I am taking part in 2026's Winter Green Man - a 45 mile circumnavigation of the city of Bristol on foot via the Community Forest Path, which at least this winter exists as mainly mud. I am running to raise awareness for the Avon Wildlife Trust and it's work in and around the city I call home/the recipient of my council tax, and less specifically to attempt to witness and capture the many different and changing faces of how nature greets the man made in these environs.

I run in the city and its surroundings almost every day, entirely for the chance to move through nature and to witness the presence and indeed changing of the seasons before they slip through our fingers again. I think of a place first and foremost as a linking between this particular bit of nature and that particular bit, which is why running and moving through space feels completely paramount to me.

The Avon Wildlife Trust protects and enhances what we may take for granted on our daily excursions in and around Bristol, with specific projects in place for dedicated sites for natural intrigue, accessibility and education. They too maintain and cultivate everything that we don't see, preserving ecosystems and harmony that is continually under threat, and a good enough reason to support their work alone. I am fond of their work when it comes to engaging a general public and in particular a youthful audience so that we may hope for a better legacy than the one we currently are writing for ourselves.

I am very interested in extending this offer further by very simply highlighting how we can find something beautiful almost anywhere; something worth your time, worth protecting, worth celebrating. There is a notion that nature doesn't start to wake up until Spring blooms, but in my efforts I hope to document a largely different story. I will make use of my skills as an illustrator and artist to draw attention to the wildlife and nature on the route itself. On reconnaissance trips this winter I have drawn and written about my experience, and will be producing illustrations, prints and a larger project concerned with the Community Forest Path. Donations will be met with a handshake and an original drawing. On the day of the race itself I will be creating direct responses in the form of postcards that I will be sending to those who have requested their own alongside their donation. I will attempt to do this process A-Z on the day, with plenty of postboxes being available on the route. I will continue to produce prints inspired by these last few months on the Community Forest Path that will be available for purchase after the fact and sharing fees with the AWT. The project will be a means to educate and inform, engage and inspire any interested party to get outside and discover what may be lying beyond the end of your street, over that fence, past that new build estate and down that path you have always steered clear of.

Thank you!