Photographic Quiz:
Photo no. 8:- I didn't have to walk on water to win this marathon, but what is the name of the athlete in the picture who has kindly donated to the Newlife and Tiny Tim's Children Centre?
Dearest Blog,
....and there is a month left. 30 days and the clock is ticking. (Eat your heart out Seb, mine’s working OK). I had to admit defeat at the end of the week with my illness and went to see the Juju Man, actually the Juju Woman. When she finally admitted defeat and said my symptoms fitted nothing in her magic potion bag, we went to the old standby, ‘Was I stressed?’ So I confessed. ‘Yes’ says I ‘I’ve this here thing in a month where I have to trudge half naked around the streets of London for about four hours freezing my balls off’ ‘Strange’ says she ‘What do you get for doing that? Gold, frankincense, myrrh?’ ‘No’ says I ‘Blistered feet and sleepless nights’ ‘Have a mother’s little helper’. ‘Ta’ No longer stressed. She didn’t say how much faster it would make me run, but she wanted to place a couple of bob on a sub 3:30:00 clocking.
Saturday was the Midland Road Relays. In years gone by, the Area and National Road Relays always afforded me a hard relay race and the opportunity to ‘get a few miles of quality fartlek’ in. Yesterday at Sutton Park, ear wigging what some of the athletes had to say to each other was very disheartening. O.K. Bloggsie, I bet you have never done it? Don’t give me that. I used to love taking over in the lead – ‘here I am folks, catch me if you can’ – just as I used to love to lead in races and run away from the field if possible. Depressing listening on Saturday; comments about not wanting to take over in the lead, comments about the pressure of relays, comments about the pointlessness of running in an incomplete team, comments about the problem of fielding teams ...... Before I slit my wrists, I trudged out to the far end of the long leg. Time was when the further the relay race progressed, the more populous became the support on the way to and from the turn at the Streetly gate. Having completed their stint, runners stacked in the miles while supporting their club mates on later legs. Yesterday, I was alone, alone, all all alone. Alone and at sea – well adrift! It was like waiting for Godot*, but I was the only other person to talk to. So I said to myself, what a wonderful world it would be to see another trudger or two out there!! I reflected with myself (a nasty habit) on how the world has changed since the first National Road Relay was held at Sutton Park back in the dark ages when Margaret Thatcher was still flogging baked beans in Grantham. Coming to the Midlands from the North, I was used to running along the canal path of the Leeds - Liverpool canal, running across the fields on worn paths from stone stile to stone stile, at weekends passing a greeting to the hikers. In my first job in Coventry, I used to help out by assisting the P.E. teachers, taking the kids swimming. I used to go into the pool, while the qualified staff instructed from the side. I used to hold the learners while they practiced their strokes. Today I’d be regarded as some kind of weirdo, a perv, if I did that! At first, after the swimming session I tried to run back along the Coventry Canal form Nuneaton to where I lived in my caravan. I soon found the canal paths were totally unusable, if they actually existed, most having being eroded away. Trying to run home across country from work, was equally frustrating. Stiles had ceased to exist, farmers had blocked others. More than one farmer had warned me off his land by discharging his shot gun. (The police were impotent as it was my word against the farmer with no witnesses!!). We also used to have something called ‘pack runs’ (paCk runs not paRk runs Blogs) where the lads from the club used to gather on a Sunday morning, and we used to try and kill each other for the next couple of hours. Must stop now ... more later, I want to catch the last post.
Colin
*And he didn’t turn up yesterday.
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