SDW100

This has to be the first time that the winner of a race has beaten me by 11 1/2 hours! Jason Harrison, Dave Jones and myself got it into our heads to run the South Downs Way 100. Jason had run a hundred before but for Dave and I it was our first time at the event, our only aim was to finish before the 30 hour cut-off point. To that aim we were successful though it is quite funny to look at the race data and see that we were recording 17 minute miles! (and some a lot slower!)


The race starts in a village on the edge of Winchester and follows the Long Distance Trail, the South Downs Way most of the way to Eastbourne, some parts of the route modified for safety reasons (Should 200 seriously knackered runners be encouraged to run along the Seven Sisters clifftops, for instance)

It has a similar feel to the Cotswold Way and, because of the numerous checkpoint/feeding stations, it is broken into similar length stages. Of course if you run CWR you only get to run about 10 or 12 miles. Running the whole 100 miles is really only for those who are fed up with Saturday night telly. That's the other difference, a large proportion of the race is held in the hours of darkness. I find it hard to run on rough tracks in the dark. I was in good company as most of the slower runners walk the majority of the night stages, jogging at best. We had a night which was well lit by the moon but it is still very hard not to fall on loose stones and tree roots.

 

We got very wet right at the start and then had a fairly long dry period before some very nasty rain squalls at dawn. I was running in full length Goretex waterproofs by then but other runners were suffering awfully in the cold.

Informal alliances occur between complete strangers as they team up to share the difficulties of travelling in a strange part of the country without mishap. Also Dave Jones and I found we were very well matched and ran almost the whole way together.

I was getting pains in my leg muscles, pains from ever growing blisters on both feet and pains in my ankles and knees. The pain in my feet was fairly welcome as it masked the pain in my knees. Oddly I didn't get hungry or thirsty. I was carrying food and the feed stages were more than adequate.

When I got to the finish, Jason had been in for five hours and had been able to snatch some sleep and was off for a walk...

1st Ryan Brown 17 : 04 : 26

22nd Jason Harrison 22 : 47 : 43

107th Dave Jones 28 : 36 : 30

109th Ian Trussler 28 : 42 : 42

Jo and Rob got married

4th April 2012 - Red letter day for Robert Duncumb and his new wife Jo. They got married in the Temple of Apollo at Stourhead with 30 of us crammed into a tiny, circular and somewhat chilly room lit only from a circular opening in the dome and what little light could make it through the doorway. I was chosen to be Rob's best man, quite a privilege in my opinion as Rob is certainly not short of friends.
This gave me a front row seat in the proceedings, which meant that I could hear all that was said by bride and groom and the registrar and assistant. Everyone gets a bit tongue tied in these situations, even the registrar, but I was happy to witness that I had seen a wonderful event, the joining of two people who are so in love.


The photos (as usual) seemed to take a long time and we were all getting somewhat chilly by the time we set off on a 'round the lake' walk, calling in at all the grottos and stopping for a photo call on the bridge (normally closed to visitors and out of bounds)

There was some hilarity as many of us had been issued with those bubble-making devices though I had little luck with mine. A little light rain was starting to fall but it was such a nice occasion that no-one minded at all.
After the walk we all arrived in the function room of the Spread Eagle Inn in Stourton village which is a lovely pub, carefully kept up to feel old while staying in the modern era to cater for a massive clientele which visit during the course of a year.
The food was superb and Robert, Jo and I got up and made short speeches. I am not a confident public speaker but I felt as if I had done my bit quite well. Then we chatted to old friends until quite late in the evening. Many of the guests were staying in the Spread Eagle and surrounding cottages but we drove back to Chippenham. I was quite glad that Lynne had volunteered to drive as I was quite exhausted but elated by having had such a great day with my favourite people.

