What Europe Taught Me About Fitness, Adventure and the Years Ahead.
Wild Trails: Van Edition
Sometimes you don't realise you're training for an adventure until you arrive at it.
This summer we spent almost four weeks travelling through Europe in our motorhome. Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy and France. Two adults, two kids, a golden retriever, far too many miles on the road and absolutely no shortage of things to see.
It was a family holiday first.
There were lakes, swimming pools, mountain walks, campsites, cities, theme parks, visits with family and long driving days. My running had to fit around all of that.
But my trail shoes were coming with me.
I didn't leave home with a list of mountains I wanted to run. I didn't have a training programme for the trip. Most of the time I didn't even know where my next run would be.
I'd arrive somewhere, look at the landscape, open a map and start wondering.
What's up there?
That simple question ended up taking me on some of the best runs I've ever done.
And somewhere along the way, particularly on one mountain in France, the trip changed the way I think about my own fitness and what I want Wild Kindness to become.
Running wherever the wheels stopped
The first run was in Germany.
Nothing huge. Around 10K through forest trails, simply getting the legs moving after travelling.
But I loved the simplicity of it.
We'd parked the motorhome somewhere I'd never been before. I put my trail shoes on, stepped outside and went exploring.
That became the rhythm of the trip.
The motorhome gave us the freedom to keep moving, and running gave me a completely different way of experiencing the places where we stopped.
Some runs were short. Some were squeezed into the morning before the family day began. There were family hikes and days when I didn't run at all.
It wasn't about collecting miles.
I was just running wild wherever the wheels stopped.
After Germany, those wheels took us into the Czech Republic.
Czech Republic — more than somewhere we were visiting
Czechia was always going to feel different.
My partner grew up there, so this wasn't simply another country on our route. We were travelling through places connected to her childhood and eventually staying close to her family.
Before we reached them, we stopped to explore some of the extraordinary Czech rock formations together.
One of the family adventures on the journey across Czechia.
A couple of days later, we arrived in the area where my partner grew up.
The motorhome was parked outside her nan's flat and plugged into the electricity. It wasn't a campsite or somewhere designed for tourists. We were simply living for a few days in the middle of ordinary Czech life.
And that made my next run different.
Čermná
I ran 11.25 miles with around 1,300 feet of climbing through the countryside around Čermná ve Slezsku.
It wasn't the biggest mountain run of the trip. In fact, compared with what was coming, the elevation was relatively modest.
But it had something the others didn't.
Connection.
These were the villages, forests and tracks around the place where my partner had grown up.
There were no crowds. No famous mountain viewpoints. No iconic trail-running destination I'd travelled halfway across Europe to tick off.
Just quiet countryside and the freedom to explore it.
Čermná ve Slezsku — exploring the landscape around the place my partner grew up.
I've always felt that running lets you know a place differently.
You notice the little tracks disappearing into forests. The changes in the ground beneath your feet. The smells, sounds and tiny details you'd miss from a car.
And when the place already has meaning to your family, that experience becomes something more.
That run stayed with me.
But the landscape was about to get considerably bigger.
We travelled onwards through Czechia and spent time in the Jeseníky mountains. One of our family hikes took us to a rocky viewpoint overlooking what seemed like an endless sea of forest.
It was one of those views that stops you for a moment.
Miles and miles of wild landscape.
Looking back at that photograph now, it almost represents the whole trip to me.
There was so much out there.
And I wanted to explore it.
Austria — Hohe Trett
Our next stop was beside a lake in Austria.
I hadn't arrived knowing anything about Hohe Trett.
I certainly hadn't planned to run it.
But I noticed trail-running signs near the campsite, started looking at the surrounding mountains and, inevitably, opened the map.
There it was.
Hohe Trett — 1,681 metres.
And I could reach it directly from where we were staying.
That was all the encouragement I needed.
The alarm went on for 6am.
Leaving camp for Hohe Trett while everyone else was still asleep.
I remember stepping out of the campsite that morning.
The family were asleep in the motorhome. Mist was sitting over the lake. The mountains were beginning to appear in the early light.
And I was ridiculously excited.
I didn't really know what was waiting for me.
The first part of the route climbed on road. Cars were passing, people presumably heading to work, while I was running towards a mountain I'd discovered on a map the previous evening.
Eventually I left the road and reached the trails.
Then the adventure really started.
The higher I climbed, the more the landscape opened around me.
Forests gave way to huge mountain views. The climbing kept coming and I settled into that rhythm I love — running where I could, hiking hard where the gradient demanded it, always moving upwards.
Hohe Trett — my first proper Alpine mountain run of the trip.
I reached the top and stood looking across Austria.
There was no race.
No finish line.
Nobody waiting with a medal.
I'd simply left a campsite beside a lake and run up a mountain because it was there.
The whole run came in at just under 13 miles with close to 4,000 feet of climbing.
A few hours after leaving, I was back.
And then I became Dad again.
Half an hour later we were swimming in the lake.
Hohe Trett in the morning. Back in the lake with the boys afterwards.
That contrast started to mean something to me.
