Trashed elbow

And the Earl had said: 'This is my hour, Flay. You must go from here, Mr Flay. You must go away. This is the hour of my reincarnation. I must be alone with him. That you killed him is your glory. That I can take him to them is mine. Good-bye, for my life is beginning. Good-bye ... good-bye.' from Titus Groan

Labels: MAMMON, SELF IMPROVEMENT, WORDS

A mouse lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam
A windmill with a mouse in and he wasn't grousin'
He sang every morning, "How lucky I am,
Living in a windmill in old Amsterdam!"

I saw a mouse! (Where?)
There on the stair!
(Where on the stair?)
Right there!
A little mouse with clogs on
(Well I declare!)
Going clip-clippety-clop on the stair

***

I was on duty Friday and Monday, the caretaking gig. The building is a former halls of residence. I also happen to live there. When the usual guy's away, I merely have to be out of bed by nine o'clock, let anyone relevant in and make sure the place doesn't get worked over. My previous stint on the clock included asbestos removal, giant rodents and a police manhunt. There are many ways to make a living, this is one.

Things promised to be much quieter this time round, although Dave (the usual guy) told me he'd been having some mouse problems in his kitchen. With little else to do (other than watch Wimbledon being rained off on the telly) I resolved to see if I couldn't lighten his load a little by catching one or two of the blighters.

To this end, I erected a comedy 'propped up box' trap in the kitchen, with a succession of shoelaces tied together to pull the prop out as I couldn't find a long enough piece of string. I settled down and played the waiting game. Occasionally, I'd hear promising scuffling noises, which I took to come from the kitchen skirting board, a renowned hotspot of mouse activity, but nothing emerged. After about 45 minutes of false alarms, I decided the mouse (or mice) was just messing me about. I was also getting peckish and quite fancied eating the piece of toast that I'd been using as bait.

Turning around (chewing on my piece of floor toast), what should I see in the corridor but a mouse, gaily running in circles? Well I declare, I thought, he was out there all the while. I swiftly threw a towel over him and grabbed a box to stuff him into. I picked up the balled-up towel and shook it out into the box.

No dice. Or, rather, no mice.

The only place he could have gone from under the towel was under the door of the communal room and I found this tough to believe as the gap under the door didn't look as if it would have given an ant easy passage. However, I opened the door just in time to see the mouse vanish under the sofa. I pulled out the sofa and he ran under the armchair. I pulled this out and he squeezed back out under the door, which I'd had the partial foresight to close.

I dashed back into the kitchen and watched as the mouse vanished under the refrigerator. This time, I was determined there would be no errors. I cleared away all the furniture around the fridge for ease of movement and armed myself with a mop, with which to obstruct the errant mouse's escape or, as a last resort, to bash his head in.

Just as I was about to pull the fridge out from the wall, something caught my eye: it was a mouse in the garden, scurrying away from the glass kitchen door, having apparently got out from behind the fridge via some unknown crack in the wall. Son of a gun, I thought. It was a bit like the dream I had where I was holding Paul Daniels prisoner and he ended up making a complete arse of me.

I pulled out the fridge to have a look at the crack in the wall. There wasn't one but the mouse, sensing his opportunity, bolted out from behind the fridge and made the safety of the gap in the skitchen skirting board while it was still dawning on me that the mouse in the garden had, in fact, been a different mouse.

At this point, I threw in the towel. The mouse had made me look like a complete oaf and it was nearly five o'clock. I spent the weekend away, camping in the Lake District and getting drunk, leaving the cocky rodent free to enjoy the run of the halls.

Then, on Monday, the mouse got over confident: he decided to run right past me in the corridor while I was just standing there composing a text message. Either that or he thought I was such an easy mark he could tie my shoelaces together or some other such cartoonish rodent villainy. Having despaired of the 'kid gloves' approach, I unceremoniously kicked him against the wall. The mouse tried to get away, so I gave him another boot. He rolled on his back and made piteous squeaks of protest but I was implacable: I grabbed a plastic packing crate that was lying in the corridor and forced him into it. Having achieved all this, I relented a little and gave him some peanut butter on toast and a couple of bogroll tubes to keep him entertained while I saw out the clock on the rest of the working day.

Despite my best efforts to make Irvine* feel at home, he wasn't at all happy. He kept trying to jump out of his plastic prison, with about as much success as I might expect if I tried to leap out of Warwick Castle from the courtyard.

I couldn't help but feel a bit depressed that this feeble-minded rodent had been outwitting me with such ease on Friday. I was evidently having a bad day.

Come five o'clock I was off duty so I punched a couple of holes in the lid of a jar and went to scoop up my mouse. He fled inside one of the toilet roll holders. Conveniently enough, this fit perfectly into the mouth of the jar, so I stuck it in and did my best cocktail shake until the mouse was dislodged and fell in. I then screwed the lid on and rode off to Wormwood Scrubs with jar, mouse and all.

I released Irvine by the stables, into which he scurried without a backwards glance, leaving me feeling strangely bereft. All that effort on one mouse. Not that he appreciated it, the ungrateful vermin.

***

A note on the name I chose for my temporary pet:

A few years ago, around the time the first Hulk film came out, I saw a programme about how the character had been treated in the comics and on the TV show. Stan Lee, the character's creator, was very critical of the TV show changing the name of the Hulk's alter-ego from Bruce Banner to David Banner.

