World Record Holder or Not - that is the question. Well one at least!

Photograph no. 3 m.e.:-

Question:-  What is the famous athlete in the middle doing at the Butts Stadium in Coventry? When was he doing it? Why was he in civvies and not in kit?

Dear Blog, 

               It sometimes is a funny old world. Last Saturday was the Midlands Women's Cross Country League at Coundon Hall Park, in Coventry. This is the Park around which I did an awful lot of my training years ago, when you were just a young lad Blog. In the winter, in the dark, I could still use it as there was never any other users which enabled me to train in spikes, on a soft surface on grass doing various forms of fast -slow, fartlek etc.. If I wanted to do hill work, there was a nice long hill, or if pure speed work was the session, I could use the lights from the main road to have a perfectly clear stretch of runable surface. IDEAL, Blog. For the last 45 years the park on the outskirts of Coventry has slowly been left to decay. Long gone are the toilets. The car parks were pot holed and almost undrivable. Even the Gypos had given up on using the park!!! So you get the picture?

Imagine my surprise therefore when I saw all the tree planting, a huge area of landscaping and fresh tarmac for parking with individual bays painted in on Saturday. I may be a cynic Blog, but why would the council go to all this trouble and expense after all these years to a huge swathe of park land, miles away in the greenbelt, from any housing in a park which is hardly ever used???? Even the sports pitches were abandoned some years back as the parkland is a mud bath for the six winter months of the year. Is it a coincidence I ask myself ...'Is it a coincidence Colin?' ... that the Coventry City Council want to build several thousand new house, a couple of schools and a shopping centre on designated greenbelt land, just across the road from the park???? Surely not????? No Council would employ such tactics to drive a coach and horses as well as cars, buses and lorries through protected status country side. Not in this day and age??? I can't believe that they would do that, not no how, never.

Back to the Midland Women's League ..... 430 runners, Blog I kid you not. All results out by first thing Sunday morning, Blog I kid you not. Clear maps with lots of information. Plenty of marshals around the course, no shit Sherlock, Blog. A decent, pleasant testing course; Blog I am still not kidding you! No car parking issues, Blog that is almost unbelievable. Plenty of refreshments, sup up Blog. So well done to all concerned .... and I don't think I have ever said that  before, Blog?  I moan and I groan and I criticise  and it is always everyone else's fault but mine, So praise from me is not a common occurrence - about as common as President Trump not bragging or blogging or twittering or face painting for a whole week.

Compare Saturday's Midland Womens' Cross Country League fixture to the Men's Birmingham Cross Country League held in the same Park. Many problems with parking; marshals ... what marshals - who needs marshals when you are enjoying yourself?? The same old boring course that has been used for centuries. The Course ... where the bloody hell is the course?? Who's pinched the course, it was here last year, Honestly it was. And which bastard has burned down the changing rooms, Blog I kid you not!! and... Results finally after a couple of days. A m I only kidding Blog for dramatic effect?!!

Well Blog if I wasn't kidding it would bugger up my chances of ever going down to the clubhouse again. So I must obviously be kidding?                      

Hello Birchfield => => hows yo fixed fer a new member?????????????????????

                                     Colin