Marathon Training Tip no. 7.

Sorry Blog for not being in touch … I have been busy. Last week the family was involved in three separate races on three different days … because I couldn’t remember the start time of one of them, I had to refer to one of those running magazine things for that particular piece of information. As I flicked through the mag, an article caught my eye about training. Impressed was I Blog? Obviously the writer had an armful of badges and must have been very knowledgeable as he had an impressive bibliography to reinforce the validity of his arguments. But I ask you … Have any of these experts actually broken sweat? Has their pristine tracksuit ever got a tinsy winsy bit mucky? The gist of this particular article was to question the reasons for training twice a day. One nugget seemed to be that the athlete should not start the second session tired. I thought that the idea of training twice a day WAS to start the second session tired. I could be wrong? But then, my arms are noticeably lacking in badges telling the world that I am a clever a******e. The point of the athlete’s personal ambitions seems to not have been mentioned. I would have thought that the whole point of running/ training is to fulfil an athletic aim, viz to satisfy an ambition which burns so fiercely that an athlete’s whole life is geared towards success. Or has the sport gone so far down the social jogging path that such desires are regarded as mundane and are the prerogative of only running eccentrics?? I thought that the world class marathoners which this country used to produce spent their entire waking hours being tired? Their sleeping hours were pretty tiring too?? I am probably wrong about this as well. No bibliography for me Blog. Motivation seems to be damaged if an athlete embarks of double dosing the article suggested. Well let me tell you Mr Expert, motivation is no problem if the athlete’s ambition burns so fiercely that the athlete’s whole life is geared towards success. Oh don’t do it suggests Mr Qualifiedman, because you may get sore or tired muscles. I could be in error when I say this, but I am lead to believe that an athlete gets sore and tired muscles in a race if he tries to run fast. Give me a social trudge any day …what do you say Blog?? And best of all is saved until last. Read on Blog. Be surprised. Training twice a day may take up more time than training once. Bugger me, that’s a bit of a stunner. It may interfere with the rest of your life, spending all that time getting change into and out of kit, travelling to and from training. I might have misunderstood, but I took it that if an athlete wanted to train twice a day, it was implicit that athletics was the rest of the athlete’s life? No sacrifice there matey. The blindingly obvious solution to minimise time spent training / changing / travelling was cracked years ago ….run to and from work, train in the lunch hour. It’s not rocket science, it has been tried before, I am reliably informed. By 6.60 pm three sessions complete and the rest of the evening is free to do whatever takes your fancy…. Well actually it isn’t. You are so knackered that all you want to do is nothing, with a capital ‘N’. I am sure there must be a learned paper about it somewhere. One thing is for sure; I want a bit more of this clever stuff Blog. So if you don’t hear from me for a couple of hours, I will deep into the archives of one of those institutions that knows all about this technical stuff, reading their running magazines. [I can’t afford to buy them on my pension. Have you seen the price Blog? They cost an arm and a leg. But that’s OK as I still would have one left to stitch the badges to.]  ‘Kirkham, we are pleased to announce that you have been awarded Third Class Honours with Bar for partly for your thesis on ‘Ceaseless Trudging Here and There’ but mostly for boring the pants off Blob’. Here, here.

                                 Colin

P.S. When I have a few spare moments, I think I will write to this knowledgeable expert with an armful of badges to ask for his advice about training three times a day.

P.P.S. I wonder if the expert has heard of that London Marathon Organiser fella, Dave somebody or other. I think he sometimes used to run more than once a day. But I could be wrong?

New York City Marathon 2011 Result

Hi Blog!

 I see the New York Marathon was this weekend. I suppose I must have run about 2:18 when I ran the New York City Marathon a few years back. I usually ran about that time when there was no pressing urgency to knacker myself. I don’t know what time I ran but I can remember at the presentation, I was awarded a large cup for something, (I don’t think I was old enough to qualify as a veteran runner?) which, as usual, on my return home caused some delay at customs with the usual plethora of questions. Precisely what qualifications do customs officers need?? A degree in asking the bleeding obvious? A Masters in being very annoying? A PhD in making sure you miss your next transport connection?