Ridgeway 40

Ridgeway 40 was, well, 40 miles...unless you are Jason Harrison who decided (for the second year running!) to park at the finish and run to the start of the event making his total for the weekend, and without sleep, a grand total of 80 miles.
I was on a voyage of discovery, to see what it would be like to go on past the marathon distance so I wasn't much worried about speed or times so I kept company with the increasingly knackered Jas. Actually running on past 26 miles, then 30, 36, and eventually 40 miles was no problem at all and I know I could have done another 10 miles. (but only at gunpoint)
It was a good event with drinks and cakes etc at regular checkpoints. The checkpoints were mostly an exercise in accounting for the walkers and runners and caused some delay as runners are forced to queue with everyone else (it is principally a walk, not a run) but later in the event the runners become the leaders on the road and the delays at the checkpoints were mostly self imposed as we became less and less hurried, preferring to linger over a piece of swiss roll and a mug of tea.
I was very pleased to be able to run at a (for me) great rate for the last two miles, finishing in a lather of sweat at about the same speed as I might have finished a 10km race.
Good day out - no idea of actual time but it was just under ten hours. An hour could be knocked off that easily without the extended chats at the check points. Glad I did it but it wasn't really a race. Not really an issue when you consider yourself lucky to get in the top half of the field!

Reaffirmation

I can’t remember a year when spring has sprung so ecstatically and I have enjoyed it so much. Last year was a grim year for personal reasons and it was topped off with a gruelling winter. The spring was always going to be a welcome re-awakening but the unusually warm and dry conditions seem to have made it all the more of a triumph.
As the season has progressed I have got out and about as a runner and have run in six races, already a total of 90 miles racing though and while it hasn’t been fast or even very successful it has been a real source of pride.
Running is a very engrossing sport, so much so that I have started to think of myself as an ‘ex-cyclist’, quite unthinkable even a short while ago. However this Easter break has been unusual in being followed so swiftly by the May Day bank holiday and, in between, a Royal Wedding. This has given me the opportunity to get on with all sorts of things that were getting neglected, including some cycling.
I went out this morning on the ‘Canary’, what a novelty – variable gears, brakes that work, wheels that are true – a genuine miracle since some restorative work on the ageing workhorse. The bike felt good and so did the morning with the illusion of a tailwind for nearly all the ride. (Or am I just as strong as an ox? – Yes; that must be it!)
Wiltshire may not have a Tizi-n-Test or a Stelvio tucked away in its vales and downs but on a beautiful British spring day it still takes some beating. (Yes; I’d rather have been bumping along the Kerry Ridge, but I wasn’t!) I trundled up through the lanes from ‘Chippers’ to Grittleton and Malmesbury and returned via the Somerfords, great weather, felt good, even the motorists were on their best behaviour. In short, no; I am not an ex-cyclist. How could that ever be?
Oh, and I am 54 years old today. Life is good.

Lynne crossing bridge at Horner Water

2011 - Some resolutions.

I'm not going to beat myself up about it, or savage anyone else, but I'm part of the problem, and maybe part of the solution.
This thing they have started to tell us about how many Planet Earths we need to keep going as we are, even if the developing nations don't join in the race to own, possess, consume, this 'how many Planet Earths' thing has me rattled.

Yet we continue to expand, both numerically and materially, while shrinking in so many ways spiritually and intellectually.
We all want more, but do we need more; is more better for us? I took stock of the footwear situation this morning as I performed the daily contortion into the shoe cupboard. Imelda Marcos would be proud of such a kindred spirit! Do I really need so many shoes? (and most of those shoes were mine, not Lynne's or Lisa's) Do I really need FIVE pairs of running shoes? (oddly I now only have one pair of cycling shoes - how things can change!)

Shoes are just the tip of the iceberg. Clothing generally I have in 'an adequate sufficiency' and I could (and will!) go on. Why have I got two guitars? I can't play two guitars at once. In fact my detractors (Yes; I have detractors.) would say that I can't even play ONE guitar at once...

In short our cupboards, shelves, the garage, the shed, the loft, the boot of the car (Yes; we have two cars, plus Henry Honda) are all groaning with stuff we don't really need. I have books I could have borrowed from the library, records I've only listened to once (records I've not listened to all the way through even) tools and bike bits that were Dad's and I can't bear to throw away, enough bikes to hold a major stage race, maybe not the TdF but Ras De Cymru at least, gardening stuff too plentiful to shoe-horn into the garden shed, we have guinea pigs, a cat and fleas consuming for all they're worth too. The garden itself was once productive farmland, an orchard in fact. Now it produces little that is edible, consumes peat, fuel, resources and time. It is our buffer to keep the human race at arm's length. I expect that the human race out there feels just the same about me.

I'm not going to beat myself up about it but I resolve to try in my own small way to consume less of this world and leave a bit for the others, those alive now and those to follow. I plan to use up what I have before buying more, I plan to give away or sell (Selling is good, ; it release funds for... er... more buying!) that which I know I have no further use for; I plan to buy in the future only that which is really the best for the purpose and not clutter my life with pointless ownership, a vexation on the spirit. Most of all I plan to never again treat shopping as a form of entertainment - Get a life, Ian!

