They’re already calling it the Race of the Century. Scanning RW for likely local races last night, I happened across the Oxford “Town & Gown” 10K, May 20. Researching further, I glanced through last year’s results as I usually do, to get an idea of how many take part, and how close to the back I’m likely to finish. And there I spotted a name I’d not seen in ten years — Mark M-W. An old wine trade friend. Twenty years ago, I worked with Mark in Wimbledon. The irresistible combination of testosterone and alcohol gave our friendship a competitive edge, and I instantly recalled a slurred conversation we’d had over a few glasses of Champagne after work one … …
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Yesterday? Yesterday morning I was up at sunrise, running 5 miles in record time while the world was still comatose. A couple of hours later, rattling with endorphins, I march into my boss’s office and tell him where he’s going wrong. He rewards me with a stellar promotion and a payrise that promises me permanent financial security. Y’know, I sometimes wonder why I don’t just fabricate the lot. Ever since someone called into question my balmy summer of love with the French diplomat’s German wife in Darjeeling, I’ve thought, “Why bother, really?” Take Two. Yesterday I overslept. I went to work and felt ill all day. I was hoarse and shivery, and every now and then I would wipe the … …
Not everyone appreciated the staccato insight offered by Marnie Mueller’s poem in the previous entry. For some true doggerel, how about: Toucans in their nests agree Guinness is good for you Open some today and see What one or Toucan do I gazed for some minutes at this original Guinness poster in Dolan’s Bar, down the Dock Road in Limerick, last Tuesday evening, trying to force it to scan. I never made it. I wondered how Dorothy L. Sayers, reputed to have written the verse when she worked as a copywriter for Guinness’s advertising agency back in the 1930s, had imagined it to sound. The best beer slogan I ever saw appeared in Kingsley Amis’s “Lucky Jim”: Bowen’s Beer Makes … …
Strategy for a Marathon by Marnie Mueller I will start when the gun goes off. I will run for five miles. Feeling good, I will run to the tenth mile. At the tenth I will say, "Only three more to the halfway." At the halfway mark, 13.1 miles, I will know fifteen is in reach. At fifteen miles I will say, "You’ve run twenty before, keep going." At twenty I will say, "Run home."… …
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. The weekend began at 0325 on Saturday, more than half an hour before the alarm. Rather pitifully, I found myself lying awake, picking over recent troubling events at work, instead of looking ahead to a weekend in Spain with friends, and the prospect of a bracing Mediterranean race. By four a.m. I’m muesli-munching in the kitchen, … …
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. On Friday I went out for a 3 mile run that accidentally became a 7 miler. Lost in Bracknell. Easily done, as one vista looks pretty much like the next. Yesterday I took a different route and found a long, rustic track leading to the pleasant village … …
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. If I wanted to do a marathon on my big day, the world could offer me a choice of two – both in Finland. There’s the Arctic Circle Santa Claus Marathon — one of those midnight sun jobs — and another that defies pronunciation, never mind explanation. Or … …
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. Every Wednesday at 19:30, the local campanologists ring the changes. It’s an optimistic sound, so a good time to get out and run. After yesterday morning’s early lope around the block, I’d planned to have a day away from it today, but the rather grim weather forecast for tomorrow encouraged me to swap the days … …
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. Sacre Bleu! I nearly choked on my Mighty Giant Cheeseyburger. I was disgusted. And the news about his newfound loyalty to Chelsea was terrible as well. Once I’d recovered, I placed an avuncular hand on his shoulder. "Actually", I said, "I have to say that Abramovitch has … …
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. Apart from Tom Sawyer, read as a 10 year old, all I’ve seen of Twain is quotations, but it’s these quotations that have convinced me we should get reacquainted. I need some of that sagacity. The latest corker of a Twainism I heard is: "When I was a boy of fourteen, my … …