"That's like calling Mickey Mouse, Irvine Mouse," said Lee, a man with an admirable talent for explaining What The Problem Is.

Or he may have said Irving. I can't remember.

Labels: NATURE, SELF IMPROVEMENT, UNGRATEFUL VERMIN

Last October, I ran the inaugural RunLiverpool Marathon, where I had a bit of a torrid time. I staggered the last six miles, tipping bottled water over my screamingly painful knees, telling myself I'd never, ever be so foolish as to run another marathon. Then, when I'd finished, I instantly decided that I'd actually really enjoyed myself and I'd sign up for another one in the spring.

I chose another first-time race, the Greater Manchester Marathon, figuring that some of my friends from the area might also fancy a crack at it. They told me where to go.

Around mid-March when we were enjoying some particularly clement weather, I began to fret that an end-of-April marathon might be a bit on the warm side. After all, this is what the last weekend of April was like last year:

Alright for bloody Frankel. Alright for me too actually, as I'd picked Dubawi Gold to come second.

However, the end of April this year was wet. Very wet. It had been peeing it down for weeks and weather forecasts were for a month's worth of rain on the Sunday (race day) with pretty robust wind. This meant that, of the projected 8,000 starters, a couple of thousand thought better of it. Not me though. I'm dead tough.

Look at that weather! Makes you glad to be alive

After training like a lunatic for the last couple of months, I was hoping to make it round the course in 3:10, which would make me 'good for my age' according to the criteria of the London Marathon website. I had a bit of a race plan, which involved going easy-ish for eight miles, picking up the speed until halfway, then hanging on until 20 miles, then really, really, really hanging on for the last six-and-a-bit. Of course, as soon as they let us go, I got over-excited and steamed off like a gibbering, wide-eyed mess. Not quite Frankel, but you get the idea.

Spotters badge!

The day was grey and wet, but there was a lot of support and encouragement around the course. At one stage we passed through a country park which had been turned into a bog by the weather conditions, so unlucky to anyone who fancied finishing with clean trainers. Towards the end of the course, we also got sent through a subway, then up some steps, which really isn't what your legs want after 25 miles of continuous pounding.

The country park in good weather

Most of the way, I felt ok. When I started to feel tired, I'd slow down a bit and try to work out Japanese verbs and their opposites in my head, which proved sufficiently distracting. After a heroic last 10k (I improved about 80 places, although I suspect this was more down to other people being in tremendous physical distress than any olympian burst of speed on my part) I waddled over the line in 3:09:49, making me officially good for my age. In fact, as age 33 is the equivalent of a scratch handicap, my time makes me officially just good, albeit by a rather more slender margin than I would have liked.

What wasn't good was the baggage reclaim fiasco that followed. Everyone's identical 'Greater Manchester Marathon' bags were in a disorganised heap in a tent with no means of being sorted or searched. I ended up waiting about ninety minutes in my piss-wet running gear with a piece of tin foil to keep me warm and I think a fair few people ended up needing medical attention. At one point, I found myself stuck in line next to a guy who'd finished more than an hour behind me.

"When I finally get my bag back, I'm probably going to cry," I told him. "Especially if my wallet's been stolen."

Happily, I did eventually locate my bag, thanks largely to the fact that my tracksuit bottoms were sticking conspicuously out of the top. The lack of organisation and co-ordination at the baggage tent though had caused a completely avoidable emergency and, had I read in the following morning's paper that someone had died of hypothemia, exposure, or simply old age waiting to get their bag back, I should not have been surprised.

The Greater Manchester Marathon is currently scoring about 50% approval on the feedback section of the Runners World UK website (to put that in some kind of context, most events have to do quite badly to get less than 80%) and the organisers have issued an apology online for nearly killing everyone.

A couple of other marathons were taking place on the same day: Milton Keynes ended up being a bit longer than planned as the course had to be altered at the last minute to avoid a flooded area, while the Shakespeare Marathon became the Shakespeare Half Marathon at very short notice after some parts of the course were deemed unsafe. Apparently some of the runners didn't realise this had happened and were a bit taken aback to find out at 10 miles in that they were nearly finished.

Since the weekend, I've been walking like a womble with his shoelaces tied together and getting back on the beer after a month's abstinence. I also need a new pair of trainers, if not a new pastime.

Labels: NATURE, SELF IMPROVEMENT

Hi, I'd like to volunteer to help on Sunday. Not a qualified first aider or anything, but can say the alphabet backwards very quickly and my PB for holding my breath is slightly over two minutes, so if that qualifies me for any special duties, feel free to use my unique skill set.

The event in question was the Finsbury Park Festival of Running 5k, in aid of Bowel Cancer UK. The festival was organised by my running club, London Heathside, with whom I've been doing so much running recently that my legs don't even feel like my own any more. Hence another good reason to volunteer and sit the race out, aside from the worthiness of the cause.

In fact, there was a whole load of races as there were trials for the London Mini-Marathon, the pre-race spectacle of lots of kids legging it round a massively shortened course.

Heathside did well in the grown-ups race (unsurprisingly as we outnumbered all the other competitors) and there was this delightful inflatable colon thing at the finish for people to explore:



The weather was absolutely horrific but I had the warm glow of knowing I was contributing to the greater good. I also had the warmer glow of having a waterproof jacket and a hot cup of tea while everyone else was running around in the pissing wet.

