AN ultrarunner from Cumbria has just published his first book which focuses on living with bipolar. 

Tristan Reid, from Wigton, was diagnosed with bipolar in 2016 and wanted to write a book on living with it, to help his four children better understand life with the mental health condition.

You Don’t Look Like An Ultra Runner is a compelling read that looks at the obsessive world of twitching, international birding, tattoo collecting and ultimately, ultrarunning - all with the very difficult challenges that come with a bipolar diagnosis.

This story follows Tristan across the UK and Ireland, into the Arctic and south to the Middle East, Turkey and the Republic of Georgia before he finds some peace as a very unlikely ultra distance runner on the fells and trails of the Cumbrian Lake District.

Tristan said: "As the years have gone on with my understanding of my condition, one thing I found was I felt very isolated, even when speaking to someone else with bipolar. So once I started writing, I decided it had to get out there so it could maybe help someone.

"I found that when I was writing the book, obviously there are aspects that are hard to write, but there are also so many good memories because I feel like it made me look forward to how I was going to live my life with the condition."

Now 48, Tristan started his ultra-running journey 10 years ago when he did 14 marathons for Operation Turtle Dove, a conservation charity which aims to increase the number of turtle doves.

However, he was forced to abandon running for a number of years due to angina, only starting again in 2022. 

Tristan comes from a wildlife and birding background, and has previously written the co-annotated list of birds in Dumfries and Galloway. He also contributed the North Cumbria section for the 'Where to Watch Birds in Northwest England' book.

However, You Don’t Look Like An Ultra Runner is his first sole-authored work. 

He added: "I wanted to write a book that would have helped me back then."