M A R A T H O N Training tip tip tip tip tip tip tip

Hi Blog, (as they say)

             If you were stood outside my mansion just now, I would not be able to see you because the fog is so thick …. of course the supposition is purely hypothetical because my gate keeper would not let plebs of your ilk onto my estate. No way, matey boy. However, let me repeat my advice to you of many moons ago … if it is foggy beware when you run, especially in the city because of the dangers of all those particulates getting into your lungs and causing damage. My old friend, Wilf Paish, and I discussed this at some length about fifty (!) years ago in preparation for a camp he was running in York for senior school athletes. I remember it particularly well, because he was to do the introduction and I was to come in with a couple of feed questions to get the kids thinking and to stimulate a bit of discussion because this was part of their first session. There might have been 70 or 80 kids, I forget, as it was a long, long time ago .. and I can’t remember when …. We were in a gym, probably at the St John’s College York. Wilf was at the front next to a slide projector, which was plugged into a socket at the back of the hall / gym near where I was seated. The electric wire from the projector to the plug snaked across the floor, underneath where all the kids were seated on wooden gym benches. Wilf had got into the swing of things and pressed the button on the projector to show the first slide. All had been well in the set up earlier in the evening. The slide had been on the screen for a few minutes as Wilf explained the oxygen conversion in the lungs etc. when there was an almighty bang from the projector followed by a series of smaller explosions along the length of wire beneath where the kids were sat with sparks flying and black smoke starting to billow. It was like watching an elongated jumping jack firework in slow motion!!! Wilf saying to the kids to stay calm and file out, woke me from my reverie and I had the presence of mind to pull the plug from the socket; a live electric wire erupting in a series of mini explosions ….. a stupid thing to do with hindsight but it seemed the obvious preventative measure to take at the time! An automatic reaction more than sensible considered response I assure you Blog. Things quickly calmed, the smoke cleared, the offending wire moved out of harm’s way, and the lecture continued. Can you imagine the Health and Safety consequences now, the report filling, the committee investigations, the blame game????? We all just settled down and got on with an enjoyable weekend. Oh yes, and my fingers soon healed!!!!

So back to the fog …. to prevent damage to lungs, train with a scarf covering the mouth and nose … it restricts breathing and you have to work harder. But then some well-known blond athletes live in their posh houses at altitude to achieve such an effect, or if you are a cyclist or an athlete in times of yore, you have a pint of blood or a couple of pills, or so I am told. Don’t know if it is true??? But would I lie to you Blog??? Mist is a different matter however. It may chill the lungs but mist contains no carcinogenic particulates. A long run in the mist on the moors of God’s own county might give you a cough and cold later in the week whereas a long run in the fog on the paths of a city street might give you something far worse in the years to come.

After last Saturday’s Birmingham and District League race at Leamington, watching the underfoot conditions deteriorate from grassland to mud and bog, Blog, I questioned how many of the thousand competitors ever bothered to do specialised training for championship cross country races where, inevitably, the ground turns into a quagmire. Try plough running Blog. At this time of year, the ploughed fields are just about perfect. Newly ploughed harrowed land with the winter wheat just poking through the top soil and the damp in the air means the mud clings tightly to your shoes and gets heavier and heavier and heavier with each step. EXCELLENT. Just what the coaches ordered. Avoid the soft option of running on the country footpaths, run on the plough, round and round the fields. You may get lucky and break eight or nine minutes for each mile. Time doesn’t count. Time stands still and waits for this man. Running in ultra-slow motion. But regular sessions during the winter will pay ample dividends in the area and national championships next year!!! Remember you heard it first here Blog, and next month in the mags no doubt???

And just as I wrote in my last letter to you last week about arm use, it is just as important to consciously use those arms and exaggerate the leg lift on plough as it is in running up hills. You train and strain to race at pace as that well know coach Phillip Hades said after a night out in Athens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have to stop now Blog … I can’t remember what I did with my scarf last February.

                                        Colin        

Seigfreid Bettmann

Dear Blog,

As the cross country season gets under way, I thought you might like to read a little about the history of Coventry Godiva Harriers ..

