Pandemic

We let everyone else get on with the business of competing with their dogs this morning and head over to Adel, ten miles or so away for the Eccup 10 mile race. I had always intended to sit this one out but after my cycling mishap it’s looking an even better decision. Anyway, I love a bit of supporting.



After the race has started, I have time to grab a welcome coffee or two, even more welcome seeing as we forgot out own coffee supplies and I was stuck drinking tea all day yesterday. There is only so much tea I can take. Then I use the runners changing facilities to grab a shower, as the dog show has neglected to provide such basic facilities.

I get back to the start/finish area just in time to see the winner cross the line five minutes ahead of the field and, checking my watch, in roughly 55 minutes. I think that’s impressive until I get nearer to the finish, see the electronic clock and realise that the race was almost near five minutes late starting. His time was actually 0:51:18, very very impressive and a new course record.



I’d have been over 20 minutes behind him. L will be a bit longer than that, time for another coffee I think and to watch a bit of cricket. There’s a junior game going on next to the finish area. A bit too close to the finish area really, which is really the only organisational failure of the race because all the runners end up walking on the cricket pitch. I don't think this would have been allowed to happen had it been an adult cricket match.



L comes in, in another good time, but in not quite her quickest 10 miles of the year. The race memento they dish out here varies every year. In 2007 it was a kit bag, in 2008 a mug (glad we missed that one, we have plenty of mugs), 2009 it was a rucksack and last year, they gave out a technical t-shirt. L chooses to enter in the year they decide to give out a paperweight... Not just any old paperweight but exactly the same paperweight we have already received from several other races. The Yorkshire crowd seemed pleased with this, it was something different for them, not realising that there’s a pandemic of these things in the Midlands at the moment and it’s clearly now spreading northwards.

We head back to camp, via Sunday lunch in a pub in North Rigton, which again sells exactly the same three beers as the other two pubs. It's just like the bad old days of the 70’s and 80’s when a few breweries had monopolies on the pubs only these beers are supplied by three separate independent breweries.

After taking the tent down we head home and find the house exactly as we left it. How many years has it been since that has happened? No dirty pots piled in the sink, no discarded socks down the back of the settee, the bathroom floor isn't underwater and there are even towels hanging up in there etc etc, I could go on. Utopia.

Then I settle down to watch the Tour de France and that horrifying accident caused by the press car.

(Sunday 10th July)

Hyped Up

Saturday dawns fine and almost sunny. That’s in Yorkshire, I’m not sure how things are in Wales.

L heads into Harrogate and to Bettys (no apostrophe!) under the premise that it’s perfect pre-race prep for tomorrow.



MD is well hyped up for his first course. Too hyped up and demolishes everything. I attempt to calm him down before course number two which is a very tricky course aimed at the higher grades and for which we have no chance of getting round clear, let alone getting a placing. Oh. Brilliant run MD, never doubted you. Sadly he clips one pole and with five faults we come 17th, out of 220, so that isn’t too bad. Still, had we not had that pole... 4th.

After his third and final run, I’m considering remaining him ‘one pole’. Just one down again but so frustrating because we set the fastest time. Two hours later, only one dog has beaten us on time but that one pole means we get nothing. Off to strangle him.

The old master, Doggo, does an impressive clear in his Olympia qualifier, not quick enough to qualify but impressive all the same. Unfortunately we mess up his second run, well I do.

L texts to ask if I’ve got room for a fat rascal? Well, I’ve got room in my tent for a thin one if she’s game. The fat rascal turns out to be a type of cake, the apostrophe-less Betty’s speciality. Sorry Betty but it’s nothing special, not as good as the lemon drizzle they serve up at the farmhouse here.

We can’t head up the local again because the pub is closed on Saturday night for a wedding, which seems an odd way to run your business to me, so we drive elsewhere. Frustrating the pub we drive to serves exactly the same three beers, Black Sheep Bitter, Theakston’s bitter and Taylor’s Landlord. Food is good though.

(Saturday 9th July)

Two Shocking Words

Two shocking words from L this morning. ‘I cycled’. She did what???? Dangerous things bikes you know, just ask Bradley Wiggins. Poor guy. Absolutely soul destroying stuff. You train for a year and then one little tumble puts paid to all that preparation. You don’t get to run five miles around Colwick Park and ultimately you don’t get a final placing in the Grand Prix series. I imagine bombing out of the Tour de France with a broken collarbone is almost as bad. I’m sure he feels my pain.

