Cleethorpes (Or Is It Grimsby)

On Saturday we head up, with MD and the Lad, to Cleethorpes (or is it Grimsby) to visit a friend of ours whom we met years ago when she owned Doggo’s twin brother.

On the way, of course, we do a parkrun but no one’s obsessed, honestly. We go to Cusworth Hall parkrun, where it’s only the second running of their event. This is near Doncaster, so it’s approximately halfway. 

Once in Cleethorpes (or is it Grimsby) we visit their new house, take the dogs for a walk and afterwards try, but fail, to get on the beach.

Then on Sunday we drive down to Peterborough for their Half Marathon, also known as the Great Eastern Run, which turns out to be a bit of a wasted journey.

The weather was absolutely foul and has been for some time. It was still raining quite heavily as we assembled on the start field that now resembled a paddy field. Having delayed heading to our respective start areas for as long as possible we were then informed of a delay due to what we were told was an obstruction on the course.

So we had to wait it out dressed in our rather unattractive bin liners that weren't affording much shelter from the elements. As the delay stretched on I sheltered first under some trees which wasn’t very effective at all and then having seen that a lot of people had disappeared I went to find out where they had all gone. It turned out they’d found some buildings with porch areas that gave better shelter.

After half an hour of this I was very cold and fearing that I would pull something if we did ever start. That's pull as in cold tight muscles rather than something in a sexier bin liner than me. 

Then came the announcement that the race had been cancelled. This actually went down rather well, as I think hardly anybody was still in the mood to run. The official reason was a ‘man acting suspiciously’, which was wonderfully vague but organisers really can’t take any risks these days.

I meet up with L again, who's not looking too shabby in her bin liner, and we wade across the paddy field to pick up our t-shirts, medals and other post-race goodies. They have generously offered us a full refund as well.

So L didn’t get her training run which she was planning on doing with Jeff (or was it Darren). Well they could have both had a lie-in, in fact we could all have had a lie-in.

Despite the lack of a race we still have the post-race night out and also go for a meal in Paste.

(Sunday 13^th October)

A Small Hollow Victory Of Sorts

I have booked another dog show today but my schedule permits me a late start and a lie in of sorts.

The event is over in Solihull and when I arrive I get to walk two courses but don’t get to do a run before lunch. When we do run them our run of bad form, Crufts qualification aside, continues. Neither of them are clear then it rains, hard. Our final course takes place in a paddy field and because everyone else bottles out of running it we come 3^rd. A small hollow victory of sorts, then we head home to dry out.

(Monday 29^th May)

7 Legged Pub Crawl

I’m in the car; L’s on the park battling the deer who are acting out a scene from West Side Story. Two rival factions eye-balling each other across the main footpath. She was probably right that MD, despite his best peacekeeping intentions, ought to be kept out of the way. She has such exciting park sessions, they’re never that good when I go.

To be fair, MD had already been upset by a cyclist with a flashing front light. I can sympathise, those flashing front lights upset me too.

Dog training tonight, in some paddy field in Derbyshire. It was very muddy under-paw and got worse as the night went on. There were several thrills and spills, all human ones.

L's been out running in Derby and shares the bus home with a bunch of student's doing the 7-legged pub crawl. Do they still do that? Cool. That dates way back to my days at Trent Polytechnic although it now seems to be the University Of Nottingham that is driving it. I'm also sure it was more than 7 back in the day... late 1980's. 16 springs to mind, I remember it being very unwieldy. The crawl got banned from most of the pubs and A&E. Perhaps 7 is better.

(Monday 22nd October)

Bad Call

A bit of trek today up to Arley Hall, Northwich for this weekend’s dog show entertainment. It’s very muddy underfoot but at least it’s not raining. Getting on the paddy field that doubles as the car park was a bit of an event, as I’m sure getting off it again will be.

Meanwhile L stays local and does one of the many Wollaton Park 10k’s, in one hour and two tenths of a second. Oh dear, how frustrating. She’s not happy.

