About me

I’m Elise. I’m 29 and I live in Bristol, having recently moved from London in a bid to be a little closer to the outdoors. I’m happy to confirm that this was a good decision.

Like Chesney Hawkes, I think it would be fair to say that I’m a bit of a one-hit-wonder. In 2015, I announced that I was going to attempt to run 5000 miles around the coast of Great Britain, carrying my kit on my back. This came as quite a surprise to everybody, including myself. Prior to this the highlight of my sporting career had been running a marathon dressed as a Crayola crayon, during which I cried for a solid eight miles of and got heckled by a small child who called me ‘The Crying Crayon’. I wasn’t an ultrarunner and I’d never done any solo-adventuring before. I’m really not exaggerating when I say that I had absolutely no bloody clue what I was doing. I just had this strong feeling that I wanted to do something.

By some miracle it all worked out okay (well, mostly, there was quite a lot of crying on grass verges along the way) and in August 2016, ten months after setting out, I became the first woman and youngest person to run a lap of Great Britain self-supported. You can read more about the whole ridiculous adventure in my book, Coasting.

When you finish an adventure people expect you to start planning your next challenge immediately. Something bigger, bolder, braver. But here’s the thing: running around the coast of the UK was the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’m endlessly proud of 23-year-old me for giving it a go, but I have no desire to do it again. I hate running with a heavy pack. I like going to the pub with my friends, visiting my Grandma and having a kitchen to bake bread in. I don’t want to spend another ten months removed from all the things I care about.

I still love running though, of course. I love doing hard things and that feeling you get after completing something you weren’t sure you could do. I love slogging up a hill, hands on knees and lungs burning, for the reward of flying back down the other side. I love getting from A to B under my own steam. I love being outside for hours and days on end, and then the sheer joy of a hot shower and a dry pair of socks.

I love all that, still, just perhaps in slightly smaller doses now. It’s those kind of adventures you’ll be more likely to read about here now: things you can do after work, at weekends or on your annual leave. What’s wrong with Chesney Hawkes anyway?