Should Have Gone By Train

I head back down to London by car with one of my bosses and we finally get all the network problems sorted. Yay. With six heads on site we solve the problems which were, as we thought, not of our doing.

We leave for home at around 3pm, so I’m hopefully of making it home in time to run the second round of the GP series tonight which is at the National Water Sports Centre but the traffic soon puts paid to that idea. Emergency resurfacing on M1 probably ruins everyone’s evening and it takes us four and half hours to get home. We should have gone by train... or walked I suppose.

(Thursday 29^th June)

Home Of Sport

Nottingham is declared the Home Of Sport. It was a public vote, so it was most likely rigged by someone but Nottingham does have a good case.

For a start, Nottingham is home to both the National Ice Centre and the National Water Sports Centre. It has two professional football clubs, an Elite League ice hockey team and a Test Cricket ground. Nottingham also hosts both ATP and WTA tournaments at the Tennis Centre, is home to the GB Archery National Finals, the training base for the GB Short Track Speed Skating team and has also hosted international Hockey tournaments. There's also the award winning Outlaw Triathlon and numerous popular running/cycling events etc etc.

We also now have a brand new Olympic Sized Swimming Pool, should they ever decide to use it as such... but that's another story.

Presumably Nottingham is not going to also be crowned the Home Of Music as it is reported that a woman was ejected from a performance of The Bodyguard for singing ‘loudly and badly’. That really doesn’t happen often enough.

I take celebration cakes to Dogging this evening, as is the custom after MD’s win on Saturday. They are supposed to be Spooky witch’s hat cakes but actually look nothing like but that's Mr Kipling for you.

(Monday 26^th October)

Outlaw Half

Yesterday L gets a leisurely 12.30 start for her triathlon. This morning I am up even before Doggo. It’s 4:15am when I awake to the sound of rain pounding on the roof. It’s the day of the third Outlaw Half and the first to come with bad weather. Joy.

I suppose the rain doesn’t make an awful lot of difference to the swim. Although the wind might, as there does appear to be a few waves scuttling across the swim course but again you can’t really tell once you’re in there. In any case, I’m capable of near drowning in a mill pond.

The swim is the usual combination of elbows in the face and feet in the stomach, just all served a bit colder than last year. My swim disappoints a touch, four minutes down on last year at 43:06. I’ll blame the weather.

My swim to bike transition is down on last year too, I take a terribly leisurely six minutes. I’ll blame the weather for that too.

The bike is my favourite bit and still is, even in the rain which has now become intermittent. Every time you think it’s stopped, it comes back to give you another drenching. It’s not as bad as last year’s Sundowner and again the rain isn’t really the problem unless you’re one of the poor guys who overcooked it and finished the race in an ambulance.

The problem is the wind. It was often a case of simply head down and pedal aggressively into it. All you could do was pin your gaze on the bike and the rear end of the person in front of you, which are all helpfully named so that you can curse ‘Wayne’ when he zooms past you and disappears off up the road. You don’t follow too closely of course because that would be classed as drafting or alternatively perving. Nonetheless I would like to pay thanks to the bottoms of Tamara, Rebecca and Rob! Whom kept me going but whose faces I never saw.

My bike is four minutes slower and yes, I’ll blame the weather.

I had promised myself to do a decent swim and an awesome bike, so that I could take the run steady to preserve the knees for next weekend’s Ramathon, which I really really want to do.

Having done a less than decent anything so far, Plan A is already in the bin. I try and have a strong run whilst trying to run on the grass as much as possible to protect my knees. Yes my run is also slightly down on last year and I can’t blame the weather any more as it’s fined up now.

So I miss six hours by as much as I coasted under it last year, yet still had a brilliant time as this is such a brilliant well put together event.

I finish and immerse myself in the post-race wonderland, where there is post-race chilli/curries/pasta etc on tap, teas, muffins, folk willing to rub their hands over whatever you like (within reason) and Erdinger alcohol free everywhere. Actually it’s a shame they couldn’t have got some Erdinger not alcohol free in for afterwards.

That problem is solved later in the Peacock with a few OP’s. Then we have a meal in Singhs, who serve a decent curry despite the annoying adverts they show at the Broadway Cinema. Had it not been for those adverts we may have tried the place months ago!

(Sunday 31^st May)

Perhaps That's Just Her Hay Fever

A very sporting day today. I get up early (11am) and watch yesterday’s coverage of the Tour de France as live, enjoying a dominate performance from Chris Froome as he took the lead in the race. Then when that’s over I decide it’s too hot and hay fevery to cut the lawn and instead setting down to watch ‘our’ Andy win Wimbledon. Cracking stuff.

Personally I think this has been one of the best Wimbledons ever, even before his win. A lot of this is down to the BBC’s website which enables you to watch whatever match you like, even if that is four Japanese woman playing doubles out on Court 14. Their website coverage gets better every year and is much needed because BBC 1, BBC 2 and Radio 5 yet again featured the tennis equivalent of Manchester United v Wigan throughout the first week. E.g. one of the main seeds thrashing the pants off some sacrificial lower ranked player. Boring. Ok, they got lucky twice, with unexpected defeats for Rog and Rafa but other than that I can understand why people resent the rescheduling of the One Show.

What I want to see is all the Brits getting thrashed on days one and two by, well, anybody and some of the closer mid-ranking games. I'm also rather partial to doubles and now I can indulge myself thoroughly.

After Andy's win we returned to the scene of yesterday’s ‘excitement’, the National Water Sports Centre, to catch some of the Outlaw Triathlon. Which we’ve actually been following online all day. Despite starting at 6am, it’s only now that people are starting to finish.

On the way we check out the runners heading (slowly) through the Embankment before carrying onto the finish. I’m full of admiration for all of them and would love a go at experiencing the same levels of pain at some point in the future. Even L appears to be going a bit glassy eyed at the thought or perhaps that's just her hay fever.

After a few hours we head back home, although still we keep an eye on the online updates. Everybody needs to be home by 11pm in order to call themselves an ‘Outlaw’. Now I can sit down and watch today’s Tour de France coverage.

(Sunday 7^th July)