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT

The RunLiverpool Marathon is little more than a week away and my body's just about holding together. Here's a rundown of my laughingly titled preparations (although from some of the stuff I've read by/about the organisers, I have the comfort of knowing I'm not the worst-prepared person for this event).

The watch:

As a little motivational treat, I got myself a new sports watch: the Timex Ironman, named after those nutcase triathlons where people swim the channel, cycle from Calais to Vladivostock, then flap their arms and fly to the moon (or something).

The watch looks chunky and purposeful, just like an Ironman competitor. It also boasts water resistance up to a depth of 100 metres, unlike most Ironman competitors (to the best of my knowledge).

I can't help feeling that, if, at any stage during a triathlon, I find myself to be 100 metres underwater, the state of my watch will be the least of my worries.

Injury:

Without wishing to tempt fate, I've always been pretty lucky with injuries, needing none of the keyhole surgery, bone-pinning or skin grafts which have been the lot of many friends.

Unfortunately, I collected a pretty meaty whack on the ankle playing football in the summer. This resulted in several minutes boo-hoo-hooing on the floor, a huge, swollen cankle and a couple of weeks' hobbling and wobbling.

This, of course, right at the time when I wanted to start training properly. Consequently, I've had to squeeze the training into a shorter period than I would've liked, including, as soon as I was walking properly...

Running camp in the Peak District with Glyn:

His idea, by the way. Summary: take a map.


Not that the camp site was on a slope or anything

Warm-up races:

The Kenilworth Half Marathon went splendidly for about four miles, then I realised I'd gone off a wee bit too fast and spent the remainder of the race watching a procession of other runners go past like a particularly horrible clothes rail.

Streatham Common XC was very hilly and challenging but went really well, until right at the end when I bounded past the guy in front of me, then turned in entirely the wrong direction and ended up finishing about ten yards behind him. I should perhaps have saved my heroic burst until the finishing line was in sight.

The Coventry Half Marathon is this weekend, in the midst of an unseasonable heatwave.

Black September:

For the second year running (ha!) I haven't touched any alcohol since the start of September. My resolve not to hit the bar until the afternoon of October 9th should make me the life and soul of the party at my cousin Alison's wedding (October 8th).

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT

Interesting point raised by Mr Bailey recently, the point being that of fundraising. We were watching the arse end of the 'Great' Manchester Run on the BBC which was taking place in the Great British Weather, making it a little difficult to distinguish from its successor, the Great Salford Swim. We were hungover. At least, I was.

Why, Bailey asked, do people chuck money at people who are running? So-and-so is running such-and-such for blah-de-blah. They're running because they want to. I don't understand it.

Steady, I said, reminding him that I have earned a few pennies for worthy causes myself via runs of various distances. I observed that a bit of vicarious guilt about orphans in Africa is probably quite a useful motivational tool when you're at the 20-mile mark in a marathon and you're about ready to pack it in.

The Bailster graciously conceded the validity of this, but pointed out the myth of self-sacrifice involved in the fundraising campaign: I'm running the London Marathon for Oxfam, I'm climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for Unicef - yes, these are challenging activities, but the people want to do them. Unicef et al are incidental.

I agreed with these examples although I know that in a lot of cases people are doing these events for smaller charities in which they have a genuine interest. Heaven forbid, should the unspeakable happen to either of my cats, I wouldn't feel like a hypocrite for running from John O'Groats to Land's End in a Feline Alzheimer's Foundation vest.

However, Bailey and I are quite active people and enjoy taking on new challenges. I, for example, am still learning how to eat soup the approved way (to raise money for endangered Jaguars, since you ask). I asked the obvious question: what could the likes of us attempt as a fundraiser that would be a challenge but genuinely self-sacrificing and something we really wouldn't want to do?

Bailey thought about this while the Great British Weather beat indefatigably on the window and random interviewees on the box spouted off about how much money they'd raised by jogging a bit over six miles.

Well, he said, eventually. Anything physical's out of the question, so how about this: we have to put on four stone in four months.

That would be difficult, you definitely wouldn't want to do it and, best of all, nobody would be prepared to give you a penny whereas they wouldn't think twice about it if you were going up Kilimanjaro which you wanted to do anyway.

I thought this a tremendously good idea and my only regret is I wasn't quick enough to come back with the suggestion that occurred to me a day or two later: we both have chemo to raise money for Cancer Research.

Labels: COMRADES, SELF IMPROVEMENT

The first race of this year was an absolute toughie: a very hilly 10k that knocked hell out of my legs, not to mention my brother.

It wasn't all bad though: at least I was given an auspicious race number at registration.

ME: McKeowns, Daniel and Joseph.

SHE: Right, Daniel, number 69; Joseph, number 70.

ME: Back of the net!


Why so delighted with 69? Why, gentle reader, because of its rotational symmetry, of course. In celebration of this happy fact, I proudly wore my race number upside down.


See?


This confused the registration lady somewhat.

SHE: Er, I think your number's on upside down.

ME: It's worse than you think - I've also got my socks on the wrong feet.


When the results were posted on the noticeboard, I found the bemused organisers had crossed out the number next to my finishing position three times before finally mastering the fact that an upside-down 69 isn't 96.