Just a half day at work today followed by a couple of hours sat not moving on the M1. We divert, take the M18 and sit not moving on the A1 instead. Where did all this traffic come from? Does no one work Fridays anymore? It does genuinely seem quicker to not take time off to beat the traffic these days.

We hear that it’s raining in Wales at Wakestock but then it always rains in Wales. This is not just ordinary rain but 'sodding' rain according to Daughter. As we arrive at our destination in Yorkshire it starts to sodding rain here too but then it always rains in Yorkshire.

The rain abates; we put the tent up and head off in search of food and ale at the local pub. The boys are not allowed inside, so we find a nice cosy spot sat under shelter in the garden watching the rain fall, very romantic.

Oddly, there are not many people in the pub. You would have thought 200 caravans camped half a mile down the road would have been a boon for the local economy but we only meet one other person from the dog show, who seems to have tunnelled out of the camp to escape from his wife for a couple of hours.

(Friday 8th July)

An Odd Definition Of A Treat

Daughter has booked a coach from Stoke to Abersoch for her surfing weekend at the Wakestock Festival. Hey ho. So I leave home this morning at 6am to take Daughter and her friend to Hanley Bus Station. What is strange is that stowing away on the front seat is Son. L's simple explanation is that 'there’s a girl in Stoke'. Well I would hope there are plenty of girls in Stoke but I assume this is one specific one. I suppose poor students can't miss out on a free lift but it's a shame he couldn’t have had her over here, given he has an empty house.

In theory three excitable teenagers should have been a car driver’s nightmare but not at six am, they were all pretty much comatose most of the time. I drop the girls off right next to their bus bay and they promptly disappear off to find a McDonald's. So if they subsequently get lost, they’ve got no one to blame but themselves. Son had long since wandered off, killing time until it was late enough to text his lift. His parting words ‘God this is a depressing place’. Welcome to Stoke. Hope she’s worth it.

Commonsense and the fact that I find even a brisk walk painful after amassing fifteen bruises (approximately) in my bike fall yesterday, means I skip tonight’s final race of the Grand Prix series and support L instead. I think of asking her to push me round in a wheelchair but decide against it. At least this way the boys get a night out and a chance to bark at some runners.



L does well again, again knocking over a minute off last year’s time. All of which will give her a good overall placing in the series. Better than mine obviously, having skipped this race I won’t get a final placing at all. I do still claim my series t-shirt, which is disappointingly long sleeved, which means it won’t get worn until November at the earliest.

I must be anticipating a soonish return to fitness and form because I enter us for the Cardiff Half Marathon today. We are so cosmopolitan. Stoke one week, then Wolverhampton, Harrogate and Cardiff. Wherever next? St Neots, Morecambe, Birmingham... the list goes on.

Cardiff is just the sort of huge mass race madness we thrive on, with 15,000 entries last year. Despite the fact it appears to be all around the Cardiff Bay area and looks a bit like a larger version of the Notts 10, e.g. laps around Holme Pierrepont.

I even book us a cosy cottage near Cwmbran, so that we can make a weekend of it. L offers to treat me to the Leek Half by way of a thank you. She seems to have an odd definition of a treat.

(Thursday 7th July)

Teflon Corner

I have a bit of a bike problem this morning, I fall off it. It happened on the notorious ‘Teflon corner’ at the end of our road at work here on Pride Park. I kind of forgot it was wet, despite the fact it was raining. I went round too fast and leant over too much on a corner that has claimed practically every cyclist in our office and a few others who we've seen hit the tarmac from nearby offices.

The corner is always the first place in the Northern Hemisphere to ice up in winter and we’ve seen many a car spin on it. It has zero drainage and I’ve no idea what it’s surfaced with (we assume Teflon) but it’s a temporary surface to go with the patchwork of surfaces and exposed drains that makes up the roads and pavements around here. We’ve been here three and half years now and all the building work was finished over a year ago but still they haven’t put a permanent surface down. Anyhow, don’t worry, the bikes fine.

With the park now reopened, L and the boys ‘sniff out’ the impressive gravestones that have appeared outside Bruce Wayne’s mansion. I would nip down to get a few photos, if it wasn’t for the massive ‘no photos’ sign and the security guard, although some have appear on the internet. I hope Doggo weed up it.

