My Journal | Mud, Chalk & Gears | Find your Adventure

Sunset from Stanage, Peak District | Outdoor Adventure Motivational Speaking | Hetty Key | Mud, Chalk & Gears

April Showers & Spring Chickening!

Climbing, Road Biking, Running April 21, 2015

What good weather! It makes me so happy that it is now consistently light in the evenings, this week has felt like spring. Tuesday night I headed out with Front Runnerr for a 10km run around Hathersage. I have meant to join more of their runs as they are such a friendly group – very […]

Peak District Haglof Open5

Mountain Biking, Race Reports, Running April 14, 2015

Sunday was the second of my Haglof Open5 Adventure Races! As I had done for the last race, I decided it would be good to head out on Saturday for a warm up and to check all was running smoothly on the bike. This was also the perfect opportunity to fit in another ride with […]

Climbing at Raven Crag, Langdale, Lake District | Outdoor Adventure Motivational Speaking | Hetty Key | Mud, Chalk & Gears

Bank Holiday Weekend in the Lakes

Climbing, Mountain Biking, Road Biking April 7, 2015

Friday’s weather was, as predicted, very wet. Luckily I had decided on Thursday night to put everything in the car – road bike, mountain bike, climbing gear, walking stuff, running stuff – the whole lot went in, so the rain did little to spoil our plans! We decided to head to Whitbarrow Scar for a […]

Sheffield Adventure Film Festival, ShAFF 2015 | Outdoor Adventure Motivational Speaking | Hetty Key | Mud, Chalk & Gears

Favourite films from the ShAFF 2015

Climbing, Mountain Biking March 28, 2015

Sheffield Adventure Film Festival or ‘ShAFF’ is one of my favourite events in Sheffield. Its timing is perfect, just close enough to spring and the weather is getting better to get you motivated for a summer of adventure. Friday night I went to a lecture and film by Steve McClure, one of the best […]

Sunset over Burbage, Peak District | Outdoor Adventure Motivational Speaking | Hetty Key | Mud, Chalk & Gears

Can we officially say winter is over!?

Climbing, Road Biking March 23, 2015

This weekend has been absolutely stunning – for the first time in a while we have had two days of sunshine – it was hot! Well warm enough to leave the house not looking like the Michelin man! Having been at ShAFF Friday night listening to Steve McClure, I was all ready to get out […]

Mountain biking around Ladybower, Peak District | Outdoor Adventure Motivational Speaking | Hetty Key | Mud, Chalk & Gears

Mountain biking with Katie around Ladybower

Mountain Biking, Running March 15, 2015

This weekend Katie and I finally managed to get out riding together in the Peak District. We have been trying to find a weekend where we are both free for a while now with the aim of introducing Katie to proper mountain biking! We arranged to head out from Sheffield about 11 am on Saturday […]

Yorkshire Dales, Haglof Open 5 Adventure Race | Outdoor Adventure Motivational Speaking | Hetty Key | Mud, Chalk & Gears

Haglof Open5 Adventure Series

Mountain Biking, Race Reports, Running March 2, 2015

Such a good weekend! I competed in my first adventure race, one of the Haglof Open5 Adventure Series and it was so much fun! For those of you who don’t know, these are a series of 5-hour orienteering adventure races set around the UK consisting of a mountain biking and fell running section. The day before […]

New road bike, shoes & potentially broken scaphoid!

Road Biking February 22, 2015

This week saw an exciting new addition to my bike collection! I have been scouring Gumtree, PinkBike and Ebay for a while now with the aim of updating my retro steel Peugeot to something more suited to road biking. And having tried a fair few bikes with varying degrees of success, I finally found the […]

Gritstone Edit of Millstone | Outdoor Adventure Motivational Speaking | Hetty Key | Mud, Chalk & Gears

A very chilly day climbing at Millstone!

Climbing February 8, 2015

Just a quick entry today as I am a bit tired after a busy weekend. Finally, the snow has melted just enough to get out and about! Saturday I headed up to the yard to ride a very fresh Ace. Having had a bit off time off with the snow, he was full of beans […]

Fell running in the snow in the Peak District | Outdoor Adventure Motivational Speaking | Hetty Key | Mud, Chalk & Gears

Trying out my new shoes!

Running February 1, 2015

Having recently treated myself to Inov-8’s new fell running shoes the Oroc 280 complete with ice-spikes I thought today would be the perfect opportunity to test them out fell running in the snow in the Peak District! So I headed out to Fox House with the aim of running about 10k. Those of you who have […]