Last Minute Fit

This morning it’s our most local of races, the Wollaton Park Easter 10k which we return to time and time again because there isn’t often a good reason not to do it. I can think of one today though. The weather has been utterly foul all weekend and the park is a complete mud bath but there’s not only me on the start line but L too. 

I am trying to get last minute fit for next weekend’s Sheffield Half Marathon while L has been following a more coordinated plan in her pursuit of the Derby 10k the week after.

I would say that I had a decent run and I did, for 8k of it. It wasn’t quick but then the conditions weren't conducive to quick and it wasn’t particularly pleasant but then the conditions weren't conducive to pleasant. It was ok, until my calf went at 8k. Which puts a huge question mark against Sheffield. 

(Monday 2^nd April)

A Strange Morning

It's a strange morning with a distinct lack of Doggo. He always dominated things, even more so of late due to his age. The Lad seems to have rather quickly shrugged off his absence but then he’s only known him for a few weeks. MD is a different matter entirely, he seems bereft without his partner in crime. In the space of a few weeks he’s lost his role as ‘the puppy’ and now he’s expected to step up into the big shoes of the Alpha dog.

I’m on the bike today and its so good to be back on it. Then tonight it’s dog training, which is also going to be strange without Doggo. On the way we drop in to visit L’s parents, well the Lad drops in but we have to accompany him.

Before that I get an email from Radio Derby who want to interview our Crufts team on their afternoon show tomorrow but only the team members from Derby, which narrows their options by 50%. When they decide they can’t do it over the phone that removes the other 50%, some of us have jobs you know. Now if they hadn’t left it until the last minute.

(Tuesday 6^th March)

Nerve Settling Beers

I packed the car for our holiday this morning, although I had to keep removing Doggo from the boot. See he can get in unaided when he’s thinks we’re about to set off without him. He’ll have to bite his nails for a few hours yet because we’re not leaving until after work. 

I send L a list of last minute packing items as she will be picking me up from work. When she arrives home to collect the car she finds they have started the insulation work and the house is now adorned with insulation panels. 

We have a very successful drive up to a field near Lartington just outside Barnard Castle, where we are stopping over on our way north and to see if MD can win any more trophies at the agility event being held there.

We nip into the nearby Camra listed Red Lion at Cotherstone for a few nerve settling beers ahead of tomorrow's competition.

(Friday 31^st July)

Personal Statements

After just finishing one exciting weekend, we get ready for the next one which starts tomorrow. Just the one day at work then in the morning we head to Bristol before hopping over to Glastonbury on Wednesday.

My tennis/squash opponent keeps sending me articles on how to survive Glastonbury. I think he’s jealous really or perhaps he’s just trying to be helpful. It’s good to know that they’re showing Paddington at the on-site cinema, that’s decent replacement for the Foo Fighters.

L’s sister requests to take a look at our kids' personal statements for their University applications. I dig through my email archive and forward on a couple of incomplete drafts complete with terrible grammar and spelling mistakes. Makes you wonder how they got in.

Dog training is cancelled at the last minute due to heavy rain. I think as a form of compensation, L promises to have something hot laid out on the coffee table later. That’ll upset the dogs.

(Monday 22^nd June)

New Recruit

Still raining. I’m on the bus today but obviously that still involves getting wet.

L’s ill, although naturally she won’t admit it.

I’m out in Derby with the guys from my old school tonight. There was supposed to be a new recruit tonight but he cancelled at the last minute, perhaps next time. Although it’s so difficult to co-ordinate three of us, I’m not sure four is even possible.

After a couple in the Brunswick we head into the city centre. In an effort to avoid the Europa Cup Final that one of us (not me) is taping, we have to eschew anywhere that might be showing it. We end up in the Slug and Lettuce, which is not somewhere I’ve been before. Well, not while its been a Slug and Lettuce, I’ve been in it in its half a dozen or so previous incarnations.

They have a few real ales, including a Derby Brewery beer, so that tempts us in but it’s in poor shape. The food menu is fairly interesting and the curry I choose is tasty enough or would have been if it hadn’t been overcooked, probably remicrowaved. Service is slow too, so I don’t think we’ll be rushing back.

(Wednesday 15^th May)

Socialite

I hobble for the bus on the thighs that are clearly not mine. It’s going to be a long road back to 1:40 half marathons. As I inched my way along I could hear MD saying good morning to everyone. He's so socialite.

