-Nagarjun National Park with breathtaking views of The High-Himalaya to distract you from the pain!

Richard Ball (a very nice man!) runs it through his organisation Trail Running Nepal and can be followed on

Facebook here: Trail Running Nepal

Twitter here: @TrailRunNepal

and via their website here: Trail Running Nepal

One of the views you can expect to distract you! From Chisapani. Stunning!

Musings from the couch (potato).

Given the title of this piece you might well be thinking that I've been sprawled out on the psychiatrists couch, and to be fair that wouldn't be an unreasonable assumption. Although, let's be honest, your common or garden psychiatrist would probably have a complete meltdown, and require the services of one of their own practitioners, if they spent half-an-hour trying to psychoanalyse some of the stuff that floats around inside my head! 

Nope, the fact is I have become a couch-potato. There, I said it. It's out in the open.

It isn't entirely self-enforced, well, I say not entirely, what I mean to say is that it wasn't a concious decision; I fell off my bike. And broke my elbow. And two ribs. And my iPhone. Luckily the bike is OK, which is good, because they are expensive to repair. Ribs heal by themselves, for free.

Soooo, given that I have time on my hands, I thought I ought to do some catching up.

Trail Running Nepal: Campaign to support Nepali athlete's in European races.

Upendra and Phudorjee

My friend Richard Ball at Trail Running Nepal is once again trying to support Nepali athlete's to race on the International Trail Running Circuit; including The Skyrunning World Championships!

Whenever Nepalese athletes get a chance to race at oversea's events they usually surprise a lot of people!

These guys are awesome and their performances, and particularly their endurance, is the envy of many.

Sadly it can prove almost impossible for them to travel without the assistance of generous benefactors.

Please click on the link below and take a look at Richard's campaign to secure funds for Upendra and Phu on his website.

Richard is a great guy and he also organisers a number of excellent races in Nepal. I took part in one of his "Kathmandu Trail Race's" earlier this year and it was a fantastic event. His events give the Nepali athlete's a chance to gain valuable race experience and to run against international competition on their home soil.

People, like Richard, who support and nurture others with real potential deserve our support!

Even if you can't afford to donate a few Dollars please share his page on your social networking sites and help spread a little love.

Trail Running Nepal - Phu & Upendra Campaign

Review: Osprey Talon Lumbar Pack.

Osprey Talon 8 being put to good use during The 2014 Yak Attack in Nepal.

Regular readers will know that I am a big fan of Osprey Packs, I have used their products consistently for a number of years, and with good reason; they are outstanding!
I purchased The Talon 8 Lumbar Pack in February 2013; after borrowing a Talon 4 from my friend Mitchell Bryan to use in The Strathpuffer 24hr Mountain Bike Race.
Mitch had been singing it's praises and I was keen to see if it would be suitable for me to use in The 2013 Yak Attack and The Everest Marathon in Nepal. It was, and I did.

Jogging on. An Interlude in The Lake District.

Great shot of me climbing on Helvellyn courtesy of Graham Kelly.

Not so long ago I was browsing Facebook, as you do, and I came across an interesting link to a page calling itself The Trail Running Team. They were recruiting for applicants to attend a weekend for their 2014 team selection. A weekend running in The Lake District with like minded folks and the potential, if successful, to win a three day training camp in The Alps and a bunch of kit from the team sponsors, Berghaus, LED Lenser, and Torq Performance, was an opportunity not to be sniffed at! So I sent in an application.

And guess what? I got in! My confirmation email arrived on April 4th and the realisation set in that I was actually going and would be found out as an impostor forthwith!

A Taste of Nepal.

A Taste of Nepal.

Kathmandu has some amazing sights around every corner.

Sights, sounds, smells, and tastes all make up the delicious, myriad, flavour of Nepal. Although not all of the smells are that delicious!

I arrived in the permanently chaotic Kathmandu a little under three weeks ago, and it's been a blast. So much so that I haven't yet extricated myself out to the high mountains for some much needed altitude acclimation. The trails around the Kathmandu Valley rim are perfect for training, and the hub-bub of Thamel has been perfect for relaxing and having fun. The weather is warm (although the locals seem to disagree with me on that; 16-20 degrees Celsius is considered Winter in KTM. That's what we call Summer in England!) and the trails are dry.

Double Trouble!

Team Autisme Sportief - Neil, Hylke, Serdar, Wilco, and Tjiel.

I went for a run the other day.

Now under normal circumstances there would be nothing unusual in that statement, however it was an unusual day.

First of all said run took place in Zwolle in The Netherlands. And secondly it was a road marathon.

Not only that but it was my second road marathon in eight days. And considering the fact that I have never really been particularly interested in running a road marathon then running two on consecutive Sundays was a very unusual occurrence. And it all came about by accident (kind of).

Earlier in the year Wilco Voulon had expressed an interest in taking part in The (Nottingham) Robin Hood Marathon. Eventually though he changed his mind due to the fact that his local (Zwolle) marathon was to take place the week after and, obviously, he wanted to do that one instead. So with the seed planted in my mind I decided to do it (Nottingham) anyway.

I then thought "What the hell!" and entered the Zwolle Marathon too! There was some method in my madness; I had also entered my first Ultra-Marathon (The Ennerdale Trail Run 50km), and I figured that I could use both of these events as training blocks towards towards that, plus they'll all go in the bank towards my training for next years Yak Attack. In addition to that, the Zwolle Marathon was taking place on Sunday October 6th and would coincide with the day my cousin Darren had died last year. I wanted to mark the event personally and running with my friend Wilco would give me the support that I might need to complete it. (Darren actually passed away on Sunday October 7th 2012, but it was near enough for me).