Labels: MISDEEDS, ROTATIONAL SYMMETRY, SELF IMPROVEMENT

_{Image from http://www.learntarot.com
Go take a look, you haters}

The dad has, he flatly informs me, his hand in a plaster cast, fallen foul of a hairline fracture or similar. Apparently he did it with his bike, although, as he was walking with his bike rather than riding it at the time, I suspect there may have been some alcohol involved as well.

You'll get bugger all sympathy out of me, I tell him over the phone. This is not strictly true. I do sympathise with him. I'm also stoked that, when I bought his Christmas present yesterday, I ignored the little voice in the back of my head that told me to get him a watch.

The dad has never been in plaster before. Nor had I when I received a similar injury in an incident involving football and a perfidious Frenchman with murder in his heart (see archive of March '06 for misty-eyed rememb'rance) but I regard the fracturing of one's wrist as a beginning out of an ending, much like the death card in a tarot pack.

With one-handed nonchalance, I learned to tie my tie, open up my customary large Starbucks coffee, add a solid eight-second pour of sugar and seal the cup again, beat my flatmate at pool, put together my longest-ever losing streak at left-handed janken, play Happy birthday to you on the guitar and many more things besides.

When I single-handedly split apart my chopsticks on the table with a deft rap, the glowing compliment I got from Wes took my mind completely off the splinters of bamboo stuck in my fingers.

I bestrode the earth like a colossus and feared no man living.

Ahem.

I hope the dad will understand how stoical I'm being about what is, after all, his injury. I'm back home this weekend, so I'll take a marker with me and challenge him to get as many phone numbers as he can before the well of sympathy runs dry.

Labels: CLAN, SELF IMPROVEMENT

Just to update everyone on how the Loch Ness Marathon went, and very big thanks to those of you who donated to Macmillan Cancer Support via our Justgiving page; we've raised over £500, which will:

a. Provide more good days for people living with cancer

b. Land Macmillan another couple of London Marathon places, so some other pair of willing idiots have to pester their friends for something in the region of six grand

Either way, I'm sure you'll agree that's an outstanding result!

Right, how it went - I'm sure you're all dying to hear about how we faced and overcame our biggest challenge since illiteracy so I'll spare you details of our travel (which was a marathon in its own right) and skip to the race.

The course begins at the south end of Loch Ness and follows the main road all the way up into Inverness. The road is closed to traffic for the day, with the welcome exception of ambulances and the occasional hearse.

Not deeming the marathon sufficiently hellish in its own right, the organisers lined us up an hour-long bus trip to the start line. To be more exact, the bus dropped us off ten minutes from the start. Twenty minutes before the start. So long warm-up.

Just in case we were still suffering from any lingering vestiges of optimism, the morning had settled into the kind of steady, persistent drizzle which gives the people of the highlands their cheery disposition and impressive suicide rate.

Then some funny bastard put "500 miles" by the Proclaimers on the PA system and a couple of thousand soggy joggers lurched out onto the road, bound for Inverness.

The first nine miles or so were fairly steep downhill, which probably sounds ideal - it's not. Your legs get pulverised. After this, we emerged onto the side of Loch Ness for the next nine miles, which were flat and scenic.

Unfortunately, with all the damage wrought by the first section and the prospect of many, many more miles to come, you tend to plod along thinking things like: "I've stacked this," and "Marathons are rubbish".

Not being a big city marathon, there aren't the throngs of people cheering that you'd get in somewhere like London, New York or possibly even Leicester. This changed after around 17 miles when we went through a place called Dores.

People lined the streets of the town, cheering runners on and handing out sweets and drinks, not because they like runners, but simply because they're a collection of nasty, twisted perverts.

The reason is, straight after the town, from mile 18 onwards, is THE hill.

So, once a year the people of Dores take a break from watching Songs of Praise on the telly and take to the street to derive sadistic delight from encouraging a bunch of sweaty, exhausted runners to put on a bit of a spurt, knowing full well that they'll get overexcited and waste a bunch of energy. Then, when they're faced with a two-mile incline, they'll have shot their bolt and they will, in all probability, expire in a ditch.

(In fact, I went past a collapsed guy being loaded into an ambulance on this stretch, so the people of Dores can have a good laugh about that one.)

Fortunately, once you've made it up and over the hill, it's then plain sailing to the finish. Although it does take about an hour.

By this stage, the sun had at last come out, as had the people of Inverness. In one last twist of the knife, you go past the finish on the other side of the river before crossing and retracing your steps.

I crossed the line in just under 3h 30 and waddled off to get a coffee. Ed arrived just over an hour later, looking every inch the shot putter in his wicked Macmillan vest.

Both of us were walking like we'd had our first shower in prison. Of course, we were now free to get on the keg for the first time in a month. Sadly, the first pint we had was foul - some pubs just have no sense of occasion.

It was hard, our legs hurt, and our mouths tasted like we'd been eating bees. Nonetheless, we had made it through the marathon - it's a great feeling and I'd recommend anyone to have a crack at doing it*.

Anyway, if you've made it to the bottom of this rambling, please dry your eyes and pull yourself together. Many thanks again for supporting our effort and don't forget to check out the photos on our Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=141406819234385


*Except normal people

Labels: COMRADES, SELF IMPROVEMENT

The marathon is now but a fortnight distant and I am into the "taper" stage of my training, during which I run less and eat cheesecake like it's going out of fashion.

