Swan Song

Today it’s the Ramathon, L’s 13.1 swan song. I’ve failed a late fitness test and won’t be competing. Actually it’s wasn’t that late, I’ve been hobbling all week. It was never looking likely.

So L sets off from Elvaston Castle for the first running of this event since 1996. It’s a hot morning, which won’t help the runners.

The route is very different to the old one and is centred around Elvaston, Shardlow, Ambaston but reaches almost to Alvaston. Hopefully the organisers intend to widen its reach as it becomes more established and take it into Derby itself.

Organisation is excellent, although perhaps a few more drinks stations might have helped in the heat. I could have done with one myself as I hobbled up to Ambaston Lane to cheer L though. The dogs were with me giving extra vocal support.

Then we hobbled back again and I went to the finish to see if I could pick up a race t-shirt. As I stood there, fully clothed, flashing my race number while the first few finishers lay gasping on the grass they were clearly impressed and asked how quickly I had ran. At this point I had to fess up and show off my limp. Got the t-shirt though.

The race t-shirt will be a bit too patriotic for most as it sports far too many references to Derby County. Sadly the many runners who have travelled from around the country (and from Nottingham) to be here won’t wear it become of that. So a marketing own goal there.

L isn’t as quick as she had hoped but has clearly left it all out on the road, as you should. Her post race treat, at her request, is Sunday Lunch at the New Inn in Shardlow which she then feels too faint to eat a lot of. The dogs and I assist.

She’s recovered by later though, after copious amounts of cheese on toast, and is knocking back the beer and wine as we head into Stapleford to the Horse and Jockey to celebrate the swan song.

(Sunday 8^th June)

It’s All Downhill From Here

The Weston 5 is not really my sort of run. It’s too short (5 miles), is mainly on pavements (which I don’t like the undulating nature of), has the first section on a potholed track and the last on grass. L isn’t taking it very seriously either, misdemeanours last night with alcohol and this morning without. So she’ll probably post another season’s best.

This race counts as part of the championship for the club I’m in and I had contemplated giving that whole series a go this year until I saw the other races in the series, most of which didn’t appeal. Plus there’s one other teensy eensy blip in the plan, that I’d have to wear a club vest and rather unpatriotically I haven’t got myself one yet.

L offers me hers, suggesting we cross dress for the day but I decline. As I’ve said I don’t fancy the other races in the championship. I don’t fancy this one much either but it’s local and it ticks boxes. Training for me, mileage for L.

There’s another reason I don’t fancy it much, I’m still sort of ill. Yet needs must. I have to do some running at some point or else I’m sure my body will implode. So it’s a case of gently does it. Unfortunately these races are so damn fast and it’s difficult to do gentle.

At least it’s generally flat. So there’s no need really for a female marshal to throw in at half way a ‘it’s all downhill from here’ unless she was being metaphorical, but I assume she's simply lying, as all marshals do regularly. Well all male marshals do. The female ones are usually more honest or at least have the honesty to look dishonest when they’re lying. This one at least looks sincere. The thing is I lived here for 18 years, so I know that’s it’s a steady uphill all the way back to the finish line.

I’m slow as expected but box ticked. L does relatively better although she doesn’t do the season’s best I predicted but still, box ticked.

Time for Sunday lunch at the New Inn in Shardlow me thinks. They do the excellent Derby Brewery beers there as well.

New Inn - Shardlow (J147) / CC BY-SA 2.0

Then there’s a bit of a panic as Daughter has to change trains on her way back to Sheffield from Loughborough via Edinburgh. Well hopefully not via Edinburgh, dependent on her not nodding off as the train passes through Sheffield station on its way to Scotland. Joyful texts of success are received just as we take out seats in the cinema.

We have put this off and put this off because it's George and well, it can't possibly be any good, can it? Eventually we cracked. It's been nominated you know and so has George.

The Descendants is theoretically a film about a land deal because Matt King (George Clooney), a workaholic lawyer in Hawaii, is the sole trustee of a plot of land that has been in his family for ages. He and his cousins have to decide who to sell the untouched land to before the trust becomes dissolved in seven years time or they could of course do the unspeakable and leave it unspoilt.

You can probably guess how that turns out but it’s all a bit incidental really, the deal is just a side show in the film. The main plot centres around King’s thrill seeking wife (because he is so dull) who suffers a serious head injury in a powerboat accident. Now King not only has to deal with a wife in a coma but he’ll have to try to communicate with his daughters as well. Scary.

