For The Hell Of It

It’s a bit of a frosty one this morning, which will probably liven the boys up a bit for L. Not that they, particularly MD, need it.

L has recently booked tickets for a theatre trip with her sister. Nothing unusual in that but when she asked me to put the date, which is in May, in my diary I queried it. 'You’re going down to Milton Keynes for the theatre on a Thursday... why?' It turns out this cultural event isn’t next year but in 2012! That’s bizarre. How can any theatre think that far in advance? How can any person!

We have a couple of staff at work, both thankfully male, who are celebrating Movember are growing a moustache. The idea is simple, start November clean shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month. It’s supposed to be for charity but I think they’re just doing it for the hell of it. You would catch me doing it! Any any case, they've both grown a full beard which isn’t quite the idea, I don’t think.



I drive over to dog training and throw L out of the car somewhere along the A6. She’ll turn up somewhere later and I’ll bring her home again.

Our new TV arrives, blimey that was quick. I even remember how to watch TV and actually watch a whole programme. Probably be the only one, tomorrow the baton (remote control) will be handed over to Daughter and that’ll be that.

Potential PB Course...

It said ‘a potential road PB course’ on the entry form. Hmmm. What they didn't explain was that that only applies if you limit your race entries to the Barnsley postcode area e.g. in this hilly part of South Yorkshire.

At the race briefing they even had the audacity to describe the course as ‘almost flat’. I’d actually looked at the race profile on the website and it wasn't flat at all. They clearly have a sense of humour up here.



After a minutes silence, as its Remembrance Sunday, they walk us forward to the start line on the main road. The start itself is a touch chaotic as people push and shove a bit to get over the timing mat which only went half way across the road. In fact it took me longer to get across the start line than at many much bigger races but I suppose with chip timing it doesn’t really matter.

The pace is immediately very fast. This race apparently always attracts a larger than normal proportion of quality runners and today appears to be no exception. In fact Liz Yelling holds the female course record.

Liz isn’t here today and she isn’t a Yorkshire lass anyway but there’s still plenty of Yorkshire grit on show and that’s just the women. They breed ‘em tough and fast up here, as well as immune to the cold, in their lycra shorts and skimpy top in all weathers. I can’t keep up with hardly any of them and my view of the race is a sea of bobbing pony tails disappearing off into the distance, and that’s just the men.



My first complaint, cause there’s going to be one, and it’s a big one, is why the mile markers? It’s a 10km race, so obviously it needs to be marked in kms. Surely, that goes without saying.

I’ve seen a few races do this and it is only a few but I've no idea why they do it. Its no help whatsoever when you’re trying to pace yourself. Surely it's not a case of not wanting to spend money on km markers because they’ve already got a set of mile ones... This race did splash out on chip timing after all.

Still having recalculated my splits for a sub-40 minute 10k from a nice round 4:00 minute km to a slightly obscure and eye watering 6:25 minute mile, that’s as opposed to my recent 7:20 half marathon pace, I give it a go. Despite the not the flattest of ‘flat’ courses, I impressively (I think) and painfully, attack the course and was on my 6:25 pace for most of the way.

I survive the early climbs they chuck at us, in a successful attempt to soften us up, and the traffic that got among the race and at one point turned left across us. I was on my pace until the long, almost two mile, uphill drag to the finish caused me to effectively chuck the towel in. With hindsight, I could have probably run it better had I know that hill was coming and left something in the tank. I’ll know for next time...

Still a good time, 41:10 (chip time) and I think I may have enjoyed it, a bit. I think. Apart from the red t-shirt, it is never good to see red when you cross the line.

L was ecstatic with her time and I feel slightly outdone but we gloat together later in the Lincolnshire Poacher and she even lets me take her for curry.

(Sunday 14th November)

What Normal People Do On A Saturday

A strange day today. A lie in, a park session and then the rest of the day in. Perhaps this is what normal people do on a Saturday. I do a few jobs that have been on the 'to do' list for the last decade or so but only a few before I turn the computer on. Fatal mistake. Well some of the many jobs I need to do involved the computer, buying stuff you know.

Then I spend so much money on-line that it would have been far cheaper to go out. In fact it would have been far cheaper to have gone away for the weekend. Abroad.

Well I did need a new camera, desperately; those gig photos really weren’t up to scratch. We’re also been without a TV for some time. So Daughter will be ecstatic at that purchase. L too will be elated that I’ve got her a new cosy camping mat... perhaps, so that she can sleep in a tent next month when we go up to Langdale for the 10k, rather than having to spend the night in some posh hotel. I even got some new torches to illuminate the way.

Derby lose. Told you it was an strange day. I've kind of got used to them winning very week.

Spending the day in, also turns out to involve spending the evening in when L turns down my offer of a romantic Mexican cannibal film at Broadway. It's a shame but sensible and she placates me with an early night instead. Which is all good before tomorrow’s Barnsley 10k, that I’m trying to take seriously. Hence we're alcohol free tonight as well.

Instead we indulge with a heavily cheese-laden Lasagne for tea, for the carbs naturally. We’ll need to run fast to work all that off.

(Saturday 13th November)

Fashion Conscious Email

Its mega windy this morning so it seems to make sense to run into work rather than to cycle. Cycling would be more ‘entertaining’, sideways gusts and all that but running is perhaps safer. It’s more of a steeplechase than a run, as I had to hurdle many a fallen branch.

How hard should it be to email a knitting pattern? Ok... why do I want to email a knitting pattern you ask? Good question. Don’t worry about it. The fact is L emailed one to her work from our home account and it never arrived. So I emailed it to my work and again it never arrived. So in the end I picked it up at work via webmail, so that I could print it off. For some reason both our works’ email systems must have thought it was dodgy. I can’t see why though, it was just jpeg images. Must be some new fashion conscious email filter they’ve introduced.