I found New York a very friendly city. So nice of people to speak to you on the streets; complete strangers willing to enter into conversation. Every time I ventured out of the hotel I was greeted by a young lady or two wanting to know if I was enjoying myself, was I having a good day, or enquiring if I wanted a good time or if I wanted to see some sights. I said to one young lady who offered to let me explore with her that I could not really accept her kind offer as I thought that, as she was dressed so inappropriately for the cold weather with so few clothes, I was afraid that she might catch her death if she stayed out with me too long. I think she wanted to borrow my jacket to keep warm; I assume that the American slang for jacket or jerkin is ‘Jerk’? I don’t think she was American because her language was a little stilted; to ask for the jacket she just said ‘You Jerk’. The friendliness started as soon as I landed on American soil. I went to go through the ‘Nothing to Declare’ channel at the airport but these two nice gentlemen in uniform asked me to step into their office. Very nice. They didn’t offer me coffee straight away as I was expecting. They explained that they worked for some relation of theirs called Uncle Sam and he wanted to know how long I was staying in ‘the U.S.’, how much money I had and what were my arrangements for accommodation during my stay. And did I have a return ticket? Now I don’t mind telling you, Blog, that I thought the questions were a little bit obtrusive, but you can never tell with these Johnny Foreigners, so I decided to play along with them. I thought it might be polite to start by asking them how their Uncle Sam was, was he in good health? In reality, I was more worried about one of the two gentlemen questioning me as he had exploded into a coughing fit. Almost apoplexic he was. He had to take a swig out of his little hip flask to recover. I told him that in England the chemist usually prescribes cough medicine in a glass bottle but I supposed with his job, he could not risk any of the glass shards on the airport lounge floor if he happened to drop his medicine bottle. I said I thought that using a hip flask was a good idea in the circumstances. He was turning a funny colour though. Quite worrying. He asked me how many American dollars I had brought with me. I said I hadn’t any. No joke. Sterling? None. No kidding. Credit card? Don’t own one. Honest! Travellers cheques? Nope. I kid you not. With every question his tone seemed to become more aggressive and each successive question increased in volume until he actually shouted at me to turn out my pockets. Quite scary. I thought he wanted to borrow my handkerchief to mop his brow such was the streams of sweat flowing down his chubby cheeks. ‘Why are did you come to the U.S. if you have no money, Sir?’ the other one asked in a quieter tone; he had said very little up until this juncture. ‘To run the New York City Marathon’. ‘With no money for accommodation or food?? ‘Oh no’ I said ‘I have been invited to run’ ‘Invited? By who?’ As he was now starting to get excited, I didn’t like to tell him that I thought he should have said ‘By Whom’. I let it pass in the interests of Anglo American relations. I mentioned the name of the lady who worked for the marathon organiser and said she had made all the arrangements, accommodation, meals, finance etc.. ‘You are an invited athlete Sir? Come this way. Welcome to the United States of America. We do hope you enjoy your stay in our country. Wait. Do join us for coffee’ Which in the circumstances I thought was very civil of them both. Over coffee they explained that I had to be careful in a big city like New York and if the marathon organiser’s cab hadn’t arrived they would organise transport, it not being safe to just take any old cab that plied for hire. This was a very perceptive statement. I knew this to be true as two years previous, another marathon runner from one of the countries with a common border with England had been forced to take out a large amount of insurance in dollar notes with the cabbie who took him from the airport into the city. I kid you not! My taxi ride was very pleasant, right to the front of the hotel. The cabbie asked me to sign the chit so he could claim the fare from the race organisers. I said I thought that the distance he had written down was rather OTT but he explained that the bill was in American miles not English miles. He said he thought an English mile was about the same as five English miles. I said that that was an interesting fact about the differences in our two countries and I signed the chit. He said it was a pleasure to do business with me and he hoped I had a good day. Such a nice man.

And of course, just like anyone who has flown into Kennedy, I got a massive electric shock off the handrail!!!

                More later perhaps, as I have to trudge now, because this afternoon, I am marshalling for at a Midland League Walk. This morning, my wife and two kids are running in a 5 mile race, so it’s a busy old day.          

                                 Colin

Cheats in Sport?

