It’s 10 months since I ran this distance: long enough to forget a few things I should have remembered, but too long to remember what it was I’d hoped to forget. The race was as tough as any half I’ve done — a comment not on the event (a straightforward town race with no gotchas worth wibbling over) — but on my lardy unpreparedness.… READ MORE.... …
Month: January 2007
Yesterday, and last Friday, I did what I should perhaps have been doing for some months — went for a lunchtime run from the office. Bracknell, a town of roundabouts that funnel traffic towards yet more roundabouts, doesn’t have a great reputation as a picturesque location. A place to work rather than to live. And yet I’ve recently found that around this fallow, futuristic core, are fringes of civilisation — and even quaintness.… READ MORE.... …
This year, I reach my gritty half century. When considering long races for this most significant of years, I wondered about doing something around the end of June to mark the great day. It may seem paradoxical to celebrate my unscheduled longevity with an attempt to kill myself in public, but that’s a discussion for another time. Anyway, my researches threw up this: that Finland is a cornucopia of bizarre, midsummer races.… READ MORE.... …
In this fast-paced, ever-changing world in which we live, it’s important to choose an opening sentence devoid of nugatory cliché. Seventeen more RC Tip of the Day opportunities left till the Almeria Half. On the evidence of my 4 miler this evening, the pain of the post-Christmas, post-ankle recovery effort is becoming more bearable. The church bells were clattering over the village as I left.… READ MORE.... …
On New Year’s Day I was generous enough to treat my nephew to a trip to Vicarage Road for the Watford – Wigan match. It was of course a treat for me rather than him. Just before the game, he confided in me, admitting something that must be every parent/guardian’s nightmare: It seems he’s tired of supporting Liverpool and Arsenal now, and has become…[you know what I’m going to say]… a Chelsea fan.… READ MORE.... …
New Year resolutions? One of mine is to read more. I visited a bookshop in Windsor just before Christmas where I bought myself two armfuls of reading matter. These were then given to my wife so that she could solemnly hand them all back to me on Christmas morning. It’s how middle-aged bah-humbuggers like me do things. I forgot to buy any Mark Twain though, as intended.… READ MORE.... …