L and Daughter keep complaining its cold and of course it isn’t. They’ll want the heating on next. True, the weather has perhaps got a bit chillier recently but it’s hardly wintry. Then today I get an email from Cairngorm Mountain saying they’re opening for skiing this weekend... as I was saying, the weather’s starting to get a bit colder now.

I run home from work, apart from the middle nine miles, where I hop on the bus. I’m only 10k training now, so no need to overdo it. Just as I’m nearing home the music in my ears is drowned out by two dogs going nuts. I seem to have inadvertently ran past the ‘boys’ and L without noticing them. I backtrack and make my apologies.

Tonight we head down to the Johnson Arms’ mini beer festival. It’s only a small affair but still worth a look. In fact, although they have a good long rotating beer list, the actual selection on at any one time is only six beers and they usually stock five. Thankfully some of them are good ones. In fact there were only a few on the rotating list we fancied but most of them seem to be on now. L cosies up to the Adnams’ Dutch Style Bokbier (5.3%) whilst I only have eyes for Milestone’s Old English Ale (4.9%). Well, I have a brief flirtation with the autumnal charm of Derventio’s Standard Bearer (4.5%) but I’m soon back in the arms of the Old English for the rest of the evening.

(Friday 12th November)

Anything Is Possible

I try to get out of bed this morning to go for an early morning run. If I’m going to get that 10k time back below 42 minutes I’m going to have to train a bit. Perhaps not this morning though as I hear the rain lashing against the window, again. I snuggle back into bed with L and by the time I get finally up the only viable option to get to work is by car, and of course hope that no one’s parked up in the middle of the A52 today.

My meeting, cancelled from Monday, finally happens but I have to cancel a pub lunch for it, so not terribly enamoured to be there. It goes ok though.

Then it’s squash, which I lose 4-1. Although there were several pluses. First the game that I won was 15-1 (yes we play to 15, which is none standard but don’t ask), and was nearly the first 15-0 whitewash for either of us. It would have been well funny if I’d achieved that. The second plus was that we carried on playing after the match to aid my opponent’s 10k training. We played two more games and I won both. My superior fitness winning through.

Not that I ever expect him to actually do a 10k of course but he did drunkenly agreed to one last week, so I’m revelling in the possibility at the moment. I guess anything is possible.

Anyhow I’m calling the score 4-3 and if we’d kept playing I’d have won overall eventually. After that I had to practically carry him to the pub.

I get home just before L, who’s just back from the cinema and a brick session (that’s my training plan) at the gym. So we’re both in need of sustenance and because Daughter had staked out the living room for some TV programme we have to take the bottle into the bedroom. Not a problem.

(Thursday 11th November)

Almost Dead

On the bike today and rather bizarrely I get shouted out by a chap who had not only parked his car in the cycle lane in Risley but then got out of the car without looking. I have to swerve to avoid colliding with him.... and he shouts at me! He was a huge chap, well overweight, he could have done with doing a bit of cycling himself but I think probably even walking would have been beyond him. I probably burned more calories in that swerve than he will do in the rest of the week.

This morning L asks whether she’s got life insurance. She has but does the fact she’s enquiring mean she's more ill that I thought?

It’s the tuition fees demonstration in London today. Son was on about hitching a lift on the coach to blag a day out in London. Though I can’t see the NUS letting him get away with that. All the same I look out for him on the BBC news. No sign. Turns out he stayed in Warwick. He’s well out of it.

Can’t believe this photo from the BBC website. Talk about staged. All those cameramen just happened to be there when that lad kicked a window in...



I cycle to the pool for a swim. I think that’s three weeks in a row. When I arrive I text L ‘Alive. At pool’, as I usually do to confirm that I’ve survived another battle with the traffic. Her response ‘Almost dead. At work’ isn’t encouraging but quite witty. Hope I don’t need to resuscitate her later with Leffe.

It’s Doggo’s late training session tonight. His one evening a month when he gets the training all to himself. MD isn’t happy though and sits there looking a bit pathetic in the car. He does that very well.

(Wednesday 10th November)

Preserving Front Line Services

In the car again today because I need to be home and in Lenton for 6pm. Tonight I investigate a possible new ‘career’ in coaching and have enrolled on a course which starts tonight. It’s run by the council, so I’m not getting too excited.

L, who’s looking a bit ill but naturally won't admit it, is also probably thinking about a new career or maybe just retirement. She says it’s positively ‘icy’ at work this morning and she’s not talking about the weather. Maybe that’s why she’s feeling off colour. As expected the refit at work has upset a few people. She worries too much. You can’t beat a bit of infighting. If she retired she’d miss all that.

So to Nottingham City Council’s Coach Recruitment Programme. Tonight they teach us how to coach a new game. They make one up especially, so that the rules are new to us and then get us to make one up as well. It’s all quite fun actually. We even learn how to give a health and safety briefing... guess I should have seen that one coming. Then, blimey, another free buffet. A very large and impressive buffet, no wonder council funds are under pressure. When they talk about preserving front line services amongst all the budget cuts, it’s good to see they’ve not only retained the buffet but kept it at a high standard.

The evening is finished off with more red tape, the filling in of CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) disclosure forms. You need to be CRB checked before you can do any coaching and there are coaching opportunities on this course. They give us a list of these and among them is a post with Notts Athletic Club which could be interesting, or there’s even the chance to rejoin the dark art that is orienteering. We used to do quite a bit of orienteering a few years ago and there’s a chance to coach with the Nottingham Orienteering Club.

(Tuesday 9th November)