This evening I’m out with a couple of old school friends, only yet again one of them cancels at the last minute. That’s becoming a bit of a habit, although he’s probably just trying to keep a wide berth from the reunion my other friend is trying to plan. I should be doing the same but I’m not sure how this internet phobic friend of mine is going to organise a successful reunion without modern technology.

We have a few beers in the Brunswick and then something unhealthy and pizza shaped from Antibo. We finish and I’m a bit too early for the bus, so I wait in Quad with a coffee. A coffee that’s scalding real hot, a real rarity these days, and I struggle to down it in time to get my bus.

(Wednesday 28th November)

A Messy Compromise

I take the bike to work today, which upsets our dogs whom I pass on the way.

The cycling is I suppose last minute panic training for this weekend’s half marathon. L's training is perhaps a bit more structured as she’s entered the Beeston 5 Mile race tonight.

She heads there straight from work, whilst I bike home, scoop the dogs into the car and head over to support. My excuse is that these five milers are a little too fast for me these days, my mind wants to go faster than my legs do, which usually results in a messy compromise. So I’ll watch.

L seems to have no such problems with a PB for the year.

(Wednesday 30th May)

Plenty Of Skateboards

As my socks haven’t been dispatched as quickly from Wiggle as I had hoped, I pop into Intersport which is part of the Soccerdome on Pride Park. Rather surprisingly they don’t have a great selection of socks and no supports. They do have quite a good selection of skateboards though.

Another washing machine has packed up. It is worth trying to get it fixed or do we just buy a new one? We seem to be having one every couple of years at the moment but it seems cheaper than getting them repaired.

There’s a chap at work who’s copied our university UK tour with his Daughter. Only he’s extended it and taken in even more universities, starting even before she drew up her short list. He’s covered pretty much the length of England and Wales, using up most of his holiday and huge amounts of petrol in the process.

After all this, his Daughter has decided to stay local. Bless her. Personally, I’d kill her or send her a bill.

Another night in, as I skip dog class again in the interests of a quick(er) recovery. Instead I book a Manchester hotel for the night before we fly as prices are tumbling, as it’s now last minute. Now all I’ve got to do is break it to the dogs that they’re not coming with us.

(Wednesday 7th March)

One Page Is Often Enough

L thinks I’m abandoning her tonight. Leaving her all alone in the house with my prize winning ex-favourite author. She’s struggling her way through Ian McEwan’s ‘Solar’, winner of Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2010. Although L hates prize winning books, they usually turn out to be rubbish. She reckons she has 19 pages to do tonight, whilst throwing someone's plastic bone and remaining AF. I’m sure that, as usual, I’ll come home and find her asleep with Ian strewn across her lap muttering that one page was enough.

I’m out with a couple of old school friends tonight. We have a few beers in the Brunswick and the Alex before going for a Mexican. A Mexican meal which is ok and a Mexican beer ‘Desperados’ that isn’t. The waiter does try and persuade us not to have one, he says he wouldn’t touch it himself but we didn’t listen. It’s ‘a taste of liberty’ you know, comes flavoured with tequila and is 5.9% ABV. Yes, we should have known better.



It doesn’t help that it is served just in its bottle with a slice of lime in the top. The lime is always a bad sign, a sign that they’re trying to hide something, like the taste. The bottle doesn’t help either; you simply don’t get the taste of a beer straight out the neck of a bottle. So, we have to apologise for not being ‘cool’ and ask for a glass each. Once we get it into a glass, we realise why the manufacturers don’t wish you to get the taste of the thing and why they serve it with lime too. It also turns out to be made in France... so it wasn't very Mexican either.

I get home to find L awake, although not with her hands on Ian but watching TV instead. Clearly avoiding her reading duties but about to pour herself a very large whisky, so perhaps she’s not got round to it yet.

As I’m slightly sloshed, despite the attempts of the ‘Desperados’ to keep me sober, she waves a Langdale 10K entry form my way and asks for a signature. This is our usual technique for talking each other into races, although I’m quite keen to do this one. It’s only a fiver, as compensation for them cancelling the Christmas one on us.

Our race packs for Sunday have finally arrived, which is a relief, but it still all seems a bit ‘last minute’. It says on Facebook that the t-shirts were late arriving from Germany which is why they were late being sent off. A British t-shirt next year perhaps? We are still, however, waiting for our car parking pass which apparently was only sent out this morning, first class but first class sometimes takes several days... so fingers crossed.

(Wednesday 16th March)