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Here at Sports Tours International we are immensely proud to be the official active holiday partner for England Athletics . In conjunction with  England Athletics , we want to help you prepare for your next big race with a few extra training tips. Whilst there are hundreds of training plans and tips out there, we want to bring you the best, and as such, have enlisted the advice of England Athletics and their experienced coaching team. Over the course of four weeks we will be publishing articles as part of our new “Training advice from England Athletics” series, which will provide you with invaluable advice and training tips from Spencer Duval, who is the National Endurance Lead Coach for England Athletics. Issue 3: One month to go. Take it away Spencer. So your race is only a month away; it’s probably been the focus of your life for some time now, and you’re probably starting to worry a little bit, but don’t panic! There’s still time to fine tune those last minute niggles or worr

The Haute Route is well known as one of the toughest, most challenging cycling experiences, available to amateur cyclists. Equally the Haute Route Concept is centred around ‘delivering an unparalleled ‘professional’ experience for amateur cyclists’, in short, if you want to know what life is like, in the mountains, for the professional peloton, then Haute Route is the way to go! Here at Sports Tours International, we’ve been working with the Haute Route since their very first edition in 2011. In that time we’ve built up a great knowledge of what we can do to support hundreds of cyclists, as take on these iconic multi-day cycling events. From providing ideally located hotels, to guaranteed race entries and rider support from our experienced team; we know how to help you get the most out of your trip. In this blog, we catch up with a Haute Route veteran and a former Sports Tours International rider, who is now a Sports Tours International cycling rep, Chris Breckon. His insight of being

Here at Sports Tours International we are immensely proud to be the official active holiday partner for England Athletics . In conjunction with  England Athletics , we want to help you prepare for your race with a few extra training tips. Whilst there are hundreds of training plans and tips out there, we want to bring you the best, and, as such have enlisted the advice of England Athletics and their experienced coaching team. Over the next few weeks we will be publishing four articles as part of our new “Training advice from England Athletics” series, which will provide you with invaluable advice, and training tips from Spencer Duval, who is the National Endurance Lead Coach for England Athletics. Issue 2: 12 weeks until race day. Take it away Spencer. So you’ve booked your race and it’s all starting to get a bit real as race day nears. Preparation for a race is crucial and most runners choose to kick on with their training with about 12 weeks to go until race day.  The good news

On the Tour de France, as well as many other cycle tours and races which include mountain stages, you will find that they employ a classification system to ‘grade’ the climbs in terms of difficulty. These are ranked from the hardest (Category 1) to the easiest (Category 4). This categorisation is based on the gradient , the length, and at what point, in the stage, the climb occurs. History The mountain category was first introduced  in 1933, and, so the story goes; in the early days of the mountain categories there was only one classification of climbs. As the Tours evolved, a system was evolved to help distinguish between the different mountains and their various difficulties. A category system was then put in place. The categories were roughly based on the gear that a car could drive the climb in. Category 1 for first gear and so on. The ‘Hors Catégorie’ (HC), introduced in 1979, was then designated to those mountain roads where cars were not expected to be able to pass. This cat

If you like the idea of taking on different challenges across multiple sports, have you considered taking on Britain’s greatest mass participation challenge, the London Classics? This challenge is organised by London Marathon Events and it requires participants to finish the Virgin Money London Marathon, cycle the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 and complete the two-mile swim at Swim Serpentine. The challenge can be completed in any order you choose over any time period. Here we find out more about each event… Virgin Money London Marathon This is one of the world’s most iconic sporting events, all runners all over the globe are aware of this iconic marathon, it needs no introduction! 26.2 miles through the heart of London and over a million people lining the streets to cheer on over 40,000 runners. It’s part of the SIX Abbott World Marathon Majors and is without doubt the highlight of the spring marathon season. Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 The world’s greatest festival of

Here at Sports Tours International we are immensely proud to be the official active holiday partner for England Athletics . In conjunction with  England Athletics , we want to help you prepare for your race with a few extra training tips. Whilst they’re are hundreds of training plans and tips out there, we’re bringing you the advice of England Athletics and their experienced coaching team. Over the next few weeks we will be publishing four articles as part of our new “Training advice from England Athletics” series and providing you with advice and training tips from Spencer Duval, who is the National Endurance Lead Coach for England Athletics. Up first, Issue 1 the training tips to help you prepare for your race. So, over to you Spencer.   Issue 1. The training tips to help you prepare. You’ve booked your trip, congratulations, the next step now is to start your training and to prepare your body and mind for your race. Routine It all starts with routine. At this stage there’s noth