133 years is a long time. A very long time.

The Godiva Harriers Bettmann Trophy competition has been in existence since 1908.

                  Over a century.

                 100+ years of internal club competition.

                 100+ years of equality of opportunity.

                  And this season’s title chase has just started.

We will again be using last year’s format to determine the Cup winner … a change from the number of races that was used in the first winter of competition in 1908 / 09.

Scoring is still the same!!!:-  1^st position gets 7 points, 2^nd will win 6 points, 3^rd receives 5 points, 4^th is awarded 4 points, while 5^th and 6^th   will get 3 and 2 points respectively. All other competitors will have 1 point each. Races are handicapped … some are sealed when the allowance is not revealed to the runners until after the finish, yacht handicaps are when each runner sets off at different times, the slowest goes first etc..

The Annie Bettmann Cup victor is the runner with the most points when the series of races is finished.

The largest recorded field was 63 runners    The smallest recorded field was five.

For many years each competitor had to pay an entry fee ….  6d originally.

Every early race used to have an expensive prize list provided by one of the man wealthy backers that the club had from time to time.

The first few years of competition had the runners following a paper trail laid immediately prior to the start, often by the club captain who then ran!

Sometimes the trail as laid by the veteran members of the club, who set off to mark the trail carrying a couple of heavy bags of shredded paper each.

One year saw the third race ‘rerun’ four times. The first time was extremely windy and the trail blew away, the second time the trail crossed another local clubs trail and runners from both clubs ended up at the wrong finish! The third time saw a torrential down pour between the trail being laid and the race being run. The course crossed a stream, which had become so swollen and deep with flood water that most runners refused to cross!!

Runners had to wade across streams, climb fences, struggle through thickets and often had to run for more than an hour in the races before the WW 11.

There has been a Youths’ Bettmann Cup and also a Ladies’ Bettmann Cup in the past, but both trophies, like many others, have been lost.

Races have been organised outside Coventry, quite often the January race was at Exhall, and the final one was at Kenilworth. Balsall Common has been used, so has Barston and Brinklow. All out of town races were followed by a social, returning to Coventry in the early hours!

Denis Flude has won the trophy more than anyone else.

There have been occasions when we have had joint winners

When the original plinth was full of names in the 1950s, the shields were remounted on an oak presentation shield, which has since been lost.

It was often rumoured that the handicapper used to fiddle the handicaps as the race progressed to make the final outcome more interesting … but that was only a rumour …???

In the early years of the 20th century, the Club was having severe financial difficulties. This was not a new problem. As early as 1888 (Feb. 22nd), the Club accounts shows a balance of £1 12s 6d (£1.67) from a total income of £39 8s 6d (Oct. 16th ‘86) and £44 11s 2d in ‘83 (20th Nov.). F.W.Smalley writing in 1944 (a contemporary of these events), put the loss down to the high expense of travel to the Championship Races. It might be significant, that in the 1888 / 89 season, Godiva did not enter any of the Championship Competitions! Even in the first year of the Club’s existence (Expenses 1880 / 81), financial alarm bells were ringing when a loss of 4s 6d was recorded from the Chase (stay out) to Berkswell, together with the cost of 1s 6d for transporting the clothing. Only nine members turning out for the run instead of the 23 who had promised to participate!! The shortfall in cash was regarded as serious, with the secretary, J.Johnson doing the ‘honourable thing’ by tendering his resignation at the next committee meeting. It was accepted. He was replaced by Chas Smith.

