Great Eastern Flirt

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Today I’m in Peterborough for the Great Eastern Run which is a Half Marathon that has nothing to do with those ‘Great’ and ‘Run’ people.

There are dire predictions of parking chaos but as it happens we park practically on the start line, not sure how that happened.

While I make my way to the start line, L makes her way in to the city centre to find a good viewing point. She’s really going to scout out the local Waterstones but if she gives me a cheer as I run past all the better.

With half an eye on next weekend’s ‘big’ one, I was more than happy to jog round this one in another 1:45. When I ran this race before, in 2014, I got round 1:49 but I was seriously strapped up at the time.

Sadly there isn’t a 1:45 pacer today but there is a 1:40 one. So I thought I might as well flirt with him and see what happens.

The route is very flat as was shown by my split times which were incredibly consistent. I also achieved my aim of getting them all under eight minutes per mile. This is always my aim on a half marathon but it is rarely achieved. My slowest today is 7:41. Which all bodes well for a decent time, although by the end I am hanging on to the pacers for grim death.

There are about a dozen of us running with them but when a group of us stop at one of the later drink stations and the pacers don’t, pandemonium ensues. Runners end up colliding with each other as they attempt to get back on pace and in the end a group of us form our own little peloton around 50 metres behind them.

We do gradually battle our way back to them but never quite gain parity with them again and in the last mile I let them go. I’m more than happy when I come home in 1:40:38. L remarks that it was good that I was ‘taking it easy’. I think she’s impressed.

So a good race, although not a very pretty one once you’ve done the city centre but it’s pleasant enough and well organised. I could have done with a different colour t-shirt though, yellow ugh.

I again use my new trainers and all appears well with them but then it was only a half marathon... next week it isn’t.

In the evening we again tour Canning Circus and wind up at the Park Tandoori for a takeaway curry.

(Sunday 8^th October)

A Difference Of Opinion About God

We had considering doing a local 5k/10k at Burton Joyce today but we decide to skip it. L runs locally instead and I do the park with the boys.

In the evening we make the momentous decision to renew our Broadway cinema membership and also to make use of it. I vow to force L to see all this year's award nominees starting tonight with the Steven Hawkings film. We also eat at Broadway.

The film is a biopic of Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) but one that is focussed only on the time span of his relationship with Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones) who was to become his wife. It is from Jane’s book that the screenplay is taken. 

They meet almost as soon as the opening credits are off the screen. He’s a nerdish doctoral student in 1960’s Cambridge, she is a fellow student preparing for a PhD who finds him interesting and you assume attractive. She loves poetry, romance and God while he believes in logic, reason and not a lot else. Opposites attract I guess. They date and flirt, very badly, but sort of get together despite everything and particularly despite the difference of opinion about God.

Then one day, already not too steady on his feet, Hawking falls badly and this leads to his diagnosis with motor neurone disease. They give him two years to live although obviously he’s still with us. 

We watch as his illness progresses and it gradually becomes harder for him to move, speak and do everyday things. Eventually he is confined to a wheelchair and has to speak through a computer.

Jane pledges to stick with him, they marry and she goes on to devote a huge chunk of her life to looking after him. Thirty years in fact until they divorce in 1995. She also has to look after their three children and still has time to complete her PhD. Yes three children, so something clearly still worked but the film doesn't go there. In fact it's a film that doesn't go to a lot of places and leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

Caring for her crippled husband visibly takes its toll on Jane but even when she meets Jonathan (Charlie Cox) she stays loyal to be husband and her relationship with Jonathan appears to remain platonic for some time as he helps her out with caring for her husband and children.

As the film goes on it, it becomes more and more of a biopic about her and less about him. In fact the film rarer mentions his career or theories and we never see him working.

Eventually he either releases her from the relationship or he dumps her for his nurse, I’m still not quite sure which.

I found it more interesting and informative than compelling but it's certainly a decent enough film. If a touch undramatic and sadly lacking in inner torment as they both seem to take his worsening condition rather well.

It’s a film that will surely be remembered most for the lead performances. Redmayne totally nails the physical side of Hawking and is completely convincing but kudos too to Felicity Jones, who in many ways is just as impressive.

(Sunday 4^th January)