In truth, the cheesecake-eating bit is not conventional marathon training, but is a handy crutch for me as Edwin and I have sworn off alcohol until we are safely finished in Loch Ness.

A bottle of whisky which I bought the other day sits unharmed on the kitchen shelf, taunting me. Time for some more cheesecake.

At this stage in proceedings, it's not uncommon for runners to get paranoid about injury and illness: What if I get a cold? What if I tear a hamstring? I managed to do myself a bit of damage the other day while performing routine DIY surgery on my foot with a kitchen knife. Perhaps I should be more cautious.

I forced myself out of bed for a 5k race this morning, which went a lot better than last night's jog (ie. I didn't have to do an emergency stealth poo round the back of King's Cross station). There was also a big gorilla at the finishing line, giving out high-fives to runners.

As I was collecting my bag, the gorilla removed its head to reveal the rather hot face of a university student.

"That's not a gorilla!" I shouted indignantly. "That's just a man in a gorilla suit!"

The race organisers tutted and shook their heads at this intelligence. I'm sure one of them muttered the word "wanker".

Two more weeks.

Labels: IMPENDING DOOM, SELF IMPROVEMENT, TALES

I'm running a marathon on the 3rd of October. It's not something I intended to go on about too much on this blog but I seem to be spending a lot of time plodding around North London in my trusty Asics Gel Guano that would otherwise be spent blogging so I suppose it's as well to let it pay its way a bit.

Edwin and I dared each other into signing up for the Loch Ness Marathon back in March; we were still high on testosterone and ibuprofen from him running the England Kilomathon and me running the Silverstone Half. It's a much smaller affair than something like the London Marathon: the competitors are given a lift out of Inverness to the southern end of Loch Ness and run back into town along a lovely, scenic (hilly) route.

I've never run a marathon before but it's always been on my list of stuff to do: write a novel, spend a night in a cell, run a marathon. From October 4th, I can finally devote my attention to that novel.

Most of this week has been spent sorting out transport and accommodation for our adventure. Actually, the accommodation hasn't been sorted yet – I was meant to do it yesterday but I refused to do anything on Friday 13th. Despite only going out once all day, I managed to convince myself I'd lost my phone. I hadn't.

Not unnaturally, I'm wondering how long it's going to take me to run the 26-odd miles into Inverness. I've focussed my training more on speed than endurance – as I pointed out to Ed, I don't mind collapsing and dying after 20 miles, so long as it hasn't taken me six hours to get there.

The Runners' World site has rather a handy race time predicty thingy: you enter one of your recent race times with your target distance and it pulls an estimated time out of its bottom, based on some clever algorithm which involves a lot of brackets and italics.

I have my doubts about the accuracy of this system, so I designed my own clever algorithm for pulling a projected race time out of thin air. Ready? Here it is:

target time = recent time X (target distance km / recent distance km) + (target distance – recent distance as minutes)

For example working out a 10k time from a 5k time, you double the time (multiply by 10k over 5k) and add 5 minutes (10k minus 5k). Simple? Simple.

Like the Runners' World race time predicty thingy, my system is a little suspect when it comes to predicting times for a distance shorter than sample data. Using a recent 5k time, the algorithm declared that I should be able to take about a minute off the world record for the 1500m. It also told me that I'd struggle to complete the 100m within 24 hours.

If anyone wants to offer me a six-figure research grant, I'm sure I could hone it a bit.

***

This is what I've got to look forward to.



I love the bit where the bloke in the schoolgirl uniform comes into view and the commentator starts going on about charity runners: why does it necessarily follow that just because someone's running in drag they're therefore raising money for a good cause?

He could just be a filthy, degraded pervert who happens to enjoy endurance running.

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT, U-TUBE

Joe and I obviously have far too much time on our hands.

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT, U-TUBE

On Sunday May 23rd, after five months of training, one drunken press release, four copies of Runner’s World and no early nights whatsoever, I jumped out of bed ready to complete the final leg of my Human Rights Half-marathon Hat-trick.

Perhaps ‘jumped’ isn’t exactly right; for one thing, my bedroom in the mum’s house is so small that if I genuinely jumped out of bed, I’d probably go clean through the window. I was feeling fairly chipper though and probably a bit better prepared than my running buddy Edwin, who had come all the way to Coventry the previous evening, only to discover that he’d left his race number and timing chip in Nottingham, the consequent two-hour round trip to recover said number and chip putting a bit of a dent in his plans for an early night. (Fair play to his wife for going with him and sharing the driving duties instead of making him go alone which I would definitely have done.)

I met Ed outside the pub at the bottom of my road after breakfast and we set off to the race start together.



We had both run the Cov half seven months previously: last year it was held in October. This year, for some reason, they decided to shift it to the end of May. Predictably enough, it was fiercely hot, so I wasn’t planning to try for a new PB. I was planning to have a celebratory barbecue afterwards though.



Despite the sweltering heat, the race had attracted the usual assortment of people in fancy dress – there was a bunch of banana costumes, Peter Pan, Superman and a giant hamster, among others. There is a brilliant passage in The Looniness of the Long Distance Runner by Russell Taylor in which he describes an affliction called Get the Womble, which affects inexperienced runners.