                In 1908, Mr. Bettmann came to the rescue with the offer of a 3[?] guinea donation if Club members could match the sum! In 1943, former Club secretary, Jim Roberts referring to this act of generosity, wrote that ‘this generous gesture was to be the turning point in the Club’s financial position’. Why Bettmann adopted this philanthropic attitude to the Club is unclear*, but he was also to donate a very expensive cup (The Annie Bettmann Trophy) which was to be competed for each year over a series of seven races over the winter season. He also paid for a gold medal, which the winner could keep, and a framed portrait of the runner posing with the trophy for the club records and a facsimile which was to be given to the winning runner. The committee officially discontinued this tradition in 1936[July27th mins.] (Bettmann seems to have been a naturally generous man... as a J.P. he once fined a youngster 10/- for the misdemeanour of not having a license for his dog. When the boy asked for time to pay for the fine, he promptly paid 5/- of the fine himself as the boy came from a poor background... a farm labourer’s son of Wall Hill Lane. Allesley!). In the references to Bettmann and his connections with the club, mention is always made of Bettmann’s resignation from the position of Mayor, half way through his term of office because of the rising tide of anti-German feeling with the imminent threat of War. The belief and reiteration of this ‘fact’ is a graphic illustration of the way the story of the club’s roots have evolved. Bettmann certainly did resign in the May (28th) of his term of office. There was understandable anti German feeling in the City at the time. But if the two were connected, then they concerned the local politics of the time.

                Bettmann was deeply respected as a philanthropic liberal councillor. His actions as Mayor got the city moving after an apparent period of inaction on the part of the council. In May Alderman W.Andrew’s death caused an aldermanic vacancy. Traditionally, the Mayor filled any vacant post, but not automatically. In this case, the Conservative majority on the council created a precedent by calling for a vote and presented their own candidate, Dr. Charles Webb Iliffe, who was elected by 19 votes to 14. Bettmann resigned as a matter of principle, in which he was backed by the press and other local dignitaries. The city affairs ground to a halt. In those days, the mayor’s office operated in a similar way to the way the Mayor of London operates today. After a great deal of discussion at all levels over the next fortnight, Bettmann was persuaded to withdraw his resignation, and only then was the city able to return to normality. Although born in Germany, Siegfried Bettmann was a naturalised citizen of this country, and his worth was repeatedly recognised at all levels of civic activity during his life time. (He died in 1951). As a recognition of the difficult situation that the war might put him in, he decided not to stand for a second term as mayor, although it was accepted that had he stood, he would have received the full support of all parties on the council, even the members who had opposed his elevation to alderman!.

             By offering the Cup for Club Competition, Mr Bettmann wisely gave most club members a raison d'être. In the early years of the nineteenth century, there were very few winter events for club members. Inter club races were popular but rare, championship competition even more rare. Clubs had to create their own meaningful competition with a variety to hare and hound races, pack runs and paper chases. Hence the importance placed on Bettmann Cup competition. The Cup is keenly fought for ninety years later, with Olympic athletes vying with Club joggers to get their name on the Cup’s plinth. To allow everyone a fair chance of winning, the races are run on a handicap (open and closed) basis. The handicapper is elected annually at the Club’s A.G.M.. Siegfreid Bettmann along with Moritz Schulze founded the Triumph bicycle company, which evolved into one of Coventry’s car giants, to be taken over by the ‘Standard’ in 1945.

* Ref club history for the involvement of his M.D. with the club.

 The Bettman Winners:

