About Me

Hi there! Thank you for visiting The PhD Runner, and welcome to my personal blog. Grab yourself a cup of tea, coffee or a glass of something stronger (I don’t mind), take a seat and relax.

My name is Emma (aka The PhD Runner), and this is my personal running blog. I share my adventures (and frequent misadventures) as a mediocre and somewhat injury-prone runner. Most runners get faster, I’m gradually getting slower.

I was born and grew up in Four Oaks in the north of Birmingham and am incredibly proud of the ‘Second City’. I think I’m about the only person I know who is looking forward to the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Medal pose

My passions are hydrology (rivers), running, classical music, travelling, running and maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

Please join me on my journey as I challenge myself and push myself out of my comfort zone. Although I’ve been running for more than 25 years, I’ve spent a lot of time sitting on the injury bench. After recovering from a metatarsal stress fracture, I’m now slowly but surely building up the miles. I’ve finally learnt how to be patient!

Blog posts are a mixture of race reports, product recommendations and reviews, random musings about my training and progression, rants and raves and hints and tips for new runners.

I aim to update my blog at least 5-6 times a month.

Likes: Diet Coke, tea, beer, chocolate, cake, G&T, running, travelling, classical music, yoga, positive people, disclosure in blogs, laughing, cooking, twitter, rivers, tennis, hedgehogs and the countryside.

Dislikes: Coffee, peanut butter, porridge, the expression ‘wanna’, uneven pavements, running injuries, hills, having my photograph taken, unreliable people and rudeness.

Tea and cake

Please Get in Touch!

Please feel free to contact me by email eneachell [at] hotmail [dot] com or via the ‘Contact Me’ page. I love it when people contact me via this blog, it makes all the hours I spent writing feel worthwhile 🙂

I’m currently based in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham and try to volunteer at my local parkrun in Sutton Park every Saturday. If you see me out and about, please say hi!

I spend far too much time on twitter @thephdrunner please feel free to follow me.

Although I love talking about running, I also love writing about running!