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Each year, World Book Day helps to cement the importance of reading and its value not just to children, but to book-lovers and reading novices alike all over the world. At Sports Tours International, as you can imagine, we have a particular fondness for sport-related reads! But rather than joining our kids in dressing up as our favourite story book characters (as much as we’d love to!) we’d like to share with you just a few of our personal favourites!  ‘Penguins Stopped Play’ by Harry Thompson A delightfully funny tale, ‘Penguins Stopped Play’ tells the story of a daring feat: To organise an eleven-man team to play a game of cricket simultaneously across the globe over seven continents. As you’d expect, with a task as difficult as this, things don’t exactly go to plan… But what you might not expect is all the weird and wacky ways the plan goes awry! To give you just a brief idea, the specifics include: overzealous American anti-terrorist police, idiot Welshmen dressed as Santa

Well I believe….THEY CAN! Ironman combines the three disciplines of Swim, Bike, Run. They cover distances of 3.8km Swim, 180km Bike and 42.2km of running. They are performed consecutively on one day without stopping and with just a short transition period between each and must be completed within 17 hours to qualify as Ironman status. Sounds pretty tough doesn’t it? However just in Europe alone you’ll find approx. 36,000 very normal, amateur athletes line up to that start line with the hopes of hitting the magic red carpet & the finish line to the words of “You are an Ironman” . Having spent many years supporting over hundreds of athletes a year cross finish lines all over Europe with my company Race Force, I can speak from experience when I say Ironman finishers come in all shapes and sizes, from all walks of life and each with a story, a goal and a dream. Many more compete in the Ironman 70.3 (Half Ironman) which is just as big of a life time achievement in itself as well as

Running a marathon is one of the most challenging yet fulfilling experiences you can ever have in and of itself. But if you’re like thousands of other runners out there who don’t just run to keep fit or break their personal best, you’ll know that running is also a fantastic way to explore the world around us. And what better way to do this and discover vibrant new locations than by combining the exhilaration of a marathon with a break to an iconic city? At Sports Tours International we’re experts on all-things running and travel, and have been for decades! So when it comes to City Marathons we like to think we know what we’re talking about! Here are just a few of the amazing City Marathons we’ve got coming up:   Athens Marathon Website version 1) Athens Authentic Marathon 2019 Ah, the place where it all began! Every year thousands of avid runners descend on the birthplace of the modern long-distance run – Athens! In 490BC, legendary figure Pheidippedes ran from Marathon (yes

    As we sat on the airport runway for 2 hours, waiting for the wings to be de-iced, and then de-iced a second time, I found myself thinking “what have I let myself in for!” I chuckled to myself though, and not for the first time, after months of training in freezing cold, pouring rain, and occasionally enduring a mind-numbing 3 hour indoor bike ride when the weather turned really bad. However, now I was off to much hotter, drier climates in Dubai for the 5th edition of IRONMAN 70.3 Dubai in search of a qualifying slot to the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship, which will be held in Nice, France later this year… something I’d never have dreamt of aiming for just a few years ago! The facilities for triathlon training in Dubai are fantastic. There are dedicated cycle tracks which run for miles, with café stops along the way, completely segregated from the main road. I managed to get my long ride in early, taking advantage of the fact the cycle track runs conveniently parallel to the ra

I hope you’ve all had a great start to the New Year and that your training is going well! I was away over New Year for a training camp in Tenerife. There are lots of great boxing gyms there so me and fellow Sports Tours International ambassador Cherrelle Brown went over for a week. Whilst we were there we also did quite a bit of cycling and thanks to the mixture of heat and hills we were soon in awe of the distances some of you cover on cycle tours! By New Year’s Eve we had cycled quite a distance and on the way back we stopped to watch the sunset – a truly special way to mark the end of 2018. The next day I headed out on a solo ride in search of Bahia Beach where I’d been promised there’d be a beautiful view of the sunset from the edge of the island…I really wanted to watch the sunset on the last and first day of each year! I was not disappointed, it was stunning! However, on the way back I realised there were no lights on the bikes we’d hired and it was far too dangerous on the

Our new Cycling Ambassador gives us the low-down on the climbs where the Pink Jersey will be decided. “ To say the 2019 Giro route is back-loaded with climbs is an understatement of gigantic proportions. Yes there are a couple of short uphill finishes and a multitude of lumps and bumps in the first two weeks but all the real elevation is saved for the end in the Alps and the Dolomites. To see the best of the action and to experience for yourself some of the toughest climbs on this year’s route Sports Tours International are running two trips to the Giro, either a 10 days excursion or a slightly shorter 7 day trip . To follow the Giro is to follow a festival that consumes Italy for three weeks, it’s far more than just a bike race and is as much a part of the nation as Pasta and Espresso. The passion, pride and excitement that fills the air, radiating away from the drama on the road fills every house, bar and school yard. This love of the race must be witnessed first hand and here ar

Simon Warren named cycling ambassador for Sports Tours International Bestselling author of the 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs , Simon Warren, has joined Europe’s leading sports tour operator Sports Tours International as its Cycling Ambassador for 2019. As an ambassador Simon will share his passion and knowledge for some of the most iconic climbs in the world through regular blogs, working with the Sports Tours International team to inspire others to head to the hills and mountains both at home and abroad. Simon will also work with Sports Tours International to provide his specialist insight on tour briefings, including the Etape du Tour and the Maratona dles Dolomites , and giving his top tips on many of the climbs across the world that feature in Sports Tours International’s exclusive range of tours. On his new role Simon Warren said, “Over the last couple of years I have travelled with Sports Tours International to events across Europe and been looked after like a king by the