I'd had this huge personal adventure in the mountains, but it hadn't required the whole day.
My fitness had allowed me to leave early, climb a mountain, come back and carry on with our family holiday.
I wasn't really thinking deeply about it yet.
But something had started.
Then we crossed into Italy.
The Dolomites
Italy felt special before I'd even put my running shoes on.
My maternal grandfather was Italian, and in recent years I've found myself reconnecting more strongly with that side of my heritage. It's made me want to understand more about where part of my family came from and to finally learn the language properly.
So crossing into Italy already carried a little more meaning for me.
We spent four days in the Dolomites, beginning with two around Cortina d'Ampezzo.
This time the mountains started as a family adventure. We took the cable car up towards Monte Faloria and spent the day exploring on foot, eventually covering around ten miles together in one of the most spectacular landscapes we'd seen on the entire trip.
It was my first proper experience of being amongst the Dolomites rather than simply looking at them.
And they were ridiculous.
I'd seen photographs of these enormous pale mountains before, but photographs don't really prepare you for standing underneath them — or walking amongst them with your family.
Our first taste of the Dolomites — exploring the mountains above Cortina together.
After two days around Cortina, we moved on to Pozza di Fassa.
By then I'd spent a couple of days looking at those mountains and, inevitably, I wanted to run in them.
Once again, I opened the maps.
I found a route heading through Val San Nicolò towards the waterfalls and higher trails.
So early one morning, off I went.
Val San Nicolò, Dolomites.
This was another step up.
The trail kept climbing deeper into the mountains. Huge rock faces towered above the valley and every time I thought I'd reached the best view, another appeared.
I climbed beyond 2,000 metres and eventually reached around 2,250 metres.
For somebody from a little village in South Wales who started trail running in his 40s, there was something slightly surreal about standing there.
I hadn't entered an event.
I hadn't hired a guide.
I hadn't spent months preparing specifically for that route.
I'd looked at a map and gone for a run.
Somewhere above Pozza di Fassa, wondering how running had brought me here.
It was around ten miles with more than 3,500 feet of climbing.
Another mountain morning.
Another family day afterwards.
And by now a thought was becoming harder to ignore.
For years I'd thought about fitness through the usual measures.
Times. Distances. Pace. Strength. Repetitions. Race results.
I still enjoy all of those things. I like testing myself. I like being fit and I like finding out what I'm capable of.
But these mountains were showing me another way of measuring it.
What does your fitness allow you to experience?
Because suddenly the years of running, climbing, strength work and simply spending huge amounts of time moving outdoors had given me access to places I might otherwise only have looked at.
I could see a mountain and go into it.
That felt more valuable than any number on a watch.
And then came Semnoz.
Semnoz
We hadn't even planned to go there.
We were travelling from Lake Garda towards Annecy and expected the drive to take around six hours.
Then came the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
A closure, queues and traffic turned the journey into something considerably longer, and by the time we reached our campsite above Lake Annecy it was around 5pm.
Nobody was thinking about mountains.
The kids wanted the pool.
We swam, ate and settled down after a long day travelling.
At some point I looked at the map.
There was a mountain directly behind us.
Semnoz — 1,704 metres.
And there appeared to be a route from near our campsite all the way to the top.
Here we go again.
Early alarm.
Trail shoes on.
Off I went.
Up
For roughly the first mile everything felt fairly normal.
Then the mountain changed.
The trail became steeper.
And rockier.
And steeper again.
Soon I wasn't really running at all.
I was power hiking upwards through forest over relentless rocky terrain.
The climb through the forest. Rocks, steep trail and very little respite.
For three or four miles there wasn't even much of a view.
That was one of the things that made it difficult mentally.
On Hohe Trett and in the Dolomites I'd regularly been rewarded with enormous views.
Semnoz just kept giving me trees and rocks.
I climbed.
And climbed.
And climbed.
It became physically tiring, but there was another kind of fatigue too.
Every step required attention.
Where does my foot go?
Which rock?
Can I run this?
Is that stable?
Where does the trail actually go?
Eventually, somewhere around five miles in, I started seeing hikers with poles.
They looked fresh.
I didn't.
I later realised many people start their walk much higher on the mountain.
I'd started almost down at lake level.
Then, finally, the forest began to change.
I heard cowbells.
The trees opened.
And suddenly, after miles of looking at rocks and tree trunks, the Alps appeared.
I reached the summit area at around 8:30am.
There were only a handful of people there.
And the view was enormous.
Semnoz — 1,704 metres.
I could see mountain range after mountain range stretching into the distance.
And I felt proud.
I'd earned that view.
Then I noticed something slightly amusing.
A car park.
You could drive almost to the top.
I immediately knew we'd come back the following morning so the family could see it.
But seeing that car park didn't take anything away from how I felt.
I'd come from almost beside Lake Annecy.
On my feet.
I'd earned every metre.
Unfortunately, I now had to give every metre back.
Down
I love technical descending.
It's one of the parts of trail running where I feel most natural.
Rocks, quick feet, picking lines, reacting instinctively to the terrain — normally that's fun for me.
