About Luke

I’m a born and bred Londoner having spent the first half of my life in Highgate, North London and the second half in South West London, mainly around Wandsworth, Clapham and Battersea. I now regard myself as not just a Londoner, but also a South of the River Londoner. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to North London now.

After leaving school in 1984 I began work in the insurance industry based near Lloyd’s of London. I didn’t like it much, but didn’t know what else to do so I stuck it for about 9 years. The last three years were sent in recruitment for the insurance industry and although it was a more closely aligned job to what I do best (yeah, I’m one of the “helping” people) I still couldn’t stand the formality of office life where my life was governed by external structure.

So I left in ‘92 and trained/qualified as a personal fitness trainer the same year. Things started looking up for me from then on. I built up a small personal training business and went out to visit clients locally - the business was moderately successful for about 12 years.

I then changed tracks again and trained as a business coach at the School of Coaching based in London. At the time I only knew of about three or four schools in the UK which offered serious and comprehensive training courses. Most of the others were a bit “mickey mouse” and as coaching was fast expanding as a profession in the UK I knew that only an excellent qualification would be worth having. I set up my business then and have been working as a coach ever since. I also give motivational speeches to clients at away days, training events and seminars. And I also do after dinner speeches. My corporate information is on my website.

In ‘91 I ran my first marathon and running soon became a way of life for me. Subsequently I have done somewhere around 60-70 marathons and extreme events of one kind or another and I still do up to 6 ultra-distance extreme races a year. I mainly try to find races in desert, arctic, mountain and jungle environments. Some of my journals have been published on my Luke Cunliffe website.

In personal training there should be a strict line between business and pleasure. But, whilst a trainer, nobody ever told me I couldn’t date a client. So I did. Just the one. And that one was Charlotte. I married her two years later. And we now have a wonderful son called Monty. I say wonderful and often he is. Until he wakes up. And then the fun starts. The liars who warned me about the “Terrible Two’s” were just what I say they are. Complete liars. Either that or Monty is a quick learner. Before he was 20 months old he knew how to throw a very convincing tantrum. And he’s had a few crackers since then too. Apart from those occasional outbursts at the tyranny of his parents, he is basically a happy boy. Hint on avoiding the first tantrum of the day. Use stickers as a bribe to get your child to brush their teeth after breakfast. It works almost every time.

When Charlotte originally hired me as her trainer her goal was to run a marathon. She’s now run several, but quite quickly she turned to running ultra-distance marathons and has, so far, completed several of these gruelling challenges including the Himalayas 100 Mile Stage Race, the Marathon des Sables, the Verdon Trail Adventure, the Thames Meander (female winner 2005), the Two Bridges Race (35 miler in Scotland) and a few other races, mostly in the mountains of the UK. Her racing career is one of the reasons she became such an excellent massage therapist - she does sport, so she understands about getting people’s bodies working as effectively as possible as quickly as possible. Be warned, though, if you do book in for a sports massage, don’t expect a fluffy, wishy washy body pamper… Although, without a doubt it’s highly effective it can also feel utterly brutal!

Charlotte left her position as an Executive PA the summer we got married and set up her Sports Massage practice, Vital Hands. She had trained prior to that at the London School of Sports Massage, arguably the best school for sports massage in the UK. Within a fortnight of returning from our honeymoon she went on a three week trip with the Australian Rowing Team at the world championships where her recently acquired skills at sports massage got the equivalent of a turbo injection. OK, so I’m biased, but you won’t get a better sports massage in the UK than you will at Vital Hands with either Charlotte or one of her excellent colleagues.

Charlotte and I wanted more children and early in 2007 we began a course of IVF treatment. And now we’re expecting twins in November sometime. I know nothing about twins. I don’t know much about parenting actually; luckily I have a Monty who seems to be teaching me all I need to do on a daily basis. When I get it wrong he’s always pretty quick to point it out.

I decided to write a blog at the suggestion and request of a friend of mine, Kat. She’d read articles I’d written in the past for magazines like Runners’ World and Men’s Fitness and websites such as EventRate and RunFurther. She “liked my style” I guess, and suggested I put together a blog about what my life is like as I become a father of twins. The experience of writing a blog is good for me as it forces me to do some research and find out just what it is I’m supposed to be doing. It’s a chance for me to explore fatherhood issues and an opportunity for me to discuss some of the issues I’ll be facing. And yes, ok, it’s also a wonderful arena for me to vent my opinions on the world and ramble.

I’m hoping it will become very much an interactive blog. I’m happy to have all kinds of discussions with readers and hope that you will feel free to leave comments on here whenever you feel like it.

My intention is also to gather information here which may be useful, not just to other dads out there, but to parents of children (especially, but not only, twins) and to anyone else who finds this subject to be of interest.

I was thinking of writing some kind of rules about what will and won’t be tolerated on here, but it’s basically fairly simple. If I think what’s been written is going to be offensive to someone I don’t want to offend then I’ll take it down. So please use common sense when leaving comments. I will refrain from using bad language. And I ask people leaving comments to do the same.

Apart from that it’s a fairly free and easy blogsite. I hope you enjoy it.

My Likes
Maltesers
Yorkie Bars (Raisin and Biscuit first choice, “truckers’ original” second choice)
The Sun (the hot ball of flames up there, not the tabloid)
London, particularly South of the River
Running (and you’ll soon realise how b-o-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-i-n-g I am about that)
Terminator (the movie, and only the original, not the ridiculous pot-boiling sequels)
Diet Coke (Yeah, aspartame and all, load me up)
Coffee, strong, white with two sugars (or aspartame-loaded equivalent)
Cheese - Brie, Stilton, Yarlsberg, Cheddar, Cotswold with chives
Bacon
Meatloaf (noisy rocker, not the food)
Eagles (music band)
Jim Steinman (he wrote most of Bat Out of Hell)

My Dislikes
Going to war under false pretences
More in due course, after I consult with my lawyers…

Here are some of my favourite things. I have used affiliate links so please bear that in mind if you click my links.

Favourite books

I haven’t read a decent novel for years (or even an indecent one for that matter). I tend to read text books for my work or stories of derring-do from around the world.

Some great books I have enjoyed include:

Close to the Wind: An Extraordinary Story of Triumph Over Adversity
Mind Over Matter: Epic Crossing of the Antarctic Continent
The Feathermen
The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
E Myth Mastery
We Die Alone: A World War Two Epic of Escape and Endurance (a bit more cheerful than the title suggests - but only a bit - great story though)
Currently reading 40,001 Best Baby Names