Ingredients: 1kg potatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks, 25og nuts (pine nuts, walnuts or hazelnuts), 250g parmesan, 2 large bunches fresh basil leaves, 2 cloves garlic, 400ml extra virgin olive oil, juice of a lemon, salt & pepper Method: Toss potatoes in oil and salt and air fry for 35-40 minutes till crisp and tender, shaking every now and then. Meanwhile, put everything else in a blender and process until quite smooth. Check seasoning. Toss half the pesto through the cooked potatoes and serve (save the other half in an airtight container in the fridge for something else). ...

Ingredients: 1kg of potatoes, two red or yellow peppers, half a small jar of harissa, half a jar of sun-dried tomatoes in their oil (about 175g), 2 cloves of garlic, salt Method: Cut clean but unpeeled potatoes into bite-sized chunks, toss with olive oil and salt and air fry until cooked and crispy, 40-45 minutes. Meanwhile in a blender, blend all the other ingredients to a smooth sauce. Pour half over the potatoes, or toss them in it (save the other half for another day). Serve. ...

A couple of years ago I bought some coaching with Shane Benzie, whose book, The Lost Art of Running, had resonated with me. In two or three visits to his base in Goring-on-Thames, I ran around the village cricket green, and he filmed me, explained in person the things I’d read in his book (essential to do it this way if you want the big changes, I feel - a book alone is not enough) and we worked on every aspect of my running form. With some ongoing online coaching, within 18 months I was running circa three-hour marathons, having been stuck at 3:30 for years. More importantly, I felt my running form had improved forever. I was, and remain, a fan. ...

We have for over a decade had a property in Estepona, 45 minutes’ drive east towards Malaga from our Gibraltar base. This may be the last year we own it as we’re thinking of selling up due to spending more time in the campervan and less time having ‘static’ holidays and breaks over the border. Thus our downtime spent there this week was poignant and full of memories, as we enjoyed the big real fire, the views across the bay to Gibraltar, and the imposing Los Reales mountain looming down on us, as ever, at the back (which I ran up once - another story!). ...

I consider myself a reasonably experienced marathon runner at this point. I’ve run marathons since my mid-twenties, and although it took me until the last few years to actually get serious about all of this, I felt like I had a pretty good handle on most of what the marathon could throw at you. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was an easy one. I simply didn’t fuel enough. As my friend Yael said to me afterwards, “You get caught in the moment, and the adrenaline powers you… until it doesn’t.” Bang on. I’d had a really solid training block, thanks to my coach Colin’s diligent and generous work planning my schedule and keeping tabs on me. I’ve met some great new people and learned to run in a group for the first time, which I’ve loved. At the race itself I copied last year’s routine down to the same hotel, the same timings, the same food. But for some reason, I decided that three gels was going to be enough to get me around the marathon at the fastest pace I’d ever run. Wrong! ...

The idea of this half-term mini-break was a ’lads and dads’ bonding trip, and Dylan and I had chosen to return to the canals and locks of England having enjoyed it so much in July, this time inviting my friend Gareth and his son Robert to accompany us. And so we found ourselves flying into Birmingham on a blustery late-October afternoon, taking a short Uber ride to Alvechurch Marina on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, and boarding the Common Swift, our 50ft narrowboat home for the next four nights. ...

Our final stop on the summer’s travels was the only campsite we hadn’t pre-planned, and choosing it reminded us of why we’ve been planning our summers ahead of time recently: You fall into the trap of endlessly swiping on phones for the ‘perfect’ next place to stay, while not enjoying the one you’re at! The irony this time was that when I finally located a site somewhere on the way home that seemed to suit, Faye said, ‘I’m sure we’ve been to that one before.’ I was adamant we hadn’t, because the only site the photos reminded me of was in Portugal, or so I thought - but no, Faye was right, and we had indeed visited this site, four years ago. The good news was that we loved it back then, so we had high hopes. ...

UK heatwave! The mercury rose rapidly as we left the Lake District for the trip down south to spend a night down at my Dad’s in Bracknell, arriving mid-afternoon in broad sunshine. We spent the evening sat in the garden catching up, before a wonderful, huge dinner with chicken and potatoes plus multiple home-made dessert options (chocolate cake! tiramisu! lemon drizzle cake!). We certainly felt looked after, with stepmum Christine’s Irish family feeding instinct kicking in. ...

We wanted to show the kids The Lake District, so we left relaxed Seahouses and headed west, noting the proximity of Hadrian’s Wall just to our north for much of the journey, and the change from fields and trees to more rugged moorland as we drew closer, finally negotiating some narrow country roads to drop down to Bowness. I had drunk one too many coffees that morning, judging by the number of times I had to stop for a ‘can’t wait’ toilet break, too; turns out there are few service stations on the A-roads across the top of the country, so it’s just as well I can do roadsides! ...