I take the flatter but freshly stone chipped route home, to avoid putting my bruised body through the hillier route. It's not too bad at first, all the stones have now been swept to the sides by the cars, into the cycle lane of course but by not riding in the cycle lane it's not too bad. Until the downhill stretch into Risley that is, where there's loose stones everywhere. I had a few iffy moments there but managed to keep the thing upright this time.

It’s also a crash strewn day at the Tour de France, so I can feel some empathy with them. Particularly for Tom Boonen who limped across the line some time after everyone else had finished, luckily for him he didn’t have a stone chipped Risley to put the icing on his already bad day at the office.

Much better though from Mark Cavendish, who appeared out of nowhere to the win the stage and on a uphill finish as well, which is far from his natural habitat, making it possibly the best of his sixteen Tour de France stage victories (so far), particularly as the route planners (loads of uphill finishes), the officials (docking him points) and the other riders (blocking him) appear to have it in for him. Then he dedicated it to his dog Amber, who sadly died yesterday. Sob. Bless.

It’s been a good tour for Britain so far, three riders in the top seven and none of them are Cavendish. Dave Millar is fourth, Bradley Wiggins fifth and Geraint Thomas seventh (as well as leading the best young rider category). Heady days.

Dog class tonight, at a hobble. Somehow I manage not to hold MD back, who is simply brilliant this evening.

(Wednesday 6th July)

All Out Sprint

It’s the third race of the Grand Prix series tonight, not held as usual at Bruce Wayne’s Manor, sorry I mean Wollaton Hall, but tonight at good old dependable Rushcliffe again. Where we were on Thursday for race two. This is rather unimaginative of the organisers, who had the chance to take this popular race series back to one of its old haunts, such as Forest Fields, or to a new location at one of the many parks around Nottingham. Somewhere like Bestwood would have been a good choice.

So back to those lovely gravel paths for just 5k this time. The shortest but also possibly the hardest of the four distances because for many hardy folks this is simply an all out sprint from start to finish, and if you’re like me, it’s hard not to join in.

L got the hundred miles up on Saturday, so she’s already well on the way in her quest for five hundred miles by next May and she’ll be adding another eighteen or so this week.

I start brisk-ish, avoiding the footpath wherever possible and keeping to the grass edges. One four minute km follows another and then my legs collapse. 4:08, 4:24, 4:19 I gasp across the line and land in a heap. Things are not going well at the moment.

L does better again, knocking a minute off her time from last year, whilst I add over a minute.

Back home I enter us for the all new Birmingham Half, sorry Bupa Great Birmingham Run, in the belief (probably mistaken) that I am now a long distance runner. Then I start looking at Cardiff....

(Tuesday 5th July)

Intellectual Stuff

L asks how I am. I’m feeling a bit sun blasted after two days out in the open but other than that, fine. Now, did that warrant a comma? L and I were discussing commas the other day, as you do. Intellectual stuff.

I’m sure nobody takes the selection of which checkout queue to join at Sainsbury’s quite as seriously as me. Usually it comes down to who the checkout operator is. Generally I dislike pretty much all of them because mostly they delight in watching me disappear under a pile of tins, fruit, meat, vegetables etc etc as I attempt to pack everything into bags as they hurl items at me as fast as they possibly can. Then they sit there with their arms folded demanding I pay while I dig myself out from under the dog food, still with three bags worth to pack. Well tough, you’ll have to wait.

Because of this I run a league table system, awarding points for things like:- the speed they scan at (the slower the better), whether they have the second belt in operation (the nice ones don’t), whether they hold things up by chatting to the previous customer for hours, as well as general grumpiness/helpfulness etc.

It usually the male staff whom top the league, which is perhaps surprising given the fact that the female staff have an advantage in that they can obtain bonus points for attractiveness, which can help ease the trauma of shopping. The men though score better on all the other criteria and today’s chap was brilliant, straight in at number one. I bet here’s not there next week.

Tonight L says we’re going to eat American as its 4th July.... homemade burgers, salad, potato salad and corn on the cob. It all sounds good, although I’m not sure I like celebrating anything American.



I miss dog training tonight, again, for another committee meeting, although not sure why I bothered. Talk about stuck in their ways.