1908/09 *       J. Hewitt

1909/10 *      C. Davernport

1910/11 *      C. Davernport

1911/12 *       J.D. Tilt

1912/13 *      G. Oliver

1913/14 *       P. Elliott

1914/15         -

1915/16         -

1916/17         -

1917/18 *      L. Fitch

1918/19 *      W.J. Troop

1919/20 *      C.W. Woodall

1920/21         H.H. Stock

1921/22  *     C.H.Cleverley, W.H. Jephcott

1922/23  *     W. Helmsley

1923/24  *     J.H.T. Evans

1924/25  *     B. Ledbrooke

1925/26  *     V.G. Gardner

1926/27  *     D.J. Paul

1927/28  *      A.E. Adkins

1928/29  *     A. Beecham

1929/30  *     W.A. Davies

1930/31  *     G. Spencer

1931/32  *      L. Farndon

1932/33  *     L. Drury

1933/34  *     W. Sheridan

1934/35  *     H. Lapworth

1935/36  *     F. Round

1936/37  *     A.D. Thorley

1937/38         F. Hunter

1938/39        G. Munday

1939/40         J. Renfrew

1940/41         -

1941/42         D.H. Furguson

1942/43         R. Oldham

1943/44  *     G. Paul

1944/45         J. Frost

1945/46  *     M. Manning

1946/47         F.E. Allcoat

1947/48  *     G.S. Pearson

1948/49  *     S.L. Webb

1949/50  *     E. Griffin

1950/51  *     J. Waller

1951/52  *     A. Shenstone

1957/58    A. Dowall, R. Carey

1958/59         R. Carey

1959/60         A. Dowall

1960/61         A. Dowall

1961/62         M. Croston

1962/63         F. McDermott

1963/64         G. Horne

1964/65         J. Brenan

1965/66         G. Horne

1966/67         C. Harrison

1967/68         B.B. Heatley

1968/69         R. Statham

1969/70         R. Statham

1970/71         H. Lloyd

1971/72         B. Kilby

1972/73         C. Kirkham

1973/74         W. Wade

1974/75 *      D. Flude

1975/76         T. Stewart

1976/77         P. Miller

1977/78         C. Brown

1978/79         W. Adcocks

1979/80         P. Banks, D. Lavelle

1980/81         M. Langrish

1981/82         D. Batstone, D. Flude

1982/83         D. Dix, C. Ridding

1984/82         M.Slevin J. Wilkinson

1985/86*        D. Flude

1986/87         D. Batstone

1987/88         R. Medwell

1988/89         M. Wankling

1989/90         B. Crofts

1990/91         G. McLeod

1991/92         T. Brindle

1992/93         H. Calvert

1993/94         D. Flude

1994/95         J. Grumbley

1995/96 *      P. Schumacker

1996/97 *      R. Taylor

1997/98         C. Ridding

1998/99         D. Flude

1999/2000 *  R.Statham

2000/01       D.Flude

2001/02       S. Dick

2002/03       V.Clisham

2003/04 *      P.Friel

2004/05 *      A.Gray

2005/06 *      J.Attwooll

2006/07*       C.Kirkham

2007/8*        H.Speed

2008/9*        J.Griggs

2009/10       A. Bodecote

2010/11       T.Spencer

2011/12       M. Perry

* indicates a photographic record

Birmingham and District Cross Country League Results November 10th 2012

Hold it Blog,

              This Secret jogger blogger lark has to be put on hold for a couple of days … sorry about that but …. Today was the first Birmingham and District league race of the season, and as usual for the first fixture all division ran together. The event was at Leamington’s Newbold Comyn on a course similar to the one used for the National Cross Country Championships twice in the 1920s. I mention that fact because the first Championships nearly ended before it began because after about 400 yeards (400 metres to you Blog) the whole field was filtered through a narrow gateway which caused such a bottle neck that fists were thrown and fighting among the competitors broke out. Utter chaos! Couldn’t happen again?? Officials learn from past mistakes. So it came as no surprise that the 700 runners were filtered on to a narrow path after 400 yards (400 metres to you Blog) which caused such a bottle neck that the last half of the field were queuing to get through the narrow section, the water jump, the narrow pathway; slowed to a walking pace or a complete stand still!!! A passage of 90 years means that the runners have learnt a lesson and all were quite gentlemanly about the proceedings!!!

But … ever felt like tearing your hair out Blog. Sorry. No offence meant. It is just an expression. Nothing to do with you being folliclely challenged. Allow me to rephrase ..

Ever felt like screaming? Felt steam coming out of your ears? And the cause of my frustration … all these club coaches with arms and legs and chests and hats covered with badges ‘cos they all know what they are doing … every time I trudge from the club, this week, last week, every week, all their athletes are running up hills, here, there, and everywhere. So what are all these coaches actually doing with all these athletes running up hills, here, there and everywhere? Dare I suggest that the athletes running up hills, here, there and everywhere might get a little benefit from running up hills, here, there and everywhere if they were to use their arms to help them run up hills, here, there and everywhere? I don’t have a badge but it is bleeding obvious what to do when you run up hills, here, there and everywhere. Arms. Use your arms. No need for an I.Q. of galactic proportions. Simple logic. Common sense? Newton said something about action and reaction and he didn’t have any badges either. Neither was he much of an athlete although he was a down to earth sort of chap and he was pretty handy with his bow and arrow when he shot Billy’s apple straight through the pips.