We’re not happy either. In his first run MD has pole 16 of 19 down. He also broke his ‘wait’ but somehow we got away with that and made it around to the fourth last. So not bad really but not good enough.

His second run however, a qualifier, was just embarrassing. He should apologise to Doggo as that was the main reason we chose this dog show, where there is no Veterans class for Doggo as opposed to another show elsewhere where there would have been. Our third run is less embarrassing but still not worth mentioning. Time to take our training back to the basics I think.

We’re all done before lunch. So we head home whilst there’s still some grass on the car park.

We drop in on my folks, as its Father’s Day tomorrow and also to get my Dad to wear the boys out, so that L and I can go out on the town tonight while they sleep.

We go to the Ropewalk for tea, where my meal choice is off and so too by association is L’s, as she picks the same as me. Bad call. They twice try to serve me the wrong beer and on the second occasion succeed, so it’s a rare bad night in there. We move across the road to the Borlase and the Everard’s Original.



We’re well settled until the barman tells us the gas has gone. On a handpull? Really? I think he just wanted to go home early. So back across the road to the Hand & Heart for one for the road.

(Saturday 16th June)

Duller Than Ditchwater

We get up at the unearthly hour of 6.30am and take the tent down in the dark, brushing a light covering of snow off it as we do so. We’ve often erected the tent in the dark but I cannot recall us ever taking it down in the dark.

We then have an hour or so’s drive back down the M6 to Catforth, which is a village close to the M55, not far from Preston. The race we have entered is called the Central Lancashire New Year Half Marathon and is one of many races organised by Fylde Coast Running. L did their Blackpool to Fleetwood race in October.

The weather is bleak to say the least but does appear to be improving by the minute. Although it is not improving anywhere near quickly enough to save the parking field. We are the third car to be ushered on to the paddy field that has been designated for parking but the first to refuse to budge off the gravel at the entry gate as we watch the first two cars going nowhere fast and wheel spinning themselves deeper into the mud. I reverse out of the field and a marshal quickly deduces that we wish to park elsewhere.

The race itself was right up my street, duller than ditchwater, I loved it. Fairly flat throughout on country lanes but with a long drag uphill from 3.5 to 5 miles and with no noticeable compensatory downhill to follow. To liven things up we had a strong head wind at times and a bit of hail, which is all part of the fun. The scenery was augmented with four trips across the M55, over bridges that is, we didn’t have to dash across between juggernauts. Counting is not my strong point though and I’m sure we did it five times but I may have been mistaken or delirious with exhaustion by then. At least I hope I was mistaken or else I ran extra.

Then there was a nice canal crossing over a humpback bridge to finish, which was the prettiest, or rather the only pretty bit.

I made a slow start, 7:58 for the first mile but then as I worked out that this would get me a 1:44:00 time overall I decided I was happy with that. Then I was unsure if my 7:19 second mile was good news or not. It all went very well considering I’d barely trained for it and I felt so strong that I ran a final 7:15 mile to finish, coming in at 1:43:00 exactly. Pleased with that.

As I crossed the line I was handed a medal (ugh, but a nice one), a kitkat (yum) and bottle of water. The organisation was good, two water stations both with bottled water (brownie points earned), it was well marshalled by some rather cold looking folk and they made good use of the village hall where there were plenty of refreshments on offer. An enjoyable event.

I didn't think the bleakness and the dullness would suit L but it seemed to, she said she enjoyed it too.

We get home to find that Daughter has already headed off back to Sheffield. It was disappointing to have missed her but good in that we thought we were the ones taking her back. So we’ve been saved a trip, which after already around four hours on the road today is no bad thing.

L describes the weekend as an interesting New Year’s break, as she tries to get some life out of her mobile phone which seems to have shipped some water over the weekend. I think perhaps she enjoyed it.

(Monday 2nd January)