(Monday 4th July)

A Useful Trick, Sometimes

Another early start, another dog show, in Wellingborough this time but there’s an even earlier start for L who picks Daughter up at 5am. There’s a strategy here, Daughter and Son both need to be on coach to Milton Keynes by 11am for the Foo Fighters gig they’re going to.

L comes to Wellingborough with me and has to organise the kids getting out the house and to the coach from a hundred miles away, which proves stressful. Yeah I know they’re both adults now and should be able to catch a coach unaided but it’s good to make sure, particularly when expensive coach and concert tickets are riding on it.

My schedule for the dog show is about as inconvenient as it gets. MD has drawn numbers 1 and 8 in two classes that both start at 8.30am, which isn’t feasible, so I make my apologies to the class he is due to run at 8 in and promise to get there as soon as possible.

His 'number 1' class is against dogs in grade 4, one level above him, so predictably he goes clear in that, where he's unlikely to get anything, but not in the second one for his grade only, where he may well have done.

As expected, against the dogs of grade 4 we get pushed out of the placings but by only half a second and we wasted far more than that when MD turned left off one jump when he should have turned right. This was my fault really, we’ve been practising like mad getting him to turn away from me rather than towards me which is the natural way, but it's a useful trick to have in your armoury. It’s just that he’s only supposed to do it when I tell him too and on this occasion I swear I didn’t.

His third and final run comes up soon after but doesn’t go well. Meanwhile poor old Doggo has to wait and wait in the increasing heat for his runs, finally running his first at 4pm and then his second straight after that. Not ideal for an old timer. As I said, possibly the most inconvenient schedule ever. He’s clear in the first, although just outside the placings, but looked a bit tired and wasn’t in the second.

We’re not the only ones hanging around. The kids are in MK for around 1.30, the first band doesn’t hit the stage until 4.30. So we get home and have the house to ourselves, which is always nice.

The day ends pretty much as it started with another late night/early morning Daughter (and Son) collection. We pick them up at 2am from the bus station.

(Sunday 3rd July)

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

We head over to Birmingham early-ish this morning and park at the NIA, which is eerily quiet and only seems to have one entrance open. Parking there has shades of the Birmingham Half last year, just ten thousand people quieter. We see one other runner, who unfortunately sprints off before we can follow him to New Street station, which we struggle to find having left via some back entrance to the car park.

There are few more runners on the train and a few more get on at some of the stops as we head over to Wolverhampton. Once at Wolverhampton station the crowds start to ramp up considerably and we follow the increasing throng to the semi-secret start location at the British Waterways Boatyard, not far from the station.

This is already a fairly unique race experience and it’s about to get even more so. The Birmingham And Black Country Half Marathon is a point to point ‘race’ along the towpath of the Wolverhampton to Birmingham canal. It isn’t really a race at all, due to the narrowness of the towpath it is run as a time trial, with staggered starts over three or more hours. I’ve been given an assembly time of 9.30, whilst L’s is 11.40, over two hours later. So I'll be finished before she starts.

While I stow my kitbag in the baggage van, L sets about getting her start time brought forward. She’s worried about what three hours waiting at the finish might do to my liver and the fact she might have to drive us out of Birmingham city centre.

The start times turn out to be only loosely enforced, e.g. they’re not, and she’s told to basically go for it when she likes. So that’s less time in the pub for me.

After a quick but entertaining pre-race briefing for my start group, we line up in single file and then like a scene from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we disappear through a door in the boatyard wall. As I emerge onto the canal bank and a marshal keys my number into his PDA I fail to realise that I was now 'under orders'. The guy released a second after me is already itching to get started and sighing heavily in my ear hole. Two steps later I practically fall over the timing mat as I fiddle to get my watch started, then we're off. I quickly let Mr Impatient past me.

The single file start works well; it actually makes it much easier to get into a rhythm than in a mass start race. A few runners come past me early on but not once do I feel the urge to push one of them into the canal, although if they try that in the last half a mile I might feel a little different. After the first mile or so, it’s mainly me doing the overtaking and everyone is very courteous as I get the better of them.

The downside is that there’s not exactly a crowd roaring you on as go and at times it felt like a training session or rather it would, if I did any training sessions of this sort of length. There are plenty of marshals to give you a mini-roar but a big city half marathon it certainly isn’t.