And don’t these coaches tell their athletes what to wear when they compete in cross country races. SPIKES. Not all-weather track spikes. Not flats. But spikes with long spikes in to help run on slippery grass land, run up hill, run through mud. Not a badge in sight ..  no need for an I.Q. of galactic proportions. Simple logic. Common sense?

And once again when we had acres and acres and acres of grass land to run across, the officials still had that irresistible urge to send the athletes along a stretch of compacted trackway …three times .. but with a small verge, so it could have been worse!!!

But it was a beautiful day and the view from the hill top by the beacon was as stunning as ever. And I did get in a bit of fast slow when shouting on my club mates.

                                 Colin

A SECRET

Dear Blog,

    You know me Blog, how I am dead keen to be in the swing of things, leading innovations whenever possible, on the cutting edge of new trends, in the van as my old Latin master used to say. Well, I don’t know whether you have noticed Blog, but it seems to me that the latest bandwagon to leave town in the newspapers and in the various magazines, is this business of a ‘Secret Reporter’!!! The Guardian newspaper had a ‘Secret Footballer’ for yonks; now we have ‘Secret This’ and ‘Secret That’ and ‘Secret The Other’ in whatever magazine you open while standing reading at the Smiths Newsagents magazine rack in town. They are all at it!

 Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo….

Not wanting to be left out, I have decided to become your ‘Secret Jogger’ Blog, or your ‘Secret Blogger’ Blog, a kind of latter day ‘Jogger Blogger’ or should that be a ‘Blogger Jogger’? Imagine how intrigued your friends around the world will be trying to detect the identity or your own personal ‘Secret Jogger’ Blog, or your own ‘Secret Blogger’ Blog, or your ‘Jogger Blogger’ or ‘Blogger Jogger’. In future letters to you I will have to lay false trails, drop spurious clues, give misleading information, suggest probable associates, intimate possible candidates. Oh what fun I shall have. And here’s the really cleaver bit Blog, the brilliant piece of double bluff … in future I shall sign my letters to you with ‘Colin’. That will really throw everyone off the scent, send them scurrying in the wrong direction, going round in ever decreasing circles until they end up running up their own counter point.

                                                Colin

P.S. A mathematical question for you to think about as you doze off to sleep tonight, Blog. Did Euclid call an ever decreasing circle a spiral? Or am I getting him confused with Eratosthenes? Or was he the bloke who used his sieve on the threads and strands of available information and invented spaghetti?? Or was it that well known Italian dish tarantella? Perhaps he used the spiders’ legs for the spaghetti? …… I’m off for a coffee ………..

What day did you say it was??

Photograph Quiz:

Photo number 126:- How was this neck tie changed to become the Godiva Harriers club tie? Who arranged the alterations? Which company obliged?

Dear Blog,

   I don’t know about you, but I must be getting old, inevitable, or feeling old, avoidable, illustrated by the sad sight of me trudging along not lifting my feet up, tripping up and rolling about in the gutter. The embarrassment is so acute that I am relieved that the winter nights are here again, cyclic, and I can creep out into the gloom, unseen to trudge to my heart’s content. And the aging process is nowhere exemplified better than the uncontrollable desire to reminisce. I start to recollect tales of yore and the glazed look appears on the face of my victim! I know they are bored, desparatly seeking a means of escape, but they are trapped. I know they are trapped. And they know that I know that they are trapped and I cannot stop. I show no mercy. It’s an addiction. Like a druggy needing another fix. It’s Lance all over again! You heard it here first Blog, reminiscing the new crack cocaine!!!

Another sign of my aging progress is the feeling of unease engendered by the Bank of England insistence of having dozens of different designs on the 50p coins … sort of smacks at a third world country’s attitude to gaining few bob at the expense of all the muggles who collect the said designs. Has anyone told that nice Mr Cameroon that the country’s economic woes are being caused by the Bank of England insistence in producing the multiple 50p designs, which the muggles collect, hoard away, thereby causing a chronic shortage of small change on the High Streets of this country. That nice Mr Cameroon’s friend, Ozzy Osbourne, could solve all our financial ills in one stroke; one 50p design only. Sorted.