Roughly paraphrased, it goes something like this:

- Early in the race, you get overtaken by a runner in a Womble costume
- Humiliated, you forget your pacing strategy and set off after the Womble
- You wear yourself out and have to retire from the race
- You never find out that the Womble was a former county athletics champion whose mates bet them they couldn’t break three hours for the marathon dressed in a silly costume

Thankfully, I read this before Batman and Robin left me standing at the Sheffield half. I actually caught Batman around about the ten mile mark, but I didn’t see Robin again, meaning either I missed him in the excitement, he dropped out or – worst of all – he finished inside one hour forty.

There were well over 2,000 entrants for the Cov half, although there weren’t anything like that amount of finishers. I did hear reports of people walking away before the race, discouraged by the heat. Ed and I met up with Breen, another lad off our football team just before the start and off we set together.

About a mile in, we got overtaken by a guy whom Ed dubbed ‘the Roadrunner’, who was taking tiny steps but at a higher turnover rate than an Olympic sprinter. Part of the reason for his unorthodox gait might have been his footwear – he was rocking a pair of those weird rubber sock-shoes with individual toes; as an article in Runner’s World put it, the £100 pound pair of shoes which simulates not wearing a pair of shoes at all. He hyper-shuffled his way off into the distance. We weren’t foolhardy enough to give chase.

We spread out over the course of the first four miles; Breen had the foresight to bring an mp3 player with him, I was content just to listen to the pitter-patter (or repeated thudding) of my own two feet and engage in occasional chat with fellow runners. I’ve no idea how Ed gets through miles of solitary running, although I’ve always suspected he ‘spots’ himself (“Looking good! Yeah! Ugh! Feel the burn!”)

On top of the heat, Coventry is a really hilly course and the miles weren’t exactly flying past. Truth be told, I threw up a tiny bit in my mouth while we were running up Torrington Avenue, although I could merely have been experiencing a nauseating flashback to fruitless Monday trips to Jobcentre Plus.

Although I’m not bad at ignoring Wombles, superheroes and similar, I do tend to get a bit pin-eyed if I see other charity runners ahead of me. Perhaps we could call this syndrome ‘Get Macmillan’. Anyway, at the start of the race I’d noticed a gang of people running for a children’s charity in lurid fluorescent vests almost identical to my own. Coming through Warwick Uni and entering the really back-breaking part of the course, I saw one of these vests up ahead. I’m not stupid enough to start sprinting when there’s still five miles to run, but I did put in a bit of an effort to reel this guy in. Imagine my horror when I caught up to find he had Somewhere-or-other Striders on his back – just a club runner with a particularly horrible vest. Worse still, he was looking smooth and relaxed and I’d just wasted a bunch of energy catching up with him and felt knackered.

The course headed up Gibbet Hill onto Kenilworth Rd, downhill again, then uphill again. Strider, who’d been dogging my heels for about a mile, suddenly lost interest and started walking. I didn’t know whether to feel glad I’d outlasted him or apprehensive about what effect the conditions might have on me over the last four miles.

At the outset of the race, I’d set myself a provisional finishing target of 1:45 – outside my PB, but definitely good enough in the conditions. Problem was, I’d been outside that time from the start and hadn’t felt confident about making up the difference. This all changed as we went up Beanfield Avenue, for two reasons:

1.At this point in last year’s run I’d felt absolutely dead, this time I still felt able to run
2.I overtook Superman

Into the Memorial Park we went and – glory of glories – I overtook the Roadrunner! He was still pottering along with that quick-stepping gait which makes a race walker look like a triple jumper. Past him I went and moments later he was hauled down by a famished-looking Coyote on Acme rocket skates.



Ignoring the ferocious snarls and distressed ‘meep-meep’ noises behind me, I plodded on, leaving the park and entering the final mile. One runner had given up and taken refuge from the blazing sun in someone’s garden hedge. When asked, he said he was fine but he was definitely staying put.

Half a mile to go. A couple of kids washing their dad’s car with a hose and drenching grateful runners as they go past. Across the ring road and back into the city centre. Quarter of a mile to go and, with a bit of a push, I could still go inside 1:45. 300m, 200m... Crowds of people on both sides of the road, I’m running hard, shouting at myself like a weirdo... Past one final runner, ruining his race finish photo and over the line about fifteen seconds inside my target. Pump fist, blunder over to side of road, collapse heavily against barrier in the shade, no more running.

After collecting my bag, I went down to the first aid / physio tent. Happily, I was assured that genuine injury was not a prerequisite for a leg rub and all comers were welcome. It seems I was the first person to investigate this: there were no other runners in the tent and I ended up with one masseuse for each leg.

I came out of the tent and – conveniently enough – Ed was standing right outside. He’d had a tough time and had suffered the indignity of being overtaken by the banana bunch. He reported that one of the bananas had collapsed of heat exhaustion in the Memorial Park. I asked if anyone had trod on him and slipped over.





Off we went for a well-earned pint and to prepare for the barbecue, our running complete.

Of course, we are running our first marathon at Loch Ness in October so it’s not time to bin the running shoes just yet.

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT

For part two of my half marathon hat-trick (justgiving page), I ran the Sheffield half on Sunday morning.

To get myself in the mood, I treated myself to a trip to the London Marathon Expo, despite TfL's insistence on buggering about with the transport system.


Taking a time predictor test at the London Marathon Expo.
It didn't predict anything good.

