Off The Pace

The clocks go back this morning so this gives us an extra hour in bed to mentally prepare ourselves or otherwise for today’s Sheffield 10k. This is a different Sheffield 10k to the Great Run organised one and is run by Run For All, they of the Jane Tomlinson Foundation, and it’s sponsored by Asda.

These folk also organised the Sheffield Half which I ran earlier this year and the course takes the same route out along Ecclesall Road but then instead of disappearing up a big hill into the Peak District it skirts around Endcliffe Park before return back along Ecclesall Road.

Despite the omission of the ‘Peak District’ this is still a seriously undulating route and a real challenge. Although the biggest challenge of all is keeping up with the 45 min pacer which shouldn’t really have been a problem for me considering my current form.

The pacer, however, sticks to his 4:30 per km pace with metronomic precision even on the kilometres that are completely uphill. This means that his initial group of around 30 runners is gradually reduced attritionally to, well, probably nothing. I'm guessing here as I hung on longer than most but couldn’t stay the distance either.

The inverse of this is that when the course starts heading downhill later on he is hamstrung by his 4:30 pace meaning most of us catch him and pass him. I finish in 44:55, so who needs dodgy pacers. Perhaps we should have paced him?

After I have finished, I notice there is no queue at the massage tent which is a rare thing indeed. I quickly go and get my rucksack back from the baggage area, which works seamlessly this time, then I sign up for a session on my calves. I must say that I get outstanding service from Sheffield Hallam’s physiotherapy department who supply a girl for each leg and it’s well worth the £2 charity donation I give them.

Just a word for the goodie bag which was excellent and weighed down with snackie things.

On the way home we detour via Kennelgate where we attempt to solve the ‘can’t see the dog ball in the dark problem’ without success. They don’t have either a flashing or glow in the dark dog ball. 

Then we head off to Leamington for meet Son and his gf for a meal in the White Horse. I like the Horse but their food menu veers annoyingly from arty to burgery without having much in between. The saving grace is always their Sunday lunches but we are told today that they have none left.

Son tells us he is handing in his notice at his job. That'll keep L busy. Now she will be busy job hunting for both Son and Daughter.

(Sunday 30^th October)

Down A Pot Hole In The Derwent Valley

Today I’m competing in the Derwent Duathlon which starts from the Fairholmes Visitor Centre in the Upper Derwent Valley, Derbyshire. It was bloody foggy as when we left Nottingham at stupid 0'clock but by the time we were up in the Peak District visibility was almost perfect.

This is a duathlon with a difference; the two run courses are very different. One is 4.5k of fell running, the other 6.5k of mainly road running. You have to do both but in which order is your own choice. As we start and hurtle down the hill to the decision point the field seems almost equally split on which one to do first. I go fell first, certainly not fancying climbing hills on tired legs.

The fell course is narrow and because the field is still tightly bunched a lot of walking is involved, which is fine with me. This I realise is not the best option if you wish to win. To win I guess you must do the road first, so that you then get a clear run at the fell section with the field more spread out.

My calves screamed at me on the uphill sections but thankfully they didn't give up the ghost and 26 minutes later I’m back in transition.

The bike course is hell, there's no other way of describing it because the road was riddled with pot holes. Big tip - don’t bring your best bike, like I had. The organiser had marked the biggest ones with cones but the unmarked ones were still capable of doing damage.

One pot hole knocked the ‘sender’ for my bike computer into my spokes and I had to stop to disentangle it. Then a road wide crevice appeared and although I lifted my front wheel over it, my back one hit it at speed causing my rear tyre to explode. So I had to stop and fix that.

Then once I was up and riding again I hit another one. This time something went on my back brake leaving it locked against my wheel rim. So I had to stop again, this time opting to disable the brake completely.

Finally I got lap one of two over, threw my punctured tube towards L and set off on lap two. I had thought of aborting at this point and going straight on to the run but this is supposed to be hard training after all. I just didn’t bank on this sort of hard.

I was well down the field but able to reel a few in. Thankfully by now I knew where all the pot holes were.

The road was also now full of walkers, other cyclists, families with kids, kids on bikes, kids on scooters and a group of mountain bikers coming straight towards me with no intention of giving way. This combined with the poor state of the road had already caused most competitors to back off and give up on racing hard, although I doubt the ones at the front did.

I got through it and went off on my road run, which was thankfully uneventful. It was also nice to see that the finish wasn’t back up the hill where the start and transition were. I crossed the line relieved and in 69th place of the 94 who finished. There were 9 DNFs.

It wasn't pleasant at times but was sort of good fun. It is potentially a great event and if the road is tarmaced by next year, as it is rumoured it should be, then it could be bike friendly too. The main thing today was to get some training miles in and that was certainly achieved.

Later at Quad in Derby, Scarlett Johansson is feeling a bit alien in Glasgow, which is understandable. We all do. Glasgow, although a place I like, is a bit like that. The thing is in this film by Jonathan Glazer from a novel by Michel Faber she really is an alien.