 Another sign of my aging progress is observing the weeds growing between the sleepers on out railway lines … never saw that when I was a kid growing up in good old God’s county. Not that I can afford to travel on a railway train any more as I don’t have enough 50p pieces to pay. Can’t find the dam things! Weeds on the railways and at the road sides was something you saw at the pictures when there was a scene from Eastern Europe, or America on the cinema screen. Never in real life. And what about our postage stamps? When I collected stamps as a kid, [there we go reminiscing again. Come back Methuselah all is forgiven] a GB commemorative issue was a big deal. You got all these pretty coloured stamps from around the world, different shapes as well, but you could rely on the good old GB. Square. Liz steadfastly staring to the left, unfazed by the shade of dress she was wearing. There was an occasional variation in colour in the stamps when the printers ran short of supplies of a particular hue, post war austerity and all that, but shape and design was an unfailing, reliable part of life, with the occasional touch of excitement caused by a larger commemorative design, still with sober colouring, still with none of your flash African issue types.

Another sign of my aging progress is that I still miss the HP sauce bottle, with the French language on the side, the wonderment of being able to translate after a few weeks ‘doing’ French at Grammar School. Todays’ plastic squirty bottle is anathema … would you believe Blog, I still use a glass bottle for my HP sauce, decanting from the plastic monstrosity every time I run out. Fish and chips wouldn’t be fish and chips without my glass bottle of HP sauce. And have you ever tried to ask for a handful of scraps when you order your fish and chips, Blog? [there we go reminiscing again. Come back Methuselah all is forgiven] You are observed like you might observe some repulsive specimen that has just crawled out from beneath a stone on an unpleasant day in the Derbyshire Peak District. Scraps were standard with scone and chips when I was a kid. We were so poor, we could never afford a fish with our chips; we had to make do with a scone, ‘scone and chips please with a handful of scraps, please.’ A ‘scone’ Blog, pronounce ‘skown’, was a micro thin slice of fish, sandwiched between two micro thin slices of potato cooked in lard until it formed a crisp brown batter on the outside. A ‘scone’ Blog, pronounced ‘scon’ was a lump of cooked dough, sliced in half, buttered with strawberry jam. Although we were poor Blog, margarine pronounced ‘margareen’ was something advertised at the pictures (cinema to you Blog) and used by who knows who??? We bought out butter from the local grocer Mr Wicketer [we had great difficulty pronouncing Whitaker] who cut a chunk off a huge barrel shaped lump of butter with a long serrated knife and wrapped it up in grease proof paper. The great thing about Mr Wicketer was that he smoked. He smoked cigarettes. All the time. Non-stop. And at the end of his cigarette was a long drooping cylinder of ash which refused ever to drop off onto whatever he was cutting despite us putting all our efforts into willing it to fall onto the cheese, the bacon, the butter ...

Another sign of my aging progress is my deteriorating memory. For example, when I  ….. err???

                                           Colin

2012 National Cross Country Relay Results November 3rd

Photograph Quiz:

Photo number 125:- Which city actually did have a club called the ******** Night Harriers? What years did it exist?