Ride Across Britain 2010

A text message from Robert D. arrived; it changed everything. Did I want to be a driver for the Deloitte 'Ride Across Britain'? "Sounds interesting" thought I, but being an older and wiser soul than I once was, I wasn't about to plunge into anything daft. Over the next few hours however, I talked myself into it, my powers of reasoning compromised by my sense of adventure.

My role would be to drive the 'Broom Wagon', traditionally the last vehicle following a race, its purpose to sweep up the riders who cannot continue. I had visions of a crowd of us, maybe 25 or so, pedalling staunchly across Scotland, England and Wales while 'yours truly' appeared from time to time with a flask of soup, having read another chapter of War and Peace in a lay-by somewhere. I got a bit of a rude awakening, on that score at least, when I learned that over 600 people were participating in the event. Suddenly I realised that War and Peace would be too long for the available free time.

In fact, the broom wagon consisted of two vehicles. One was a Transit van in which I would be sharing the driving with Joe, a young man who is normally to be found working for the people who publish your Cycling Weekly. The other vehicle was a minibus, driven by Jeremy, Shane or Andy, members of Chippenham Wheelers all.

On the journey from Andy's house to John O'Groats (via Hamilton in southern Scotland) the minibus also carried a group of cyclists known as Andy's Angels. These were the chaperones, experienced riders who would accompany the riders in the Ride Across Britain, many of whom had little idea what they were actually doing! The chaperone group consisted of Paul, Gordon, Rob D, Nick, Mike, Richard, Shane, Jeremy and Andy from the Chippenham Wheelers and a group from the London area called Chippo, Tony and Rob W. The bikes and baggage travelled with us in the van.

For most of the trip we would be camping, and I suppose that I hadn't given much thought as to what the camp-sites would be like. I knew it would be colder that far north and had packed two sleeping bags which I used one inside the other. My jaw dropped as we entered John O'Groats and I took in the reality of a camp-site for over 700 people flung down in one of the wildest settlements in Britain. The circus had certainly come to town, that's for sure. There were some very large tents indeed, including a huge marquee for the kitchen and dining area, a giant treble wigwam containing TVs and a bar, a medical and massage tent, a drying-room tent, an office, a baggage tent, and the Halfords workshop. Of course there were the usual toilets and showers. A whole secure area had been set aside for the racking of 600 bicycles - well over a million pounds worth! Oh yes, and then there were the tents - rows and rows of green two-man tents and more rows of blue tents, bigger to hold four people. The tents were of the self erecting sort. Putting up all these tents would otherwise have been a monster task. It probably was anyway!
The daylight lasts all night in those northern latitudes and, having arrived in good time anyway, we set about exploring the metropolis which is John O'Groats. Five minutes later we had done with exploring, so we met in the cafe, the famous John O'Groats hotel being derelict and ringed with safety fencing. The weather was turning wet and the wind was rising, the nearby Orkney Islands disappearing and reappearing numerous times in the squally mist. (We told Joe the islands were Norway. He seemed happy with that.)
During the night the wind continued to rise and the temperature dropped. The scene in the entertainments tent was reminiscent of a disaster refugee camp with bodies huddled in blankets everywhere you looked. I went to bed, not in one of the tents, but in the van. Even in the van it was perishingly cold. The only things I took off were my shoes. The wind made the van rock; we moved it as close as possible to the minibus so that the two vehicles would shelter each other. During the night I was kept awake by a lot of swearing and shouting. At first I thought it was some brave souls partying at the edge of the earth. Later I realised that the Halfords workshop team had spent the night hanging on to their workshop tent to stop it lifting off and flying all the way to 'Norway'.

Morning came early to the Ride Across Britain. Reveillez was sounded on the public address system, a different rock song each day. Coming at about 5.30am, I failed to see anything amusing in it. However I had one personal ambition, to run at John O'Groats and I set off along the beach and out to Duncansby Head lighthouse. Along the way I passed primroses flowering. In southern England summer was in full spate. In northern Scotland it was still early spring.
On my return to the camp a journalist stopped me and asked if I was really jogging before a 1000 mile bike ride. I was tempted to bask in some sort of false glory but I admitted instead that I was just the driver and he lost interest in me in an instant.