Salut Blog,

It is an interesting outcome to the Test Match cricketing fixing scandal don’t you think Blog? Prison sentences for players Butt, Asif and agent Majeed with detention for Amir, followed by an extended ban from the sport of up to 5 years, to act as a deterrent, said by the judge, to anyone in the sport who might be tempted to go down a similar path. Would that all sports took a similar hard line to their participants who spoil a sport for others. Severe though the sentence is, it should have gone further. A life ban would have conveyed an absolute message. WE DO NOT WANT CHEATS IN OUR SPORT and if you do cheat, expect no mercy. NONE. Pure and simple. On the other hand, if the cricketers and their manager had intended to cheat at the outset of their careers, you’d have thought that the silly billies would have chosen a softer sport where escaping really serious sanctions is easier, wouldn’t you Blog? Athletics? No problarmo. Take a pill, get caught, have a ban, concentrate on training for a year and that’s OK baby, you are back competing earning quids!

Just imagine ..... it’s easy if you try.

Suppose you are in athletics; you’re a big black guy who decided to pop a pill packet or two to speed you up or something. You get caught. You get banned for a year ... or two if you’ve been really, really naughty. No fine, that’s fine. No prison. O.K.. You do the year, you are reinstated, you compete again, and you earn quids again. No problamo. That’s the rules, baby. But, in the media, you are still the big black bloke who got banned for drug taking. Each meet media commentary, you are still the big black bloke who got banned for drug taking.

 Just imagine ..... it’s easy if you try.

Suppose you are in athletics; you’re a blonde white bimbo who has the quids to live and train quite legitimately at high altitude to stimulate the same effect as taking the banned E.P.O. or using the illegal method of blood doping to make you speed up or something. You don’t get banned because you have done nothing really, really naughty. Or even a little bit naughty. That’s fine. No rules broken baby. No problarmo. You continue to get the quids. In the media you are still the blonde white bimbo who lives and trains at altitude. No problarmo. Each meet media commentary you attend for the quids, you are still the blonde white bimbo who lives and trains at high altitude.

Some sports not only appear to have a softer attitude to cheats but they also seem to have a flexible attitude to implementation and interpretation, apparently. Can you think of any sports where this might apply, Blog?

So those poor Pakistanis are now in jail doing time, that’s fine, and they will then, after their sentence is completed, have further penalties to suffer. If their mums and dads had thought it through when they were young kids, instead of buying them a cricket bat for their birthday presents, they had been given a pair of running spikes, they would have only suffered a minor blip in their sporting careers and not a massive life changing blow. C’est la vie.

                                            Bonsoir, Blog

Genes for Jeans Day

Dearest Bloggo,

                            I think I told you that last week I went up to Yorkshire and stayed in a Pod? I think I did. (Tell you I mean ... I know I stayed in a Pod). Well, while I was Podding I went to see my mother. We were chatting generally, and I said that I was still trudging. She enquired if I had found out about my granddad, her father. Now this is interesting. I had been running about four or five years when Granddad died. As far as I can recall, he never mentioned my running to me. This was in the 1960s. Out of the blue, about three years ago, my mother suddenly mentioned that Granddad used to run. I thought this was my mother just being fanciful as she had never mentioned this fact before; somewhat surprising considering I had run once, twice, three times daily for the best part of forty years!!! I would have expected it to have surfaced at some time in the past? I questioned her further, not really believing what she had to say. She went into details saying that he had been a member of Wath Athletic Club and she had seen a couple of his medals. I had seen medals in a drawer full of oddments when I was young but had assumed that they were his war medals; I am sure they were. Granddad did come from Wath on Dearne which is near Doncaster. As I had never heard of the athletics club, I naturally did a bit of research and found out that there indeed used to be such a club in the immediate post WW1 days, which would be the right era for Granddad to be active. Then I drew a blank. SO. Doncaster seems to be a possible holiday destination for weekend break to check up the facts at the local library to see what athletic news they might have in the local papers from that time. It would be most interesting to see if running ran in the family genes!!??

                      I told my mother that I would make some further enquiries for her about my granddad’s athletic prowess, I also told her what the rest of the family had been doing athletic competition wise. Furthermore, I mentioned the situation with someone running using my full name, club and birth date etc. (see London Marathon and Stafford Half Marathon I mentioned to you a couple of weeks ago Blog). I also made reference to the other coincidences that have happened in the past, repeating what I have told you Blog, suspecting that there may be two Colin Kirkhams. It was then that she broke down and started to cry. She got quite emotional. I wondered what on earth was wrong with her. I tried to comfort her, wondering whether to call for help from one of the care assistants. Heartbroken she was. (My mother, not the care assistant). When she finally calmed down, she sobbed that there was something that she had meant to tell me for years! I didn’t know what to expect. She explained that I actually was a twin, and that my brother and I were both christened Colin. Apparently, at the christening, my dad was suffering from a heavy cold which had temporarily made him a little deaf. After I had been baptised, I started to yell from the cold water being placed on my forehead. Regardless, the vicar pressed on with the ceremony and asked my dad what the name of my brother was to be. With the row I was kicking up and the fact that dad could not hear too clearly, my dad thought the vicar was still talking about me so dad replied ‘Colin’ ... and the rest, as they say, is history.

