Photograph Quiz.
Photo no. 152: … but they had thin laces and a rubber toe cap, read on Blog.
Dear Blog,
Some considerable time ago I wrote to you about ‘Tours’. Well, there have already been a couple this year so far and at the weekend I will be attending one …. More next week.
10:30 am. Yesterday. I was chatting in the boiling sun to a fellow trudger yesterday, at the bottom of my Estate driveway, about Tours in general and how slow we both were shuffling about, to and fro in the countryside. He said that it was because we were getting old. I said to him that he should confine his observation to himself and not include others in such remarks, going around upsetting people. Because it was so hot, he was not wearing a top, such was the heat from the sun. He was having a shuffle trudge break form the glare of the sun and using me as his excuse for stopping for a chat with me and I was having grass strimming break from the glare of the sun and I was using him as my excuse for stopping for a chat with him. A gigantic low loader, occupying the whole width of the road chugged slowly up the Lane and stopped us talking mid chat. I do mean the whole width of the highway with a capital ‘WW’; and I do mean mega gigantic. And what was he carrying you ask Blog. Now I am really glad you asked me that question Blog, as I was dieing to tell you the answer. The low loader was carrying a Westlands helicopter. Blog, I kid you not. A Helicopter!!! I was agog, Blog. A Westlands Helicopter with full RAF markings, on the back of this low loader. Blog, I kid you not. He slowed to a crawl to try to negotiate the bend in the Lane, taking out all the low over hanging tree branches and widening the width of the road as it went.
I’ll tell you what blog, it was never like this before that nice Mr Cameroon made all those defence spending cut backs. Oh no indeed. Back then the helicopters used to fly in the sky to where ever they were going; now they travel on the back of low loaders to save a few quids on petrol. What is the country coming to? And coming down my narrow country Lane, for goodness sake. How come??? I can only assume the driver was using his satnav and he forgot to tell it that he was a big, big, big lorry giving a helicopter a piggy back ride and not a mini car!! I wished I had had a camera to send you a photograph of it Blog. But I didn’t have one so I couldn’t. I shall go for a trudge up the lane later today to see if the low loader with the helicopter on board is wedged fast on one of the tight bends a little further up the lane than my Estate.
While we (the two trudgers) were chatting in the unusually hot broiling sun, I was reminded of the time when we all used to train in the sun, not stripped out like my fellow chatee, but still wearing extra clothing to make us sweat and to acclimatise to running a marathon; a marathon in those days, the Trials for a major championships included, were always run in the warm summer months, no matter what the temperature. It was only the popularity of distance running in the running boom years that forced the athletic authorities in this country to change their attitude to avoid the joggers dieing of heat exhaustion in their thousands; marathons were scheduled for the cooler months.
So we trained in extra gear. The World Record holder for 10k (six and a quarter miles Colin) Ron Clarke used to train hard at noon in the summer months in Australia in tracksuit. This never made any sort of sense to me as the temperatures were up in the 400c range. It was only when I went out to Australia that the statement about Clarke made sense. He said that he had not been quoted fully as he had added that these sessions took place in the tree shade of the Dandenong Hills near Melbourne. And from experience of training in January in the scorching Australian sun, that does make sense. Under the tree canopy it is quite pleasant.
Ron Clarke took up a senior position with Dunlop shortly after I had been out in Australia and speculation on the grape vine was rife that Dunlop were about to enter the Sports shoe market with a range of running shoes. A grape vine Blog? That’s a Blog before a Blog, Blog. Now the word ‘Dunlop’ linked with ‘sports shoe’ to someone my age, Blog, meant black canvas pumps; black plimsolls. The rumour persisted for some time but sure enough, the Dunlop racing and training shoes appeared on the market! And they were good I have to admit. I was sent a couple of pairs of both and the racers were similar to those produced by Ron Hill. Both were excellent. Forster won the London Marathon in a pair!!! But they were before their time. The inertia of the market place could not be overcome as most athletes were still flattered by the publicity generated by the established brands. After a year or so, Dunlop threw in the towel and withdrew from the shoe market completely (? Except for their black pumps?).
I must get a pair of black plimsolls for the National Heritage Weekend’s exhibition of “The History of Coventry Godiva Harriers and Other Clubs in the City of Coventry” coming to clubhouse near you soon.
Colin
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