Each day of the ride had its own character but essentially they followed a pattern dictated by the role Joe and I were playing.
The day would start with that early morning call which blared out briefly and without regard to the poor souls who lived nearby. I slept through it most mornings. The van was light tight, sound tight and pretty nearly air-tight. Somehow we survived until each morning. Eventually my bladder would insist that I get up and wander across to the toilets. On the days when I was not frozen to the marrow I would have a shower. In the mornings the crew had priority in the showers, whereas the riders had priority in the evenings. The cleaners were eagerly dismantling the showers and the toilet blocks from an early hour so once the riders had left, the showers were unavailable. Same story to some extent with the food and the toilets. Luckily we were in a good position to divert from the route and use the toilets in such places as Tescos in Thurso. (A strange Tescos where I bought a bar of chocolate and a bottle of whisky. I told the lady that it was my breakfast. She showed no surprise.)
The food was generous, though to be honest a bit austere at times. Apparently it had been devised by some nutritionist to give enough calories to get through the day. Well I have news for him - I didn't think there were enough calories to get through the day even sitting behind the driving wheel, though to be fair I have been occasionally accused of gluttony. Many times I heard mutterings from the ranks, on one occasion a chaperone hitched a lift to an Indian restaurant, and twice Joe and I had fish and chips.

Departure times were variable, the chaperones left a long time after the main field, confident that they would soon catch the slower riders who they would accompany. We would see them off and then return to the food tent to get in the way of the dismantling of the catering facility and generally fill ourselves up with more tea and toast. (Yes; I suppose the gluttony thing may be founded in truth.)
Then we would tidy up the van and minibus and try, often in vain, to get off the camp site, the exit of which would probably be obstructed by the slow progress of a huge articulated lorry or a convoy of toilet blocks on trailers.

We would follow the route taken by the cyclists, each junction very well marked by arrows on large cards. Never did we encounter any ambiguity; you couldn't get lost. Behind us was the van containing two people whose job it was to take down the signs and any other items to do with the ride so that we didn't leave any litter. It was very important to let this van know if we were going 'off-piste' as he could get in front of us and we would be unable to follow the route. I made a point of trying to know the route in advance but in urban areas the signs were essential.

After about 15 miles we would catch up the last cyclist on the road. It was very important that we didn't get in front of any cyclist, or that if we did as was inevitable due to road conditions, we tried to count how many we had behind us and make sure that we had seen them all pass before proceeding. I didn't worry about the chaperones being behind me as we were all in touch by mobile phone, and the chaperones were all chosen for their experience and self-reliance.

The first day was very windy and the riders had set off into the face of a veritable gale, but I was surprised that we had our first Broom Wagon duties on only the 23rd mile of the 1050 miles we would eventually cover. By the time we reached the Kyle of Sutherland for the first nights rest we had taken on several more 'customers' and a worrying trend was starting to emerge.
We had begun to pick up riders who were troubled by stomach cramps, sickness and diarrhoea. Over the next few days, the minibus went from Sag Wagon to Plague Wagon and Jeremy had a quite unpleasant time of it dealing with passengers who were very unwell. The van itself smelled and we all became very aware that we were very exposed to the risk of catching it ourselves. There didn't seem to be a Plan B for the case where all the Broom Wagon drivers were too ill to perform. While we all had our days of feeling a bit off colour, luckily it never quite came to that. I knew I was in a privileged position having bicycles for passengers rather than the cyclists themselves. Even the bikes themselves were objects of suspicion though and I have never washed my hands so often!
About a third of the way into each days ride we would encounter the first Pit Stop, a chance for riders to stretch their legs and have a drink and a bite to eat. The feeds were designed by our old friend the nutritionist. After a few days you realise that life with him would probably be a dull affair. Doesn't he ever put the kettle on for a cuppa, or get stuck into a cheeseburger with chips? Most of the cyclists I know do!
As a result of these pit stops I NEVER want to see another tortilla wrap again, or a packet of Jelly Dinosaurs. I started to turn yellow from a surfeit of bananas. Odd to think that bananas were such an exotic luxury just a few years ago. I am sick of the sight of them.