However, the story doesn’t end there. No way, Blog. My mother went on to explain that we were so poor, Dad suffering from the effects of the unemployment caused by the post war depression, and mum working part time in the mill, that they could only afford to buy a second hand perambulator as money was so tight. This was not as bad as it seemed; mum told me only one of the twins could be taken out at any one time, as my parents had barely enough money for one single set of clothes, caused directly by the result of the lack of clothing coupons in the austerity conditions prevailing from the war rationing. With hind sight mum said that I must be eternally grateful that my twin was a boy; would my sister be wearing trousers or would I have been wearing a dress as we grew up together?? Shudder!

Because of the clothes situation, only one of us could attend school at a time. But because we were identical twins, the teachers never noticed. Apparently we took it in turns to go to school, I did Monday Wednesday and Friday, Colin did Tuesday and Thursdays. In year two we changed attendance, me dropping to two days, Colin upping his attendance to three alternate days, ‘To give us both a fair equitable start in life!’ mother explained. I must say that she was quite proud that we always won the ‘Attendance Prize’ each year with an unblemished 100% attendance; if one of us was ill, the other simply stood in and did an extra day! Having been told this revelation of a twin, distant memories stirred. It explained why I never got to grips with my 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 times tables but was absolutely brilliant at my 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 times tables. It explained why the stories the teacher read to the class never made sense – I only got to hear alternate chapters. It explains why I sometimes got caned at school for things I never did; apparently, the upside was that if either of us got lines to write out as a punishment, we only did half as we shared the task. Having only one set of clothes explains why we always went to a nudist camp for our holidays. It explained why I couldn’t play out when Colin could, he could go to the park and I couldn’t. Mum said the neighbours never knew she had two children because of our strange double (single) life. She told any nosey neighbours who heard me and my brother making a noise while we were playing indoors that I had a vivid imagination and talked to myself a lot. Sometimes she told them I had an imaginary little girl friend whom I called Colleen after my Irish great, great Granma. She (my mother not my great, great Granma from Eire) once had a visit from the Council’s Children’s Welfare Officer because the local shop keeper had reported her (my mother not my great, great Granma from Eire) for cruelty because mum bought so many boxes of Farley’s Rusks; the charge he (the Council’s Children’s Welfare Officer not the local shop keeper) was investigating was ‘cruelty by over feeding’. The Welfare Officer had also visited me at school when I had spots; he was confused so I was examined by the school doctor who tried to explain why the spots seemed to be there one day and gone the next and then returned. Mum told me that she believed he (the doctor not the Welfare Officer) wrote a little pamphlet on the phenomenon and as a result, got a job lecturing at the London School of Medicine on the strength of it.

Mum went on to tell me that by the time we left Infants’ School to start at the Junior School, the pretence was getting too much for her. When I (we) was (were) seven, mum and dad took the decision to have me (him) adopted. She thought it was the other Colin that was adopted but it could have been me, she didn’t really know which one went and which one stayed as we were so alike. Mum said I was inconsolable for weeks afterwards, the reason being that I could not get used to the thought of a life that entailed two extra days at school; mum told me that is what happened at the new Junior School, they went five days a week not just a couple like at the Infants. I must say that I was most surprised when my own children started infant school to find out that they attended every day. Five full days! I just assumed it was one of the new ideas that that lovely Mrs Hatcher introduced into education to compensate the kiddies for nicking all their morning drinks of milk.

All this took me aback, I can tell you Blog. So much so that I didn’t trudge on last Friday, I could not bring myself to put one foot in front of the other.

Please Blog, I am deeply embarrassed by these recent revelations. I haven’t quite got my head round them yet. Please respect my privacy in this matter and not mention what I have just told you to anyone else. Perhaps I will feel differently when I find my long lost brother. If running is in the genes like it seemed to be with me and my grandfather according to my mother, I should not really be surprised to find that there actually is another Colin Kirkham out there trudging in races because he must have inherited the same genes as me. Not only did we share the same clothes when we were small, we shared same genes as well!!