Then there’s the wildlife, such as the evil looking swan and its chicks about a mile in. This was followed by a pile of feathers a little further down the track, where someone had perhaps got their own back.

At four miles comes the ‘highlight’, the 329 metre long Coseley Tunnel. They advise that if you are afraid of the dark to bring a head torch or to at least make sure you lift your shades before entering. It’s not really that dark as they have lit it in parts with battery lamps but it’s a bit uneven under foot and I fell down a hole at one point. It was also the only place where single file had to prevail, although some people still insisted on pushing past others in there, which I thought was a bit unnecessary.

Then there’s the random heavy duty hosepipe at five miles to steeplechase over, courtesy of the local fire brigade and the youth of Tipton who have been out on a burning spree but that was about it for obstacles. Totally flat, apart from the many bridges that really messed around with your legs, your pace and made the whole thing harder than you would think.

I missed the first mile marker and they were pretty invisible all the way around, always turned sideways to the course. The girl proclaiming to be the seven mile marker was great. Can all the mile markers do that next year?

The gravel towpath started to grate quite quickly and I began finding as much grass verge to run on as possible. This seemed to chip 30 seconds per mile off my times, although this may have been simply psychological. It was never going to be a PB course for me on that surface.

There were four drinks stations en route with a mix of water and sports drink, although I didn't realise about the sports drink until nine miles in. Some of the drinks stations were utilising barges which saved blocking the towpath, a nice innovation.

I kept a loose eye on my times and seemed set to break 1:45, which I would have been happy with. At the 12 mile marker, it left me nine and half minutes to complete the last 1.1 miles, even having slowed to an eight minute mile pace that was going to be easy peasy. The only problem was it was far further than .1 of a mile from the 13m point to the finish at Brindley Place. I usually reckon on forty five seconds for this last bit, today... two minutes sixteen seconds and no, I didn’t crawl it. Someone with a GPS later told me the course was 13.3 miles. Hmmm.

I’ve finished the race but the trauma isn’t over yet. An impressively painful but helpful massage is followed by what appears to be endless flights of stairs as I attempt to find the showers.

Overall, a well organised half marathon and a bit, that somehow manages that big event atmosphere after all, perhaps it was the well organised finished area. I got my kit bag back, along with a medal and a commemorative goody bag which included a stick of rock, which I was initially unimpressed with, until I realised that it had the race name printed through it. The 25% off at Pitcher and Piano certainly encouraged most people to stick around which helped, we certainly took full advantage. It was just a shame there wasn’t a t-shirt.

Probably not the ideal race for anyone doing their first half but I met some for who it was. One chap, a 17 year old, even told me it was his first race of any kind. I was still reeling from finding a teenager who’d run a half marathon when he told me he’d only done 100 miles in training for it... err that’s much more than me.

In the end, L starts half an hour behind me, which just about gives me enough time for the massage, shower and to get changed before she comes in. Almost enough time, but not quite. I just miss her crossing the line.

Then we set off to find Son, who has come over from Warwick looking for a lift home and probably lunch, which at 25% off at Pitcher and Piano isn’t a problem. If he can stay awake, he looks like he’s been up all night, which he probably has and being kicked out of his accommodation at 10am clearly hasn’t helped.

We get home around four, with Daughter out and Son by now asleep, we’ve just got two neglected dogs to satisfy before we can have some time to ourselves. Two neglected dogs who clearly cannot believe their bad luck when we nip down the Johnsons and White Hart later without them.

(Saturday 2nd July)

Marmite

L’s final day plodding the streets with the dogs, due to the park closure. Everyone else has had to do the same thing of course, all very much to the chagrin of MD, who doesn’t like company on ‘his’ streets.

The legs are just about ok this morning. A good job with another race tomorrow. We could even have done the Colin Potter 10k tonight if we wanted to be even madder. We have done for the last few years but this year it’s in the middle of the Grand Prix series rather than at the end. Then of course there’s this little run they’ve dubbed the ‘Marmite Race’ on Saturday, the Birmingham And Black Country Half Marathon, you either love it or hate it. Well, as we’re in it, I’ll let you know the verdict tomorrow.

Instead we head over to Warwick tonight to collect Son, who has passed all his first year exams and is heading home for the summer. Well, we collect his stuff, he’s staying on for one last night of partying and will meet us tomorrow in Birmingham.

(Friday 1st July)