Favouritism?

When L hands in her ‘Change 4 Life’ card to claim her £50 cash back, she gets invited to sign up for another year. They didn’t do that with me. Favouritism? I shall have to have words. It also seems you can do the once a month trip on swims this time, which will make life a lot easier as it’s been so stressful having to remember to go to the gym once a month as part of my fitness campaign.

Talking of fitness campaigns, I get an email from something called Run Britain, who have launched a revolutionary (so they say) online scoring system for runners. Through it you can obtain a ranking based on your performances at 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon distances, and make comparisons against your bitterest rivals via a handicap system.



It's the kind of uncool thing I love and looks hellishly complicated but it accepts the results of seven of my races from this year, though it spits out some of the more low-key events I’ve done. Presumably they are not worthy of comment. This of course included my sole victory at the Run To Read 10k.

The system tells me that my rating (handicap) was 14.9 back in March, during that half marathon phase I went through, when I did Sleaford and Grantham. This then improves to 8.9 in July after I enter the two Grand Prix races that qualify and the Colin Potter 10k the week after. Oddly the statistical abomination that was Crich, e.g. where the course was almost a mile too long, the terrain was horrible and where I consequently ran it in a pedestrian looking time, didn't drag it down. The website does say that terrain is taken into consideration, perhaps the lack of marshalling and wayward signage is also factored in.

We take the dogs for a long walk to Beeston in the evening, mainly to see if the chap who drinks at The Victoria, who lost his Alsatian a little while back, has bitten the bullet and ventured over to the wild side of puppy ownership. Nope, not yet, sensible chap.

(Friday 10th September)