As the days unfolded we left the spartan wilds of Caithness far behind and via camps at Kyle of Sutherland, Fort William and East Kilbride we travelled the length of Scotland, seeing Glen Coe, Ben Nevis, Loch Ness, Urquhart Castle, the Caledonian Canal and Loch Lomond among other Scottish beauties. The weather got better, drier and warmer. This meant more midges, another great new experience.
These were big days too; several days in a row the riders covered 130 miles and the struggle to reach the evening stop repeated itself day after day. The chaperones became familiar with the same faces each day; the broom wagon drivers became familiar with the same backsides each day. Some notable heroes emerged such as Michelle who had vowed to cover the whole distance to raise £5000 for charity, Vaughan who wouldn't admit defeat either, many others who were getting weaker but seemingly more determined as we crossed the border to stay by Ullswater. The beautiful overnight stop in the Lake District was at the cost of a rude awakening as first light saw the last to arrive being first to leave as they tackled the majestic Kirkstone Pass before briefly riding on the east shore of Windermere.

Loch Linnhe
Fort William
East Kilbride
Ullswater
'Manchester'
Ludlow
'Cheddar'
Launceston
Land's End

I came home from the Ride Across Britain with the feeling that I had been lifted out of my normal life and placed down in a different world where nothing of my normal life existed any more. All of the old worries were, at worst, put on hold. This break from the tasks of everyday life was shatteringly exhausting. (And of course I wasn't even pedalling 130 miles per day!) It was by no means a holiday but the maxim that "A change is as good as a rest" couldn't have been truer.

The last day could have been an anti-climax.

It was. It was bound to be.

It was still a day of incredible pleasure as we made our way down to Sennen Cove for a hour or so of just sitting drinking coffee and wandering around the little fishing village with its short yellow beach and its famous lifeboat station, a new Tamar Class boat permanently poised on the sliding ways ready for the next rescue in the wild Atlantic.

The 'Neolithic'

The ‘Neolithic’ Marathon

One of the main fund raising events of the year for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is its annual 26 mile event from Avebury to Stonehenge. This is both a sponsored walk and a multi-terrain running race.

In 2003 my partner, Lynne and I walked the full distance. We were the first to start at about 6am and almost the last to finish but we had a very nice day strolling along through a variety of Wiltshire countryside. I was somewhat hampered by the fact that we had just returned from a walking holiday on the Isle of Man and whilst the airline had delivered us safely back to Bristol Airport it had seen fit to send my walking boots to Belfast instead. As all long distance runners will agree, you do need to be happy about your footwear. I found out that day what happens when you are not…

Shortly before the half-way point we began to be caught by the marathon runners; they had started several hours after us. Although I had run in races over the years, there was something about these madmen (and mad-ladies) that touched a nerve. I started to form a plan, which was that I would run in the marathon myself the next year.

The plan was not over-crowded with schemes to get fit in the preceding months. My records show me running the Slaughterford 9mile, (an excellent off-road mud-bath!) the Terminator (likewise, but 11 miles) and the London Half Marathon in the weeks before the big day. I continued to run in the hills around the University at Bath much as I had done for the previous twenty years, rather oblivious to fellow runners doing their weekend long runs to prepare for the London Marathon etc., and as for such technicalities as a ‘taper’… wassat? I also continued to enjoy such training aids as chips, long bicycle rides and freezing days in bird-watching hides. Still, with my malt & hop-derived muscle stimulant (aka beer), how can I go wrong?

On a rather misty May morning I find myself in the oddest bus queue of all time, all of Great Britain’s greatest eccentrics gathered together in one place and catching a bus from Stonehenge at dawn. We are taking advantage of the bus service which ferries runners (and walkers) from various finish points to their chosen point of starting. Obviously all the full marathon runners want to start in Avebury but to find their car waiting for them at Stonehenge. Most of the participants are just like me, but on our bus one runner stands out as somewhat more impressive. Together with his ‘buddy’ he is going to run 26 multi-terrain miles without the benefit of eyesight. I feel rather humble at that point!

The bus arrives in Avebury in very good time for the start and I am able to enjoy the normal good cheer which passes between competitors. To be fair this is the only time that I will see most of them.

Soon we are being hushed to hear the advice of the starter and the words of some dignitary who is probably saying what brave buffoons we all are; I can’t hear. On the other hand he may be telling us that his pit-bull terrier hasn’t been fed since Thursday and if we don’t leave Avebury immediately… Either way, we soon leave town and head out along the narrow road to the west and into a series of paths and tracks.

