End Of A Beautiful Relationship

It's a grotty morning, ideal cycling weather... I’m the car and already getting well into my new John Grisham 'The Pelican Brief'.



One thing though is spoiling it so much. The lead character is a young female university law student called Darby Shaw but what I can’t get out of my head is that in the film she is played by Julia Roberts, Ugh!



Meanwhile L’s beautiful relationship (her words) with The Count Of Monte Cristo is over. She finished it. The book that is. Next up may be Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables... Which is a bit of a tomb, even on audiobook but L likes a massive book. She’s a self confessed book snob. I’ve always thought it sounded an interesting story, just can’t understand why they decided to ruin it and turn it into a musical.

I wonder if it’s possible to be an audiobook snob? L says not.

There’s now an age-grading calculator on the Runner's World website. This aims to iron out the injustices of age and even sex on your performance. That’s sex as in gender and not as in any pre-race rituals.

So when a younger man overtakes me during the Birmingham Half Marathon next month with only a mile to go all I have to do is mutter C’est La Vie under my breath and console myself with the knowledge that I only have to achieve 89.95% (or whatever the factor is) of his time to have ‘beaten’ him. Nice idea... but it’s just not going to happen.

And what happens when a young girl sashays past, flicking her bouncing blonde ponytail in my face and waving her Lycra clad rear at me in defiance? Will I think it doesn't matter because the stats will give me an 'adjusted victory'? No, of course not, I'll follow her and then try to sprint past her on the line.

L’s out doing a bit of sashaying herself tonight, because I dropped her in the middle of the A6 and consequently she had no choice but to run her Mum’s, from where I will pick her up later after training. She did actually asked to be dropped off there.

Doggo gets 10 minutes to brush up on his contacts at the end of MD’s training. He’s brilliant, as he always is in training. Now can he please not show me up in Sunday inter-club match?

(Monday 27th September)

Saying Sorry

I do an extra five miles cycling this morning. Is this part of some grand training plan you ask. No. I forgot my phone. Not that this, in itself, was problem but I was not sure where I’d left it. Knowing me, probably in the front garden and I can't ring L to ask her to check... So when I realised, I turned round and went back for it. I found it on the stairs, where it could have been crushed under a teenage foot or chewed by a dog. So perhaps a good call to go back for it. Then I have to go into race mode to make up lost time.

Waiting for me at work is a 'Darling...' email from L. Seems her running partner for the dreaded water fest that is Survival Of The Fittest, her sister, has backed out. So she needs a substitute team mate. Hmmm. I have no problem with the running bit, it's the enforced drowning in the River Trent bit that I wasn't keen on last year. Oh well. Duty calls I guess. It better be one hell of a curry afterwards.

Shame she can’t ask her latest fella. She can’t because it’s another fictional character. Edmund Dante, the Count of Monte Cristo. Apparently such is the crush; our next pup could be called Dante. I suppose Dante is a step up, of sorts, because up until last week it was going to be called Mika. By the way, I see Liverpool have drawn an Albanian team called Mika in the UEFA cup. It’s such a common name.

Apparently as I cycle home I miss L, who is walking through Borrowash, where she’s off to meet some friends for a run. Not my fault. I was momentarily distracted by something pink with a ponytail pedalling rather sexily in the other direction. It was not my usual blonde and of course I needed to check out her bike. I’ll make it up to L later.

No training tonight, gardening instead! Then footballs on park before settling down to watch the controversy in the Tour de France.

Andy Schleck’s chain comes off, close to the summit of the Pyrenean climb of the Port de Balès, and jams in his rear wheel. Happens to us all. Alberto Contador took full advantage, powered past him, shot down the descent on the other side and consequently turned the 31 second deficit he had to Schleck into an 8 second lead. Contador was then roundly booed by the crowd as he received the yellow jersey on the podium. Why? Because profiting from another’s misfortune like that goes against race etiquette. Well... sometimes, it depends who the bad guy is.



Contador kind of apologised later saying "maybe I made a mistake". Is he really sorry? Will he give Schleck the seconds back tomorrow, we will see, but somehow I doubt it.

Talking of saying sorry, just when we're thinking someone must have strung up the race director of the Crich 10k, the results and an apology arrive by email.