Hopeless At Counting

Cycling to work was terribly hard work this morning, which doesn’t bode well for the weekend.

I've always had a very soft spot for one of my local non-league clubs Ilkeston Town Football Club and have watched them on many occasions in the past. So it's been very sad to see them in their current financial plight which culminated with them being wound up in the High Court today, over £50,000 of unpaid taxes. Hopefully the club, who were established way back in 1894, can still be saved and they are appealing the ruling, claiming that they have transfer funds of £20,000 due imminently and parties interested in buying the club. Their scheduled Conference North fixture at Redditch United will not take place this weekend.



After work I pedal off to the pool. L says 'do a few for me'. Ok, I will, but not many. I have enough problems getting through my own quota. My quota takes less time than I had anticipated as I end up having to share lane number three with a ‘psycho’ doing flip turns. A psycho in lowly lane three? I ask you. What’s the world coming to?

On the plus side, I’m actually about his pace, apart from the flip turns that is, which enables him to gain a few metres on me every length. I consider attempting my version, the flop turn (trademark applied for... maybe), but decide against it, figuring it will just make me slower.

When I think I've done my 30 lengths, I'm hopeless at counting, I do a few more ‘for luck’ and perhaps on L's behalf. On number 32 I get cramp in my foot. So I stop and massage it. On number 33 it spreads to my toes. I stop on 34 when it becomes clear, that with only one leg fully functional, I’m starting to list to one side. I limp back to the changing rooms.

It’s just so typical to injure myself swimming, again. It is such a dangerous sport. I must take up something safer, Bobsleigh perhaps.

The cramp, or whatever it is, hasn't cleared by the time I go dog training. I know, dog training for three days in a row, it’s seriously overdoing it. This though is an extra session which I have specifically booked for Doggo, his first session with a trainer in nine months, because he seriously needs a refresher course. It means we’re back on the graveyard shift, the 9pm session, which we had given up. I think he enjoys it. He certainly slots right back in and is Mr Prefect, well almost. All the problems that have shown up in the last six months of competition are now oddly absent and seemingly solved overnight. He has clearly been having me on.

(Wednesday 8th September)

Carrots

We’re received an update on the Great North Swim, in that’s it’s been totally cancelled. There’s no new date. So L’s looking at either a refund or free entry into next year’s event, should it go ahead.

Apparently the organisers sought assurances that the water quality would be acceptable for them to stage the event and didn’t get it. In this not-so-brave new world of Health and Safety that is an assurance they were never going to get, even if they’d drained the lake and turned it into a run instead. So if they’re going to ask daft questions like that again next year, they’ll get the same result.

At least L seems pleased with her training for it. Training which has also done Son good!

Dog training again tonight, outdoor. No rain, surprisingly.

I don’t have to call for my usual Singapore noodles on the way home as L is going to replicate my post-training delicacy at home. They’re excellent, better than the take-away version. Well, apart from the carrots. L always says you can't have a Chinese without carrots. I have absolutely nothing against carrots, love them in fact, but I’m sure the Chinese’s that I buy never have carrots in them. Though I know hers will and probably celery, sweet corn and peas.

(Tuesday 7th September)

Back To School

We head home from Malham today and after a weekend of nice sunny weather it starts to rain. Suppose we can’t complain really.

We’re back in time for the new school term, for MD that is, Monday training restarts tonight. L comes along too, for the ride and the run, to her parent’s house, from where I will pick her up later. Hope she enjoys the run, despite the rain.

During training, MD and I have a disagreement. He is so typically the naughty schoolboy on his first day back. I tell him to ‘release’ his tug but all he does is knot his eyebrows in disagreement and bite harder on the toy, in a gesture that clearly says ‘nope’. Hmmm. Who’s the boss here? On second thoughts don’t answer that.

I persist in my efforts to assert my supposed authority over him and eventually he relents... but then seems to change his mind and lunges to get the just released toy back between his teeth. We clash heads. There are few things more sturdy or boney than a dogs head. Suddenly there is blood everywhere from my cut lip. We head off back to the car to have 'words' and to try to stem the flow of blood. Now I'm going to have to go into work tomorrow to the accompaniment of claims that L is beating me up again.

(Monday 6th September)

Unplanned Activity

We get up early-ish and drive the thirty odd miles south to a place called Mytholmroyd, near Hebden Bridge in the Calder Valley. This is the setting for Alice’s Run which is a 10k race.



A bit of research reveals that this event is in memory of Alice Redmond, who was a student at Leeds Metropolitan University. One night she climbed out of her kitchen window on the third floor to help a fellow student who had become locked out of her flat. Unfortunately she slipped and fell to the concrete below. She died a few days later. She was 21.

This was in 2005 and ever since an annual 10km charity race has been run in her memory. The event also raises money for Epilepsy Action, whom Alice had worked for during a student placement.



Race registration and the finish are at Calder High School, where Alice was a pupil but they take us across to Brierley Field for the start, where they make us do a lap of the playing field. It takes us over 4 minutes to lap the field and we don’t get a km marker, so I assume there aren’t going to be any. Then my worst nightmare appears... mile markers. Well I need to get used to them, I’ve got thirteen of them to look forward to at the weekend.

After the lap around the field the route takes us onto the river tow-path and then becomes a mixture of road, woodland tracks and footpaths. None of which are too evil on my ankles. The same can’t be said of the hills, which started short and sharp but seemed to get progressively less short as the race went on or was that just my imagination and tired legs.

