130 Miles of Unfinished Business
The Long Run Mindset - For a Life Worth Living #6
In 2021, I broke a promise to myself.
I entered the Leeds-Liverpool Canal Race - 130 miles along the canal where I grew up, learned to swim, learned to run.
Then I pulled out.
For someone who has built his entire life around one simple philosophy - under-promise, over-deliver - that has sat heavily for five years.
The Way I’m Wired
I don’t make promises I can’t keep.
If I agree to meet you at 10:30, I’ll be there at 10:28.
I’d rather turn down an opportunity than commit to something I can’t deliver. I’ve frustrated people who wanted a quick “yes” when I needed time to be certain. I’ve walked away from deals that looked good on paper because something told me I couldn’t follow through.
It’s caused me problems over the years.
But it’s who I am.
Under-promise. Over-deliver. Every time.
Which is why 2021 still bothers me.
I made a promise to myself - 130 miles, start to finish - and I didn’t deliver.
Not because of injury. Not because of illness.
Because I was scared.
This Isn’t Just Any Canal
I need to tell you about this canal.
I learned to swim in it.
First time without armbands. Cold water. Our canal boat moored nearby. My dad watching from the towpath. Childhood summers that felt endless - weekends and school holidays drifting slowly between Leeds and Liverpool, the world moving at 4 miles per hour.
I didn’t know then that this canal would become the spine of my entire running life.
Every milestone happened here:
First 5K. First 10K. First half marathon. First full marathon. First 50K. First 50 miles. First 100K.
Three months after spending 48 hours in a resuscitation ward, it was this towpath where I shuffled my first post-surgery run. 46 minutes for 5K. Shaking for hours afterwards. But alive and moving.
This canal has seen every version of me.
The child learning to swim. The broken man learning to run again. The ultra runner chasing distances that once seemed impossible.
It deserves to see me finish this.
Why I Pulled Out in 2021
The honest reason?
I couldn’t get my head around running all day, all night, and into the next day.
The continuous movement. The 3am darkness on a towpath with nothing but your own thoughts. The unknown of what happens when your body has been moving for 30, 40, 50 hours straight.
I told myself I wasn’t ready.
Really, I was scared.
So I pulled out. Broke the promise. And quietly carried that with me.
What Changed
Last June, I stood on the start line of the Summer Southern Spine Challenger.
113 miles along the spine of England.
50 hours later, I was still moving.
When it ended, I felt like I could go again.
The thing I was scared of in 2021 - the all day, all night, into the next day - I’d done it. Lived it. Survived it. Even thrived in it.
The excuse I used five years ago no longer existed.
The fear was gone.
Which meant only one thing: it was time to go back to the canal.
Why This Race Is Harder Than It Looks
Everyone assumes flat is easy.
They’re wrong.
In the mountains, the terrain thinks for you. Hills force you to walk. Technical sections demand concentration. Navigation keeps your mind occupied. Livestock, weather, and constantly changing landscape break the monotony.
The course dictates when to run, when to hike, when to eat, when to drink.
On a canal towpath? There are no such instructions.
Just you. And 130 miles of flat path stretching to the horizon.
No natural breaks. No navigation. No technical challenge to occupy your mind.
Just relentless forward motion while your feet slowly fall apart on the tarmac and your brain has nothing to focus on but the miles still ahead.
The Leeds-Liverpool Canal Race isn’t easier than a mountain ultra.
It’s a completely different kind of hard.
And if I’m honest? That’s part of the appeal.
I’ve conquered the mountains. I know how to read terrain, manage navigation, use the hills.
This is new territory. New problems to solve. New version of suffering to understand.
I’ve never been able to resist a problem I haven’t solved yet.
The Promise Renewed
So I’ve entered again.
29th August 2026. I’ll be 58 years old.
The same canal. 130 miles. One continuous movement from Liverpool to Leeds.
Under-promise, over-deliver was my philosophy for 30 years in business.
In 2021, I did the opposite.
I promised 130 miles and delivered nothing.
That ends on 29th August 2026.
What’s Your Unfinished Business?
I don’t think I’m unique in this.
We all have a promise we broke to ourselves.
Not to a boss. Not to a partner. Not to a friend.
To ourselves.
The business you nearly launched. The qualification you started and abandoned. The relationship you should have fought harder for. The thing you entered once and quietly withdrew from when it got real.
Maybe you weren’t ready then.
Maybe, like me, you’ve spent the intervening years quietly proving you are.
Over the next six months, I’ll be documenting this journey - the training, the doubt, the dark towpath moments at 3am when everything hurts and the only thing keeping you moving is a promise you made to yourself five years ago.
Follow along. Not because running 130 miles is something you’d ever want to do.
But because we all have unfinished business.
Mine just happens to be 130 miles long.
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Another well thought out read Andy. I have also not turned up for things, largely because I couldn’t be bothered, but I think my biggest problem is not dropping out when I really should. There are certainly two Ultras I can think of which did more harm than good and with a little more thought should have been DNF