His youngest, Scottie (Amara Miller), has started to go off the rails and is acting up at school whilst Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) has been off them for some time, moving on to drugs and alcohol. King hops on a plane to bring her back from her boarding school, which is on a different island. Unfortunately, the best bit of the film, where he gets his drunken rambunctious eldest daughter on to the plane and then all the way home is cruelly edited out. All we see is him carrying her up the stairs to her bedroom. Cop out. That could have been good.

Then oddly from struggling as the self-confessed ‘backup parent’ remarkably, twenty minutes or so later, the entire family are getting along like a house on fire.

There are plenty of unbelievable moments like that but also some good bits too. There’s a strong scene where he has to tell Alexandra that her mother isn’t going to make it and according to her living will, they will have to take her off life support. Then Alexandra drops her own bombshell; that her mother was having an affair.

Faced with this knowledge, King does not go off the rails or go off to find the man to punch his lights out, as he would have done in many films. Instead we are asked to believe that yes King would want to track down his wife's lover but only to give the man a chance to say goodbye to his mistress. That may be sweet but it’s also slightly insane. At best, wouldn’t you send him an email?

So the whole family, along with Alexandra's annoying friend Sid (Nick Krause) who thinks her Grandma's Alzheimer's is hilarious, embark on one those road trips that America films are so fond of. Sid’s reason for being there is revealed towards the end, when you’re well sick of him, but even that’s an odd moment, where King seems lost for words or just lost and the moment is, well, lost.

Ultimately nothing really happens. When King finally confronts the man, again it’s all so, well nice. The whole film is like that, so lightweight, inconsequential. It’s another film where I was itching to amend the screenplay. In the end, little of it is really believable. Even his wife's eventual death isn't sad because at no point do we really see her alive nor are we given any indication that she could survive.

I can't help thinking that if someone like Mike Leigh had restaged this in some rundown housing estate in the UK with a bit of ‘kitchen sink realism’ we might have had something.

So is Clooney any good? Is he worthy of his many nominations? Not especially, he’s ok. Clooney does what Clooney does but he's been better.

It’s not a bad film, just nothing to get excited about. It’s got a sort of a RomCom feel to it; only without the Rom or the Com. I ought to say here that my partner loved it but for me... nah.

We fall into the H&H. Certainly need a pint after that.

(Sunday 26th February)

How To Show A Girl A Good Time

I know how to show a girl a good time, so I set the alarm for 5am and take L two hours up the A1 to an icy Richmond (approximately -5) for their Valentines Dog Show. Who says romance is dead? Careful on the car park Dear, it's well treacherous.

There’s standing room only in the equestrian centre’s cafe where they have industrial heaters thawing out the competitors and their supporters. MD keeps himself warm by having five runs, although an ‘E’ on the first one, where he took a jump instead of the weaves (probably my fault), isn’t really the start we wanted.

We go clear on a couple of G1-7 courses and get 10th in both. In one of them all the dogs but one that beat us are in grades 6 or 7 and we’re a lowly grade 3, so it’s actually a really good result for us. L is proving a bit of a lucky charm for us. She can come again, if we can persuade her.

We should have done better in the G1-3, as it’s more our level but I actually thought that was one of the G1-7’s (it was almost difficult enough) and didn’t really take it as seriously as I should have done. Must concentrate more! We got 15th, with 5 faults because we had a pole down.

Then we make a bit of a mess of his final run, a G3, but we’re still clear and come 10th. Four rosettes in all, which is definitely positive, even if the best was only 10th.

Doggo went for it in his only run at Veterans but just missed out on a rosette.

Then we head back down the A1/M1 to Huddersfield where we stay in rather nice dog friendly pub, The New Inn at Marsden.

We have taken advantage of their special valentine’s deal which means we also get champagne and chocolates in our room. Oddly, the mini box of chocolates contains three chocolates... ah, I must have inadvertently signed up for the Ménage à trois package. Never mind. We also can’t touch the champagne because we have a half marathon tomorrow.

Once we’ve finished that off we head down to the bar for the inclusive meal and a bit of hydration. Taylor’s Landlord and Copper Dragon Bitter, since you ask. Should be a good run tomorrow.

(Saturday 11th February)