Upon reaching the main A4 we are hugely amused to discover half of the field approaching us from the opposite direction, so clearly some of the marshalling will be ‘iffy’! The road crossing at Beckhampton is well controlled though and we cross in safety and start along the path which will lead to the Marlborough Downs. This is a considerable climb which is mostly on field-edge tracks of the sort made ‘smooth’ by the passage of several dozen tractors each year. The top of this hill is the highest point in Wiltshire, Tan Hill at 294 metres, a climb of about 140m. from the start-line. Near the top, the ancient earthwork, Wansdyke is crossed, followed by a sharp drop and then a sharp climb to the hill-fort of Rybury Camp. There follows a tricky descent to the lane near All Cannings Cross. Here there are water and toilets, mostly for the benefit of the sponsored walkers.

The next section is a series of lowland tracks leading to the main street of All Cannings, a pretty thatched village where the villagers put on a feast of sausage sandwiches for the walkers. Next time I run I’ll carry money for one; it’ll be worth the time lost.

All Cannings is left behind as one plods through a not-very-nice quagmire caused by the route coinciding with the main commuter route for 200 Friesians. It doesn’t last for long though and there soon follows one of the few tarmac sections. It's nice easy running that feels madly fast after the off-road section. There’s some nice surfaced bridle-path and then a boggy section which includes a couple of stiles. At this point is something I have yet to encounter in any other running race. You cross a 125mph railway-line. “Stop, look and listen.” says the sign… Damned right you do!

More pleasant countryside passes and then suddenly the A342 is encountered. After this is crossed, the route is tarmac surfaced for nearly 2 miles. Don’t think this is some sort of holiday as in the distance can be seen Redhorn Hill, a 75 metre climb and a steep walk for most competitors.

At the top is a crowded area of tents and tea vans where most of the walkers will stop for a bite and a rest. Hard to drag myself past these attractions but apart from filling up my water bottle I don’t pause.

The route turns left here; ahead are army firing ranges. Our path is a shingle path of varying quality and often crowded with walkers and their dogs plus the vehicles of various participants all heading east in a voluntary one-way system. A place called Charlton Clumps is reached, the start of the half-marathon, and for us, the halfway point. There is a water station there and other ‘facilities’, plus the litter of 400 half-marathoners.

At times the road turns nasty and has a few climbs. These climbs seem visible from miles back so by the time you get to them, your resolve has melted away. However for every up there is a down and progress is made after all. One of the most significant climbs of the day comes after Casterley Camp, another Iron Age hill fort, at about 15 miles. The track climbs out of Water Dean Bottom. It’s an excuse for a walk for many. From the top of that climb though, the trend is generally downhill for the rest of the way to Wexland Farm where runners take a sharp right into the heart of the military training zone. The next four miles are, frankly, dull, very slightly uphill and quite featureless. At least along that section you can concentrate properly on the suffering. Eventually the junction with the old coach road appears though, where a left turn is made and a rather forlorn pub, the Bustard Inn, stands surrounded by a permanent caravan site and various military ‘street furniture’. Sadly the pub must be shunned on this occasion though I have been glad of its presence on many a cold winter’s day whilst cycling. Ahead of me I see Lynne, and her friend Debbie, walking in the sponsored walk from Redhorn Hill to Stonehenge. I can’t resist clowning and empty my water bottle over Lynne as I jog past.

The road becomes tarmac for a mile then the fast road to Larkhill is reached and the course takes to the grass track alongside. Soon a marshal sends us across the road and onto a private drive for a mile.

It is along this drive that a pile of very ancient rocks appears on the horizon for the first time and a grin replaces a grimace for the first time. The end is in sight. The last mile is an agony and an ecstasy and the last hundred yards a delirious dream. I achieve something for the first time in my life; I finish a marathon. Sitting down near the finish line I do something else for the first time in my life. I fall asleep in a public place. A marshal wakes me up to give me my finisher’s medal. I find the car and continue my snooze in the boot of the car.

The run has taken its toll. Somewhere at about the 18 mile point I had felt the pressure on my increasingly sore right foot ease off, accompanied by a damp feeling. A vast blister had burst. Both feet had suffered but the marathon has really exposed the weakness in my right foot and by the end I had lost three toe-nails. (To say I had lost them is a bit inaccurate. I knew precisely where they were – somewhere in my sock!)
With the benefit of hindsight I would have run in road shoes. I had run in off-road shoes, well suited to the Marlborough Downs section early in the race but hopelessly lacking in cushioning for the majority of the miles.