                                          See you, Colin and Colin

Keighley and Worth Valley Railway

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 57a:- For my second fell race when I started running, I competed in a race witch ran up the hill you can see in the distance. WITCH hill is it? Cryptic Clue: Some will depend lets say!

Photo no. 57b:- What is the monument in the picture ... take what I say with a pinch of Salt! The hill referred to in 57a is to the right. I used to run across here on my long country runs when I first started running.

Dear Blog,

               Last week as I told you, I went up to Yorkshire but instead of camping for the week, the family hired a POD, which is a rich man’s version of a tent or a poor man’s version of a caravan. It is a garden hut, insulated, with a curved roof, carpeted floor, electricity and a heater. After my first trudge I did appreciate the warmth and space of this Pod thing instead of having to return to a cold damp tent with no room to swing a proverbial cat! Perched high on the Yorkshire moors, you could see for miles and miles. Well, the Pod’s owner said you could see for miles and miles on a clear day when we phoned up to book in for a week’s stay. And was he wrong? He was not wrong! Not at all. The site was about two miles from where I used to live, so I knew it well; also the surrounding countryside was my old stomping ground. Tuesday dawned fine, warm and sunny. For my trudge I decided to replicate a standard session I used to employ years ago when I wanted a speed quality work out. Of course it wouldn’t be a speed session. And it wouldn’t be a quality session. And there is no way any trudge of mine can be called a ‘work out’. And there would be a lack of buses to use. Buses? Yes Blog, Buses with a capital ‘B’. So what did I used to do? It was always a second or third session of the day and the idea was to have a quality blowout. I’d leave home and run quite hard down to the main road about a mile away. The spot where I joined up with the main Halifax Road, was a wide open road junction with an old iron horse trough on the small central island. The space provided a turning circle from the time in the 1930s when Keighley had tracklesses instead of buses for transporting the locals to and from the mills in the town. Before the electric vehicles, horse drawn transport used the turning circle, hence the old horse trough. I knew the timing of the bus service up to Haworth (of ‘Bronte’ fame) and Oxenhope (of the film ‘The Railway Children’ fame). As it was time for all the local mills to finish, buses were frequent. 50 years ago runners were regarded as oddballs and the subject of derision at best and abuse at worst. If the bus was late I did a few reps on the wide pavements around the circle until a bus appeared. This, as you can imagine, went down a treat from the queuing workers waiting for a bus to take them in the opposite direction to the bus I was waiting for. Howls of discouragement every time I speeded up to make another effort; it was always a relief when the bus to Haworth or Oxenhope turned up. Then the session began in earnest. It was two miles of constant steady climb up to Cross Roads where the roads to Haworth and Oxenhope diverged. My task was to race, Yes Blog, RACE, the bus up to the junction. The bus had to stop to drop passengers off of course, but these frequent stops afforded me the opportunity to catch and pass the bus. Our times to the junction were very similar. I had eleven bus stops to race the omnibus, the two miles being a constant game of pass / pass. I am sure the drivers used to enter into the spirit of the session. I know the passengers took an interest and got quite excited about who would be the victor! If the bus turned off to Oxenhope, which was my route, it was an added bonus as the competition was extended for another plus mile; but my task got harder as the road to the terminus was now flat and few passengers were left on the bus necessitating fewer stops. Part of my reason for this session was that it offered me a fast session with a couple of miles of flat running thrown into the steady run up hill to Cross Roads and the screamingly fast run back down from Cross Roads to my start point. Even on the return downhill section, I could give the local bus service a good run for its money! The terminus at Oxenhope village is also the terminus for the Keighley and Worth Valley Preservation Society’s steam railway – well worth a visit especially when a special event like the Santa Special is being promoted at Christmas time. Of course, the railway was still operational when I was a kid, pre Dr Beeching! I went to the local Wesleyan Chapel’s Sunday School next to the Ingrow station. Every year, we had a trip out instead of having a preaching. We used to assemble for morning Sunday School as usual, but, the service was abandoned and we were marched down to the local Ingrow Station, about 50 yards away, to board a train for our trip. Remember this was a desperately deprived area of the north, no toilets inside the back to back terraced houses, gas lighting, a single room up and a single room down etc.. So the days out were a treat to very much look forward to. The fact that we only caught the train four miles up the line to the Oxenhope terminus, never detracted from the excitement of a train journey and a play on the swings next to the Chapel at Oxenhope village when we got there. Incidentally, the next station up the line from Ingrow was Damens, where there was a level crossing; as it was on a muck path to the local mill, there was never much crossing! The next station was Oakworth, where my nephew is now Station Master for the Worth Valley Railway and my sister has just won her third succession Yorkshire in Bloom Gold Medal for the display and gardens at the station ... the only Gold to be won in the area!!! Some achievement! Back to my session. From Oxenhope, it was a small drop down to the railway station, a short steep climb to the back road to take me back to the park at Haworth where I could pick up a return bus service to Keighley. The half mile steady climb out of the Bronte village was always a challenge if a bus was on tap. Lung bursting. The final two miles gently down was always quality; indeed the whole session was always quality. So from the Pod on Tuesday, I wallowed in nostalgia and felt quite elated until a bus passed me and sped off into the distance!!! The driver was totally oblivious to the rules of engagement. I shall phone the Head Office when it opens on Monday and will be quite stern about the said drivers lack of compassion towards my trudge. On Wednesday I did the same trudge backwards, not trudging backwards, Blog, but obviously, trudging in the opposite direction. As the camp site was on the flat moorland top above Haworth/Oxenhope, I had fantastic views for miles around as I trudged downhill, through the village of Leeming to pick up my old course before I started my trudge proper! Thursday, I went out onto the moorland behind the camp site; a large flattish area covered in heather. Or, in a normal year, it would have been covered in heather, but this year all that remained of the annual purple carpeting was the dried shrivelled stalks of twigs. Do you member, back in June Blog, when I was up here, I told you about the moorland fires. Well this is where they actually were. I bet the mobile home residents on the site and the caravaners staying there at the time were wetting themselves. If you have ever been up close to a heather fire Blog, and seen the speed of spread and the intense thick smoke produced, you will understand the powerful destructive force of such a fire. And if it manages to ignite the peat, it can smoulder for weeks. The trampled paths on this area of the moorland afforded excellent loops for interval work or fartlek, with or without spikes. Indeed, the paths are so well trodden that I used to be able to run over the moors in the dark winter nights when there was a full moon on a clear night, they were so well marked. It was equivalent to a run on a musty day, easily runable, surprisingly easy to see where to tread. Quite safe. Although if I’d have had a bad fall, tripe and custard puddings wouldn’t have sustained me. I’d have ended up as another preserved body in a bog, Blog.