Some of the uphill sections were a bit narrow and caused bottlenecks as when one person up ahead decided to walk a stretch, we all had to. Overall though, it was all very scenic and somehow I clawed my way around in a very respectable 12th place.

The goody bag was reasonable; Dorset Cereal Bars were a sponsor! There were also crisps for the dogs and of course the coveted T-shirt.

There’s a bit of a mix up at the presentation when they give the over-40’s prize to someone who was behind me! I queried the results, as did several of the other over-40’s who'd left me for dust! I think it was all sorted in the end.

Hopefully this unplanned activity, as I was hoping to have been simply watching others swim this weekend, will have topped up my half marathon preparation and perhaps edged up my appetite into cheeseboard territory.

Which I finally got to indulge myself with... but it was a disappointment. It wasn’t a very local selection and very light on actual cheese, it was mostly salad. The Buck Inn has many things going for it but it won’t be making my (as yet unwritten) Good Cheeseboard Guide.

(Sunday 5th September)

An Interesting Route

A pleasant day around Malham today. Good weather too.



We walk out to Malham Cove.



Then onwards to Malham Tarn.



Then back to Gordale Scar. The path takes you down (or up depending on your direction) the waterfall at Gordale Scar.



This is an interesting route to say the least. That is to say the path goes down the waterfall. Somehow, eight years ago, we got the kids and Doggo to climb it. This time I’m not even sure I could sweet talk L down it let alone persuade the dogs to abseil down it.



We abort and find an easier way back to the Buck Inn.

As well as having decent beer, the food is pretty good at the Buck and certainly plentiful. What’s more, there’s a cheese board on the dessert menu. Unfortunately for the second night in a row the main course has defeated me. I must try harder tomorrow, as it’s our last night.

(Saturday 4th September)

Bit Of An Understatement

L is annoyed. Well that’s a bit of an understatement.

Her weekend, during which she was taking part in two of the swims in Lake Windermere, one of the mile swims on Saturday and the one-off two mile on the Sunday, has been cancelled. Well, actually officially postponed, which is not much good when you wake up on the Friday of a four day break you’ve booked time off for, for the specific purpose of doing those events.

Apparently the organisers are looking at a potential new 2010 date but I can’t see that happening. The algae isn’t going to clear overnight and we’re heading towards winter now.

Where were their contingency plans? Could they have done the swim in another part of the lake or perhaps in another of the lakes?

So what to do… Personally I would like to hit the Lakes anyway, there’s decent beer to be drunk up there and great scenery to do it in but my girl needs to be placated with something more substantial... and that something may be an event t-shirt. Hmmm. I’m less fussy, I just need to be placated with something dark, strong and beer like.

I switch the computer on and draw up a short list of races in nice places off the Runners World website, ones that will take entries on the day. After a brief debate and several strong coffees, Caernarfon comes a close second, because there’s no t-shirt, to something called Alice’s Run, a 10k near Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, which does. I feel a weekend based in Malham would be just the ticket. It’s a place I’ve wanted to revisit since we went there a few years ago. Comparing our combined memory banks we actually work out that our visit there was as far back as 2002... How time flies.

Anyhow, car packed and we’re off.

We check into exactly the same campsite as in 2002, and I remember it surprisingly well.



In fact I’m sure none of the toilet doors locked back then either. There are other more pleasant assorted memories that come flooding back along memory lane as well. Of course on that trip we had two youngish children with us, aged 9 and 11 and a very young collie. Doggo would have only been a year old. That young collie disgraced himself on several occasions as I recall. MD would have been so proud of the old man.

We walk into one of the two pubs in Malham, The Buck Inn.



Again it brings back a few memories but I don’t remember this... Old Peculiar on the bar. Well that's me placated.

(Friday 3rd September)

Bunking Off

When the alarm goes off on a morning L often suggests we bunk off. She always comes up with some tempting and persuasive arguments but no, again today I’m not convinced. Tomorrow we can bunk off, I promise, or at least pretend to. We’re off anyway and heading up to the Lake District. L is doing the Great North Swim. I’m spectating and because all that Old Peculiar and Snecklifter needs company, I’ll also be propping the bar up.



Having not bunked off, I’m not sure what’s best to do today training wise, run or bike? On the grounds that I’ve only cycled to work twice during August I choose the bike. Only two trips on the bike in August is terrible. I suppose I did have a couple of week’s holiday in there but even so.

It’s a pleasant pedal.

After work I ride home, kick the dogs’ footballs around the garden for a bit and then get the bus back over to Derby. We have a works meal tonight. It’s Indian, so unturnable really and a good start to my four days off.

Just as I’m ordering my first Cobra of the evening a text arrives on my phone. ‘URGENT: Great North Swim Postponed. Check www.greatswim.org for info.’ Hmmm. Is L having a laugh?

Apparently not. Checking the Great North Swim website reveals that they have ‘postponed’ the event due to the ‘prevalence of blue-green algae and the impact that this may have on your safety in the water’.

Talk about last minute... particularly considering how long the organisers must have known about the problem, as it is not something that has just occurred. We heard a warning about the algae back in June and were told to keep our dogs well clear of the water when we last went up there. Yet despite those algae warnings the Windermere Tri went ahead as planned in July.

So now they have 9,000 disgruntled punters who will have spent months training, booked accommodation and taken time off work. Call me cynical but perhaps the tourist industry didn’t want people to have time to think about cancelling...

(Thursday 2nd September)