Johansson (as Laura the alien) roams the streets of the strange, unfamiliar world that is Glasgow in a white van. Occasionally she stops and asks men who are walking home alone (oh the irony) for directions, before offering to give them a lift. Once in the van she engages them in conversation and flirts with them before luring them back to her run down abode where, entranced by Johansson, they strip off their clothes while following her disrobing figure.

Yet they never reach their goal, her, as they disappear beneath her bedroom floor, where they remain trapped until they get their innards sucked out. Which are then presumably sent back to her home planet. Our alien is completely remorseless about her task and shows no empathy for her victims, who think it is their lucky day and they're going to get to shag Scarlett Johansson.

Later, out on the Scottish coast whilst in the process of seducing a surfer, she observes a dog adrift in the sea, a woman getting in trouble trying to rescue it, her husband getting in trouble trying to rescue her and the surfer getting in trouble trying to save anyone he can.

She attempts to save her target, the surfer, yet leaves the others and also ignores their abandoned young child who is left screaming on the beach, left to swallowed by the incoming tide. Our alien has no understanding of the situation.

In time though, she does seem to develop a morality about her actions. After seducing a disfigured man, she lets him escape and then attempts to escape herself. Running from the purpose she was sent here for and from the men on motorbikes who watch over her.

Whilst on the run in the countryside, she is befriended by a stranger. He still wants to get physical with her, of course, as does a worker in the forest, although in a more forceful manner. Suddenly the hunter has become the hunted.

It’s a bit off the wall at times and maybe having read the novel would have helped but I haven't. Yet I was just happy to go with it and embrace the fact that this alien girl (aren't they all) sinks her naked male suitors into the alien equivalent of a shagpile carpet.

Johansson is superb and brave to take on this type of role. She manages to exude a total lack of emotion throughout in such a way that, unbelievably, you kind of sympathise with her. 

For a post race/film debrief we end up in the Golden Eagle, where the Titan Brewery doesn't manage to come up with the dark Stouty goods this time. So we move to the Silk Mill, which certainly does.

(Sunday 30th March) 

Descending Freestyle

L has made plans to spend lunch with a friend in Ashbourne today. So the boys and I offer her a lift and then head into the Peak District for a walk. We yomp up Thorpe Cloud and then along Dovedale for a few miles. Thorpe Cloud is more difficult than it might have been as the conditions are incredibly slippery after all the recent rain. Going up is hard but coming down is terrifying particularly when you’re attached to a dog. MD refuses to go off lead and bites my feet when I try, which is the last thing you need when descending Thorpe Cloud freestyle. Doggo meanwhile skips ahead, miles in front, making a mockery of his twelve years.

In the evening we go to Broadway and take in The Railway Man

 

Eric Lomax (Colin Firth) was a signaller in the British army that surrendered to the Japanese when Singapore fell during World War II. Lomax's captivity as a Prisoner Of War was spent working on the construction of the Burma Railway. He was lucky to survive it. After being found with a homemade map and a radio he was tortured to within an inch of his life. Thirty plus years on (the film is set circa 1980) the scars of this dreadful experience have failed to heal.

We meet Lomax, surprisingly still a railway buff, and the film’s love interest Patti (Nicole Kidman) rather appropriately on a train. They immediately marry (or so it appears) but the baggage that he carries with him causes him severe moods swings and nightmares but he won't share the reasons for these with his new wife. 

She has to go visit his friend and fellow POW Finlay (Stellan Skarsgård) to find out why. Then when a photo appears in a Japanese newspaper of the translator Takashi Nagase who was Lomax's tormentor in chief and was now working as a tour guide on the railway, Lomax takes the opportunity to head over to exact revenge.

The key question posed by the film is what would you do if you came face to face with the man who tortured you? Unfortunately the film fails to give a convincing answer.

 

Probably because too much has been changed from Lomax’s original story. The real Lomax didn’t turn up unannounced and he wasn’t the only one who had been wrestling with his demons. Nagase had been too and had attempted to atone for his sins. The real Lomax knew this because the two wrote to each other for two years before they decided to meet. So the film’s scenario didn’t happen and this is probably why it feels so false.

The film bounces back and forth from the Second World War to the 1980s. From young Eric's (the excellent Jeremy Irving) physical torture to old Eric’s emotional torture as the film overlays a snapshot of life constructing the Burma railway and in the POW camp with a rather thin love story.

That didn’t work either. The fact that the real Eric returned from war, married his pre-war sweetheart, had two kids and then met Patti (also with kids) whilst he was still married and romanced her for two years prior to marrying her was a better back story than the one we got because we didn’t get one at all. The film just feels made up because most of it was and that’s a shame.

It’s not an awful film but it is unremarkable and far too ‘nice’ when it should have been harrowing and eye opening but it simply isn’t. The scenes in the camp are not pleasant yet overall the film seems desperate not to offend. The only time I felt any emotion was when they put photos of the real people up at the end. 

Afterwards we head to the Falcon and then the Hand & Heart for a final night cap.

(Saturday 11^th January)