And on Friday I came back to the homestead to Race. Yes RACE, I kid you not. Race with a capital ‘R’. As I revealed yesterday, I was allowed to trudge in the Warwick University Cross Country Relays. I feel the students did not take the relays in the spirit in which they were organised. No respect. They kept over taking me. These youngsters, I ask you Blog. If they’d have realised what a famous person it was they were passing, I am sure that they would have given me a helping hand over the rough and/or the muddy parts. I shall announce at the start of next year’s relays that they should all either slow down a little or allow some concession for age by letting me trudge over a shorter distance. It’s only right, isn’t it Blog???

                           Colin

P.S. Did get a couple of cards and the odd present for my birthday Blog, although yours hasn’t arrived yet. I shall wait for the postal gentleman tomorrow, Blog, with an air of anticipation.

Very many happy returns Colin

Dear Blog,

                Woke up this morning expecting a congratulatory hug or a birthday kiss or at least breakfast in bed. Nothing. So I got up. No sign of any birthday cards and there was a distinct lack of piles of packages of presents. Not that I cared. Wife must have hidden them all. How childish. I didn’t search all the downstairs rooms or all the cupboards too thoroughly. Who’s bothered? I couldn’t find any evidence of cards or pressies anywhere. Wife gets up. Still no ‘Happy Birthday’. O.K.. It takes two to tango. No problem. Daughter comes down stairs for breakfast. No birthday greeting from her either. Oh yes, I get it. Conspiring together. Big joke. Typical of them. Take the Michael. Bit childish for grownups to play such games, but I don’t mind. I pretend not to notice the lack of greetings. I’ll play along. They’ll crack first. Porridge and muesli, toast, marmalade and ground coffee times two. Oh comeon now. Lighten up. It is my birthday. Not that I am too bothered. Each year I let it float over me. Others might like to make a great fuss, but I’m not like that. But I expected them to look at least as if they were conspiratorial.