Semnoz was different.
The descent was brutal.
The rocks just didn't stop.
There were sections where I couldn't get any flow at all. Every foot placement mattered. Every few metres required another decision.
My ankle started hurting.
Then my groin.
Then a blister developed underneath my foot.
And there were still miles of mountain beneath me.
This wasn't the fun, fast technical descending I love.
These were decision-making miles.
Constant concentration.
Constant impact.
Constant choices.
By the end I'd had enough.
I was swearing at the rocks.
I hated the trail.
I wanted it finished.
But nobody was coming to get me.
The campsite was down there somewhere.
So I kept moving.
Eventually, after 12 miles and 4,213 feet of climbing, I made it back.
I'd been to the top of Semnoz and back from our campsite.
And Semnoz had battered me.
I think Semnoz probably won the battle that morning.
But it hasn't won the war.
I'll be back.
The bit that changed things
What happened afterwards is probably the part I've thought about most since coming home.
I got back to the motorhome sore and tired.
My ankle hurt. My groin hurt. My foot hurt.
I'd just completed one of the hardest mountain runs I'd ever done.
And then the family wanted to go down to Lake Annecy.
So we went.
We walked down to the lake.
Spent time together.
Then walked all the way back up to the campsite.
Several more miles on my feet.
Later there was the pool and everything else that comes with being Dad on a family holiday.
Life didn't stop because I'd run a mountain that morning.
And strangely, that was what made me most proud.
Not the Strava numbers.
Not reaching 1,704 metres.
Not even the view from the top.
It was the fact that my body had allowed me to have that adventure and still have a day afterwards.
I started thinking about all the years that had led to that morning.
More than eight years of trail running.
Strength training.
Thousands of climbs.
Technical descents.
Runs in horrible weather.
And probably thousands of hours simply walking Sonny through woods, hills and trails.
None of it had been done because I needed to prepare for Semnoz.
I didn't even know Semnoz existed.
Yet all of it had prepared me for that morning.
And that's when the thought really landed.
Sometimes you don't realise you're training for an adventure until you arrive at it.
A body capable of adventure
I'm 49 now.
And increasingly I'm less interested in what my body looks like and more interested in what it allows me to do.
I still want to be fast.
I still want to be strong.
I still want to race occasionally and push myself.
But those things aren't the destination anymore.
They're tools.
I want a body capable of adventure.
I want to be able to climb mountains.
Carry things.
Scramble.
Walk all day.
Travel.
Explore.
And when I'm 60, I want to still look at a mountain and wonder what's up there.
When I'm 70, I hope I'm still doing the same thing.
I know ageing will change what I'm capable of. Pretending otherwise would be ridiculous.
But I don't want to voluntarily make my world smaller.
I want to train so that, for as long as possible, it stays big.
That thought has followed me home.
And it has started influencing how I think about Wild Kindness too.
Training people so life stays bigger
Wild Kindness was never supposed to be about six-packs, punishment workouts or shouting at people to work harder.
It was always about movement, nature, confidence and helping people discover what they're capable of.
But Europe sharpened that idea for me.
Especially Semnoz.
I'm becoming increasingly interested in training people so life stays bigger.
That means strength.
Cardiovascular fitness.
Balance.
Mobility.
Coordination.
Confidence on uneven ground.
The ability to climb a hill without fearing it.
The strength to get yourself over something.
The balance to move across rocks.
The fitness to spend a whole day outside and still feel capable.
Not because everybody needs to run up Semnoz.
They don't.
Someone else's adventure might be a mountain walk.
A long day exploring with their grandchildren.
A trail they've always wanted to try.
Travelling.
Cycling.
Swimming.
Or simply continuing to confidently do the things they love as they get older.
The adventure is personal.
The principle isn't.
Fitness is for adventure.
Fitness should give us more life, not simply better numbers in a workout.
And I think that's where Wild Kindness is heading.
The following morning
The morning after my run, we drove up Semnoz.
The road wound its way through the same mountain I'd fought my way up the previous day.
This time there were no aching legs required.
We parked near the top and walked out together.
My partner.
The boys.
Sonny.
And I watched them see the same mountains I'd stood looking at alone the morning before.
Back on Semnoz the following morning. This time together.
There was something quite fitting about that.
The previous morning had been mine.
This one was ours.
And maybe that's why the whole trip has stayed with me so strongly.
Čermná gave me connection.
Hohe Trett gave me adventure.
The Dolomites showed me what years of fitness had made possible.
And Semnoz humbled me enough to make me think seriously about what comes next.
I came home wanting to get stronger.
More durable.
More capable.
Not because I'm chasing some perfect version of fitness.
Because there are still places I haven't seen.
Mountains I've never heard of.
Trails that aren't on my map yet.
And as the years pass and the kids grow older, I hope there will be even more opportunities to explore them.
I don't know where the motorhome will take us next.
I don't know what mountain I'll discover on a map the night before a run.
And I don't know exactly what I'll be capable of at 60 or 70.
But I know what I want to keep training for.
The adventure I haven't arrived at yet.
Move Wild. Live Kind.