Mark J. Keenan

Last year, I had planned to run the “whole truth” - a 50 kilometre, double loop, trail event held in Jarrahdale called Truth and Consequences. I didn’t. Instead, I ran the single loop event, changing my entry to the 25 kilometre course after four weeks of ankle pain. Really, I shouldn’t have run the event at all. And I definitely shouldn’t have kept training afterwards, and then run the City to Surf as well. But that’s how it was last year. Caught up in the excitement of comp

It could have been the start scene to any trail running event. The inflatable overhead finish gantry shifting in the morning breeze. People greeting each other, buzzing with anticipation as they pinned their race number to their shirt. A queue for both the coffee van and the portable toilets. Everything was normal except, behind the crowd, in the middle of a cleared section of bush, was something we hadn’t seen before; a large alloy disc, gold in the centre and brown at the e

Snakes and Ladders is the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the PTS Summer Series. It is the run we all remember and talk about for weeks after first completing it. Certainly, no other course in the series attracts the same range of emotional responses from trail runners. Many love it; others love to hate it; of course, we all run in it anyway! Even before the event, there is always lots of chatter - most of it centred around the second climb, up the infamous Three Steps. The Three Ste

In 1987, English illustrator Martin Handford, released a book entitled Where’s Wally? The idea of the book was uncomplicated - it consisted of illustrated pictures, each one crowded with people and, on each drawing, a character, known as Wally, who the reader needed to find. To make it easier to find him, Wally wore distinctive glasses, a red and white striped jumper and a woolly hat. The book, and the industry that followed, has been an incredible success. Of course, we all

What’s more stressful than writing your first ever race report? Writing your first race report for an event that you didn’t attend! On Sunday 10th December 2017, nearly 350 runners lined up before the orange start line gantry for the Perth Trail Series ‘Stay Puft’ event. I was supposed to be one of them. So was my son. Unfortunately, he wasn’t feeling well, and neither of us made it across the timing mat. Never one to shirk my responsibilities however, I headed back to course