Dishes done. Still no pressies appear. Not a single card either. And. Pushing it a bit now I thought, not that I was too concerned; I am a grown man after all, not a small child. Strange. No phone call from my sister or my mother. But as we only left Yorkshire last night, they must have had a quiet word with each other behind my back. Women ganging together as they are wont so to do. Mother and sister must also be in this silly little charade . Infantile. They probable know that I could not care less but are going along with the pretence to keep my wife happy. The postman gives us a miss. Not that I was particularly waiting for him. Just noticed that his van didn’t stop.

Wife goes shopping, daughter goes computering. This is now becoming ridiculous. A joke is a joke is a joke but I only have a birthday once a year and it is a long wait until the next one. Fair dooes. I suppose I should encourage their little game, go along with them and should show them some concern, give them a hint that it is time to reveal where all those parcels are hidden. But NO. I WILL NOT: they will be the first to admit that it is now a bit of a silly wheeze; a bore. The joke is now on them, not me, for taking this whole episode too far – far too far.

Early lunch because wife and daughter are running as a team in the Warwick University Relays in the afternoon. Wife says that she will give me permission to run in a mixed team if the club is short of a runner. CHINK. She’s starting to crack. So. I read the Guardian while coffeeing. Half way through Simon Hoggart’s little piece, the date catches my eye. October 29^th. Saturday October 29^th. Whoopsie. Sorry Wife. Sorry daughter. Thought you’d forgotten my birthday. I knew you wouldn’t have really. STILL, the conciliation for me is that I have something to look forward to tomorrow. Not that I was bothered.    

Oh yes Blog, I thought I’d better tell you that your birthday card for me must have been delayed in the post. Never mind. I am sure you must have been very busy with some very important things not to get my card to me in good time. And, do keep my present until you see me next, the charges made by the postal office for heavy parcels these days, is quite ridiculous.

                                    See You Soon.

                                                        Birthday Boy           

*This is my imagination as I have never had breakfast in bed. I hate staying in bed. As a child we used to have to get up early as dad had to leave for his walk to work before 7am and no way was mum going to prepare four separate breakfasts. Working class Yorkshire brekkie means you all have your bread and toast together.

Free ....

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 55:- Is this a holiday caravan? When did I live here ... and where was it sited??? Who became the live in lodger???
Dear blog,

Great. GREAT. I am feeling great, over the moon. If the race organisers say that I must have run, then I must have run. Now a conundrum. If they say I run and I know that I didn’t run, but I use the ‘false’ evidence to enter next year’s London Marathon as a ‘fast for age vet’, am I guilty of fraud?? After all, I am trying desperately to be honest, but no one will let me. No one will listen. Check the web for these races Blog.

Remember that in the past, the London Marathon people had told me it was impossible for me not to run as me ..... Concerned, I contacted the race organiser at Stafford Council and he promised to phone me back .... has hell frozen over? Have the polar bears turned green with envy? Is the moon a balloon? I am still waiting, but then, Stafford Council have had some more important issues to deal with recently. Interestingly if you do take the trouble to check the races I am supposed to have entered, the Stafford Half Marathon for example, you will notice that I am no longer running for Coventry Godiva on the council results, I have become detached! Another council half marathon nearby, I have become a blank. Interesting or what. And you know what Blog, at the end of the day someone somewhere is going to blame ‘computer error’! Don’t forget you saw it here first. COMPUTER ERROR. The good thing is that my dodgy results are still on that Powerful thingie that THEY control, so I feel morally free and perfectly justified in going public and printing my evidence of the short long leg of the National Road Relay. Free from Grace and Favour or Gaff, as some people say. If, as alleged, that nice Mr Cameroon said to Mr Dandelion Burdoch ‘publish and be damned’, who am I to argue? So, ‘here, here’ says I. But on the other hand, look where it has got him. Mr Dandelion Burdoch I mean, not that nice Mr Cameroon; He has done alright for himself. Perhaps I need to review the situation? I think I need to think it out again. A week of rehab will give me time to mull over the pros and the cons, methinks.

Colin

Most people spend their rehab treatment in the luxury of a clinic, pampered by subserviant grovellers. I will spend my rehab time in a Pod; that is a rich man’s version of a tent or a poor man’s version of a garden hut.