With the streets of our nation's capital choked with people flocking to see the marathon, it's a good thing I did have something on this weekend, otherwise I would probably have been a bit fed up not to be taking part. I was running a half on my own for the first time. Kate was running the 3km fun run, but I still felt a bit lonely with no one to talk to.


Kate and I, gearing ourselves up

I entertained myself through the early stages by playing pub cricket, although Sheffield's pubs yielded a meagre eight runs for the loss of 15 wickets.

It was hot and hilly and the organisers, with debatable wisdom, saved the energy drink stop for just before the 10-mile mark, which was rather too late.


Amnesty pulls clear of Cancer Research UK.
Take that, Race for Life!

The Female 35+ section yielded the most drama of the day as the leader came into the final straight in the stadium and collapsed flat on her face. While she was wobbling and crawling around, another runner came sailing through to win the category. Medical staff were on hand but weren't allowed to touch her as this would have meant disqualification.



Eventually, she staggered across the line like a crippled beggar and was loaded into an ambulance.

Just over 10 minutes later, I cam wobbling into the stadium myself to finish in a new PB of 1:41:04. Kate told me about the F35 face-planter and also that she'd been talking about me to Radio Sheffield, upon which point the Radio Sheffield lady rocked up to hear some more. Hurray, I'm famous!

Kate, for her part, had completed the fun run, then gone off and bought herself a full English breakfast with MY money. I do tip my hat to her for finding a place that laid on breakfast for £3 though.


The commemorative gong was a nice shade of blue that matches my eyes


The prizes for finishing the fun run look like they
fell out of a third-world christmas stocking

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT

One day, I'm going to suggest something stupid to Edwin and he's going to say "No, Dan - that's just stupid."

It hasn't happened yet. The last stupid thing I suggested to him was entering this year's Loch Ness Marathon. Ten minutes later, we'd both dropped forty notes and had our race numbers. I just can't wait.

This weekend's stupidity wasn't quite on the same scale, but it was still pretty daft: enter two 10k races. This worked out pretty well as the Saturday one was in Nottingham (handy for Ed) and the Sunday was in Coventry (handy for both of us).

Saturday saw us lining up in glorious sunshine in Cotgrave Country Park for the Paws 10k (raising money for mutts). We overheard one veteran of a previous race discussing the hill with a friend. This seemed rather inauspicious; as I remarked to Edwin, definite article prefixes seldom betoken glad tidings: the clap, the taxman, etc.

Off we went, to slowly fry on a series of slopes. Just before 6km, I rounded a hedge to be confronted with the hill, up which runners in front were struggling or, in several cases, walking. I made it over, although the bench at the top did provide me with a nasty moment of temptation.

I finished a minute or two ahead of Ed, who had, to his credit, also conquered the hill at a run and was a little caustic about some of the quitters:

"I came past these two guys who were just walking up it, chatting about all the running they do! One of them was like 'Oh, yes - I did the kilomathon recently,' and I was like 'Well get a fucking move on then!'"

I fell out of bed feeling pretty stiff on Sunday morning to do the same around the leafy lanes of Coventry in the Northbrook 10k - which, I might add, also had a the hill. Both Ed and I were unsurprisingly a little slower round the course this time.

My running complete, I sped on to my next mission: taking the dad camping / hiking in the Peak District. By this stage, I was a little tired.

Labels: COMRADES, SELF IMPROVEMENT

Grounds and I did the Silverstone Half Marathon on Sunday, on a sunny, blustery day at England's premier motor racing circuit.


Arrival


Warming up


Before the race. We didn't get to pick the colour of our vests -
Amnesty just chose a couple at random and sent them to us.

There were around 7,000 entrants, so the start was a bit cramped. Better still, I was already fairly aching for a pee, having been conscientiously drinking water all morning.

I wasn't alone either - for the first 800 yards or so of the race, there was a constant stream of blokes running off the track and relieving themselves against the wall. Grounds and I joined them with very little hesitation.

Grounds had brought his iPod with him, so he stuck that on and started singing along to it in a strange, high-pitched falsetto. I remember Heart of Glass earning us a few looks.

Possibly because of his outlandish behaviour, Grounds was moving through traffic a fair bit more easily than I was. He trotted off into the distance while I got hemmed in by sweaty bodies. As there were a couple of hairpin bends, I was treated to the sight of him bounding indefatigably along in the opposite direction on more than one occasion.

I figured there was no point wasting energy trying to bully my way through the crowd too early so I just settled in and plodded along.

I eventually caught up with Grounds at the eight-mile mark, then gave him a taste of his own medicine by running off on him! Haha! Grounds was getting a bit leggy as he actually needed a poo.

The last couple of miles were fairly hellish as the wind was blowing and there was an uphill stretch to the finish. I hung on for a finishing time of 1:42:58 - around a minute outside my target time, but quite cheering in the blustery conditions.

Grounds, meanwhile, had stopped for a poo but still made it round in an impressive 1:47:17.



Grounds then went for another poo while I tried to find the car. Fortunately I had an ace up my sleeve.

Parking officer standing in a huge car park, packed with cars. Up comes Dan.

ME: Hi there mate, I'm looking for a red Rover 400 series. You seen it?

HE: Er...

***

Silverstone Half Marathon overall:

* Very impressed with the facilities and organisation. Timing clocks on each mile marker a definite plus. Lots of water and Lucozade available on the course.

