TrailKube started as a simple product to help Trail and Ultra runners keep all their kit organised. To reduce pre-race stress and anxiety. It grew. Now I’m looking at it as a becoming a fully-fledged trail and ultra running website. Not for elites and record-breakers, but for those of us who run for the love of it. I must do after coming in last at more than one event!

Initially, the idea was simple enough: straightforward reviews, some race experience memoirs, helping us all find interesting events, some nutrition stuff, a few thoughts about training, simply a growing collection of content aimed at helping people enjoy trail and ultra running more fully and more confidently.

But over the past few months, what us Project Managers call “Scope Creep” has set in.

I’ve been having lots of conversations with many, many runners. What’s been the standout topic is that there’s a real demand for coaching that “fits”. Around real lives, shifts, family commitments, commuting patterns, and so on. This is also borne out by the number of posts searching for such help in running groups across Facebook and Reddit, for example.

Underneath these requests there appear to be a number of different themes:

People are feeling increasingly stressed these days and need some help. Some just have an understandable lack of confidence, even identity. Many are searching for help with resilience, discipline, and recovery.

At one point, all these were true for me. They are ever present themes in all our lives, whatever we do, and wherever we are in our own Trail Running journeys.

What many people visiting TrailKube may not realise is that long before the races, the mountains, Nepal, the events, or the website itself, there was a very different chapter in my life taking place behind the scenes.

For many years, alcohol played far too large a role in my life. Correction: Alcohol was ruling my life.

Externally, things often appeared perfectly normal as they do for so many that struggle. My career looked decent enough (although not sparkling), I had my wife and two beautiful young daughters, I was going to the local bootcamp regularly and seemingly looking after myself (I was also buying a bottle of wine every night on the way back from bootcamp). As for my responsibilities, and everyday routines behind the scenes, things were rather different.

Like many people who struggle with alcohol, I became extremely good at functioning while gradually falling apart. Looking back now, I spent years convincing myself that things were under control when they clearly weren’t.

Eventually, I quit drinking completely.

Not temporarily.
Not “cutting down”.
Not “being more careful”.

I stopped. Totally, and quite precisely, overnight. One day I was a drinker. The next day I was not. I was done with it. I’d made a decision

What did I tell people who asked me? I actually said “I’ve got through my life’s allowance of booze a bit faster than I should have done”

That decision changed my life — totally and immediately – I now had “space”.

And, for TrailKube, here’s the important part:

It didn’t suddenly appear in that space the following month, even the following year. In fact, TrailKube would not exist for another six years.

Recovery didn’t suddenly turn me into a different person overnight. It didn’t instantly hand me purpose, confidence, fitness, or clarity. What it did do was create space — space to rebuild life in a healthier, calmer, and more sustainable direction.

Over time, running became a huge part of that process. I had been running whilst drinking, yes. It simply became that much “easier” (heavy footsteps rattling through a head full of banging hangover is no way to spend your leisure hours!).

Running sober actually started working really well. It increased my discipline, my consistency, and started allowing for more interesting and varied challenges.  I now had a remarkably different routine, perspective, and a healthier way of dealing with stress and life itself.

The deeper I went into trail and ultra running, the more I realised many people were searching for similar things themselves. Conversations on the trails are sometimes remarkably candid.

Maybe chats veered off towards recovery from addiction, we often talked about stress, burnout, anxiety, and so on. Numerous folk admitted that that life has just become too noisy and too complicated, and running is a great way to get away from all that, at least for a while.

And perhaps that’s really what TrailKube is becoming about.

Not simply shoes, races, hydration packs, or nutrition strategies — although all those things can be useful and enjoyable — but the wider role that movement, challenge, the outdoors, and endurance can play in helping people rebuild parts of themselves.

And so, over the next few weeks, I’m going to share a short series of articles digging into some of my journey in a bit more detail.

I’m not here to provide anyone with a self-help guide to quitting the booze, nor do I expect you to see this as some kind of a dramatic transformation story. And I’m certainly not here because I pretend to have all the answers.

What I am going to take you through is an honest account of:

what life was like before I quit drinking, how I eventually managed to stop, and why life today feels calmer, healthier, and infinitely more meaningful than I ever imagined it could.

If even a small part of it helps any one of you feel less stuck, less isolated, or more hopeful about change, then sharing it will have been worthwhile.