Dear Blog,

     Went to the National Cross Country Relays on Saturday at Mansfield, and although I have competed in then a few times, I was never overly keen. Cross country for me was a means to a marathon end. Road relays I felt, were a valid component in preparation for a hard road slog. Ditto cross country races. But each to his own. One of my daughter’s was competing. On one hand there were thousands of athletes of all ages and all abilities from all over the country which was a great advertisement for our sport. But on the other hand, it was so sad to see the predicament that the local athletic club, Mansfield A.C., finds itself in. At the mercy of the Trustees of Berry Hill, the club is about to lose its facilities. Surely a case for the athletic authorities at national level to step in to help a local club. Pie in the sky??? Yes, let’s pass a law banning all those ear pieces in road races and let’s see if those races organisers managed to implement the unenforceable!!! Surely a case for the athletic authorities at national level to step in to help the local club by just scrubbing such stupid legislation or get stuck in and get it sorted. Pie in the sky??? Difficulty putting a road race on? Trouble with the local authority or the local police? Surely a case for the athletic authorities at national level to step in to help a local club sort out and help local clubs at grass roots level? Pie in the sky??? An awards dinner for officials for this, that and the other. Wow, what a brilliant idea. What sort of pie shall we have for sweet? An awards dinner for athletes for this, that and the other. Wow, what a brilliant idea. What sort of pie shall we have for sweet? Oh, and while we are at it, lets stick the affiliation fee up. What about 100%? Or 200%? Or 300 %? Will it be enough to cover the costs of our awards dinners?

So Mansfield does a good job for the sport at grass level. Sign their petition Blog.

Sunday morning was the first monthly races of the Centurion A.C series. The other daughter was competing. My granddaughter couldn’t wait to run in the Fun Run. She said I could run with her next month if I do some proper training????? Did she spend last week running up all those hills in Wales and then have the hassle of sneaking back across the border at midnight to avoid customs with all the rarebits we’d smuggled in the back of the car? No she did not!

Sunday afternoon, I looked like Mr Blobby with all the clothes I was wearing while I acted as marshal at the Midland Walking League in Coventry. Had to do some fancy driving between the two events to make the latter in time for the start of the race walk. Spent most of the race shepherding dozens of mallards from the local pond away from the path of the walkers!!! Blog, I kid you not. A right pest, they were. I could make some crack about waddling, but I will refrain. It is a long time since I did a race walk. I am tempted to have another go!!! Very tempted. Watch this space.

Made my last will and testament this morning. Seriously Blog, I made my last will and testament this morning. Told the solicitor fellow that I wanted to be cremated with all my old running shoes. He said that would not be possible as it would create too much pollution. And besides, my running shoes would create too much smell.

                             Colin

Training ... traming??

Dear Blog,

     As you may know, in God’s own county, a spade is called a spade. No messing about the bush, a spade. S-P-A-D-E. Pure and simple. So you expect that when you want to visit a tramway, you expect a tramway. As a kid, a tram could be a sort of bus running on rails sunk in the road. Like in Bradford. No messing about the bush, a tram. T-R-A-M. Pure and simple. O.K. it could be a trackless, a tram without rails in the road, the power fed from over-head tram lines suspended above the streets. Like in Leeds. No messing about the bush, a trackless. T-R-A-C-K-L-E-S-S-. Pure and simple. And in the summer as kids, we would visit Shipley Glen and catch the tram for the cost of a 1d ride, the tram taking us from the bottom of the glen to the top. In this case a cable car, the oldest in Britain, the cable attached to the underneath of the car pulling one car up while the weight was counter balanced by another car coming down on a parallel rail. No messing about the bush C-A-B-L-E-C-A-R. Pure and simple. If we were extremely lucky, we had a day out at Scarborough where we could watch the funicular tram. Watch because we could not afford to go on it! No messing about the bush F-U-N-I-C-U-L-A-R. Pure and simple. So in God’s own county, a tram is called a tram is called a tram, and you expect a tram, no messing.

But these Welshies are coy. Round and round the bush we go, bush we go, bush we go. Round and round the bush we go, this wet morn. Go on our tramway they urge. Sounds good! Ride in comfort up the side of a mountain, thinks I, sit back on the padded seats, enjoy the views. After this morning’s knackering trudge in the rain, a pleasant ride up hill letting the train take the strain and perhaps a gentle stroll down is just what the coach has ordered! So we gets there. Where’s the train? Where’s the tram? Tramway boyo, not tram. The Welshie explains that the tramway ceased to operate a couple of hundred years ago!!! You mean we have missed the tram???? We are too late?? So we climb up … and up … and up …. and up. And the ground, it gets wetter … and wetter .. and boggier … and even boggier.

But the view was worth it.

And the race down to beat the storm was exhilarating.

                                               Colin