* A lot of people commented that their pedometers recorded 13.3 miles - I think that may be caused by being pushed wide through the many corners by traffic.

* The scenery was fairly awful. Unless you're a motorsports fan (I'm not) in which case, the scenery was iconic.

* My new running shoes gave me blisters. I also had a bit of jelly bean stuck between my teeth for the last two miles.

***

Visit my facebook album

Labels: COMRADES, SELF IMPROVEMENT, U-TUBE

Right, I've bought new running shoes, I've got a couple of issues of Runner's World to leaf through for inspiration. I've even gone jogging a few times and called it 'training'.

Now the last thing I need before the Silverstone Half Marathon on Sunday is a mantra. (Well, the last thing I need is a torn hamstring, I suppose. I wasn't speaking figuratively though.)

The mantra should be something I can repeat to myself for 13-and-a-bit miles to urge myself on and regulate my breathing at the same time.

When Deena Kastor won the Chicago Marathon in 2005, she repeated her coach's pre-race advice define yourself throughout.

My mantra is a bit snappier. It rhymes with Buck's Fizz.

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT

With just over a week to go until the Silverstone Half Marathon and after the dismal conditions at the South London 10k, I decided it was time to invest in some new footwear.

There are a number of factors to consider when purchasing a pair of running shoes: price, comfort, look and the sheer ballache of finding them in a size 12.

After visiting two stores I had seen one semi-suitable pair.

Store #3 looked a shade more promising: I had a couple of contenders below the £30 mark. One pair seemed comfy, but looked absolutely ghastly with a sort of tin-foil and guano motif.


This angle doesn't show the mock
tortoiseshell effect on the heel

I popped them back on the shelves and went for something a bit plainer.

Sadly, the plain pair proved to be as comfy as a set of rat traps. Shuddering, I got the ghastly pair back off the shelf. They fit like gloves, so I parted with my cash.

I'm wearing them right now. They feel lovely but I think I can say without exaggeration that I've put my feet in better-looking dog turds.

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT, WEAPONRY

Sunday league was cancelled again, although I had to admit Sunday league had a point this week. It had rained since Wednesday and was still bucketing down this morning.

Unwilling to let slip another chance to bomb about through muddy puddles (and mindful of forthcoming half marathon appointments), I went online yesterday and put myself in for the South London 10k: 10km round a circuit beginning and ending on Wimbledon common.

So, up I got at 7:00 and set off for Wimbledon, downing a huge bag of jelly babies for breakfast. When I burped five minutes later, my breath had a disconcerting petroleum twang.

The race organisers decided to skip the customary mass warm up, reasoning that more people would freeze to death than would warm their muscles correctly. Instead, they called competitors to the front in order of (self) predicted finishing time.

"First of all, could sub-40 minute runners make their way to the starting line," announced the MC. Nobody came forward. My spirits lifted somewhat.

The start turned out to be a total mad dash as half the field appeared determined to give the lie to the lack of sub-40 runners. I settled into an easy, loping pace and was therefore a bit disappointed to find myself feeling absolutely bloody knackered before I'd seen the 2km sign. A boyfriend / girlfriend team went past me as if I was standing still, chatting amiably, he with long, rangy stride, she with a jaunty bouncing ponytail which mirrored her running gait. I gnashed my teeth and thought machine guns.

From 2km onwards, there was a long, steep decline. This presumably meant there would be a corresponding incline at some point in the course as we were running a circuit. My jelly babies nestled stoically in the pit of my stomach.

Sure enough, the uphill came. An oriental-looking guy, sensibly clad in a bin liner, scooted airily past me.

The course levelled out as we went through halfway. I invented a motivational technique for the rest of my race: one point for anyone I overtook, one point off for anyone who came past me.

By now, some of the early Radcliffes were tiring. I reeled in a guy in a Man Utd shirt, who'd set off like a rat out of a trap. I hauled in a gaggle of students. I even picked off the oriental bin liner. Better still, nobody was overtaking me.

By my count, I was on fifteen points when I went past the 9km sign. I picked up my pace. Then, a minute and a half later, I passed another 9km sign. I refused to let this dampen my spirits.

The boyfriend / girlfriend combo had come back into sight. I gained ground on them when someone nearly ran them over. The lad then chivalrously sped off on his better half, hoping to catch the guy in front. I sped up, hoping to overtake his jilted partner.

I was a few yards down on ponytail as we switched from road to grass for the final stretch. At the beginning of the run-in was a huge, extremely deep puddle. Ponytail faltered, visibly baffled. I summoned up the energy for a big jump, called a cheery (not to mention insincere) apology over my shoulder and zoomed off to the finish, well pleased with my sixteen points.

The goody bag for the race consisted of a rubber ball and some sort of heat pack, which would need to be heated up. What there wasn't was a t-shirt, which was a bit of a shame. I had been operating on the presumption that there would be commemorative t-shirts and had hence neglected to pack a spare. The trip home was a little uncomfortable.

Two weeks now until the Silverstone half.

***


Disclaimer: I have never beaten up a girl with a kendo stick, unlike Super Steve.

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT

...And it's time to categorise the music on my laptop.

I'm wondering about the philosophical implications of changing the genre of every single piece of music I possess to 'alternative'.

Labels: SELF IMPROVEMENT