The Ennerdale Trail Run takes place on October 20th and if I complete it it will mean that I have run two road marathons and a trail-ultra in 22 days. Idiot.

Bubble Wobble, The Wolf Run, and other news.

Frankie Hewitt and Neil after completing The Wolf Run

I had a phone call today, from a friend, that caught me slightly unaware. It wobbled my bubble, and that doesn't happen very often! (My bubble is my personal reference to my life and the lovely little cocoon that I live in). It wasn't an earth shattering call, the type that knocks you completely sideways, like the one I received when my cousin died, but it was unexpected and I was wobbled.

It was a good call.

I'm sorry that I have to leave it like that for the time being, I don't normally announce cryptic news, but if what we discussed comes to fruition then it will be something that I will be very proud to be associated with. I will let you all know the minute that anything is announced formally.

On a more sociable note... 

Yesterday I took part in The Wolf Run. It is a 10km challenge of running and obstacle racing and includes an awful lot of mud! Which means it is an awful lot of fun!

I went along to support an old school friend, Francesca Hewitt, who was doing it for the first time. In fact it was her first event of any kind in a long time. She is a wonderful person who unfortunately suffers from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and this has lead to some difficult personal battles for her. Because of PCOS she has suffered with weight problems and in recent times she has shown real determination to try and overcome it. She began attending regular fitness sessions with a group in her home town of Rugby called Military Fitness Circuits and she has lost a fair bit of weight. Francesca still has a little way to go but she is making steps in the right direction and she will get there.

I have no doubt.

Nepali Boomerang!

Today I begin my journey to Nepal once more.

I am returning with my great friend Wilco Voulon to trek, in The Himalaya, with a large group of enthusiastic travellers from his home of town of Zwolle in The Netherlands; on behalf of Autisme Sportief and Autism Care Nepal.

I am excited to going with such a lovely bunch of people.

I am excited to be trekking in on The Old Expedition Route from Jiri to Mount Everest Base Camp.

I am excited to be attempting The Tenzing-Hillary Everest Marathon on May 29th.

I am excited to be returning to one of the worlds most beautiful countries, inhabited by beautiful people.

I now have many friends in Nepal and I am excited to see them all again. They make me smile.

I fly initially to Amsterdam and take a train on to Zwolle for the night.

On Saturday we begin the long journey to Nepal.

Flying from Amsterdam via Dubai and New Delhi before finally arriving in Kathmandu on Sunday afternoon.

I am looking forward to guiding such a large group and the challenges & rewards that it will present.

The route in from Jiri is more beautiful than you can possibly imagine and the high Himalaya is all that you can imagine. The scale of these mountains is impossible to convey with words and images alone. They are colossus's in every sense of the word. I will try, when connection allows, to give you a taste of this magical place throughout our journey.

I am going to try and make a short video too, of the people, places, and sights.

Thank you to Carolyn at Derby Runner for the sound advice on trail running shoes, and to Osprey Packs (Europe) for helping me out with a pack.

My thanks also to the knowledgeable staff at Outside in Hathersage, Derbyshire for their advice (and fab cafe). 

But most of all my sincerest thanks go to my old friend Wilco for presenting me with such a great opportunity. And to my mate Mitch for being such a great source of inspiration and for always beasting me whenever we train or ride together.

Thanks to Phil Evans of The Yak Attack for his inspiration and for proving that ordinary people can achieve the most extraordinary things. Phil also happens to be the only person in the world to have completed both the worlds highest marathon (Everest) and the worlds highest mountain bike race (Yak Attack). On May 29th I hope to join that very exclusive club!

When Wilco conceived this adventure a little over a year ago I had no idea that it would become as personally significant to me as it has. With the loss of my beloved cousin Darren last October (a passionate mountain runner) it has become a personal pilgrimage to honour his memory in the most fitting way I can. We loved him more than he will ever know.

On May 29th I will crawl across that finish line on my hands & knees if I have to.

Darren Holloway. August 10th 1970 - October 7th 2012.

Yak Attack 2013 - Part Two.

Yak Attack - Those Two Imposters!

Hmmmm... CAKE!

I'm sure most people will be familiar, in some form or other, of Rudyard Kipling's very famous poem "If". And "If" you aren't then it's worth looking up. It's a great poem about humility, respect, honesty and decency, in a British Empire stiff-upper-lip kind of way. Bear with me.

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,

And treat those two imposters just the same,..."

"... Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a man, my son!"

Read on.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Back on the Horse.

Off the horse; two flat tyres at Antur Stiniog Downhill park in Wales.

A few weeks before Christmas I was out and about enjoying a training run, and I do actually enjoy them, when I came a bit of a cropper! Firstly whilst running through the woods in the dark, with a head-torch to guide me, I stubbed my toe on a lump of rock on the trail and made like Superman, flying full length down the hill on to my face! I grumbled and swore, dusted myself off, and quickly had a look around to make sure no one saw me, obviously; before carrying on down the path. A very short distance later, and still cursing my throbbing toe, I turned heavily on my ankle in a rut in the path. It was so hard an impact that I not only felt it crunch under my weight but even heard it. Ouch. I was buggered. I had to hobble/jog the three miles back home before I could get a bag of frozen sweetcorn on it to try and reduce the swelling. One of my highly amusing friends, who really should be a comedian, suggested that frozen peas are far more effective and that's where I went wrong. Thanks for that sage piece of wisdom Phil, I'll try it next time.