I took 4-22-35 to finish and a further 11 months to enter my next race, a doddle round the woods called the Chedworth Roman Trail.

The Neolithic is no place to be if you want to do a ‘personal best time’ and some aspects of it lack the polish of events run by experienced running clubs, but over the years it is improving. It remains one of my most cherished memories. I’m sure I will run in it again one day, hopefully soon.

Life before the Harriers

“There he is!” exclaimed my Dad, pointing to a grey smudge on the screen. It is the earliest recollection I have of the sport of running, the first time I realised that running wasn’t just something you did to get away from the psychotic kids at school. (I did a lot of running at that school.)
Dad’s friend Hugh, a fellow member of his cycling club, doubled as a runner when he wasn’t testing the local ale. He must have been quite good as we were watching him ‘on the telly’ in some event at Crystal Palace. Dad knew it was Hugh because a man called David Coleman had just read his name out, though how he could have told one runner from another I have no idea as it seemed that all the runners wore grey. Also the grass was grey, the sky was grey (It was south London in the sixties; what did you expect?) and the spectators were grey. These were the days of ‘black and white’ television, a misnomer if ever there was one – nothing on the TV was black or white just grey, and very, very fuzzy. A 405 lines TV makes the screen on the back of your mobile phone look like HD, just as if the picture had been painted by Turner on one of his gloomier days.
We’d only just got our first TV so it must have been about 1963. I still remember Dad tuning the thing and adjusting the aerial while I sat glued to the image of the ITV test-card and my dinner got increasingly cold. By the time he had a good picture the food was just about frigid.
The test-card in those days was a photograph of the Houses of Parliament, an omen if ever there was one. Little did I know that I would be limping pathetically through the same scene less than 43 years later, trying to look dignified despite being beaten hollow by four pantomime rhinos and about 60 eccentrics who had all had the same hilarious notion to run the London Marathon dressed as Sponge Bob Square Pants.
I say it was the same scene, but I was disappointed to discover in 2007 that the barrage balloons had been removed from around Parliament.
The TV came just in time for us to see such varied but earth changing events as JFK’s failure to duck in time in Dallas and also the baffling reports of one Valentina Tereshkova becoming the first woman in space. Presumably the cosmonauts had given up on their plan to fit Soyuz craft with a reverse gear. Maybe parking isn’t an issue when you are the only person up there. Much was made of this event, which followed the entry into space of the presumably bold but barking mad Yuri Gagarin who obviously hadn’t learned much from the fate of Laika, the first dog in space. On quiet nights in the Ukraine you can still hear him yipping as he passes over his kennel every 80 minutes. Obviously Yuri Gagarin paid extra and got the return ticket.
I can’t recall how Hugh got on in his televised running race but he wasn’t invited to run in the Tokyo Olympics with the big boys, so maybe not too good then. Or maybe the other runners were a bit suspicious of those odd shoes he ran in, the ones with the nails sticking out of the bottoms of them. Those shoes must have been popular on the bus to Crystal Palace …
Also in those early years I remember being taken to watch a race, ‘Cyclists versus Harriers’, which was held annually on common land on the North Downs. Such was the mud that most years the harriers would win. It was surprising what those spiked shoes could do to a bike tyre.
We moved to Westwood near Bradford on Avon in 1965. Handy, as I was able to start reccying the Over The Hills course even before the current organiser was born. At the same time I was given my first bicycle and I set about exploring the locality on blissfully traffic free roads. The main danger came from the local Royal Enfield factory which periodically sent out its maddest employees to test the products. It was perfectly normal to be overtaken by some nutter doing about 90 on a gleaming new motorcycle, just out on its maiden run before being fitted with boring stuff like brakes.
My new school was a bit of a shock. No longer necessary to dodge the scarier boys at playtime, my main run of the week was chasing the cows up to one end of the field so that we could have our weekly games lesson. This was football in a minefield of cow-pats.
I don’t know why we chased the cows off. If we’d let the cows stay we’d have had enough players for a decent game, and at least half of them would have been better players than me.
With a field like that, cricket wasn’t played at our school. (Besides, have you seen a Friesian catch a ball? – blooming hopeless!) By the time I got to Trowbridge High School in 1968 I had developed into one of those kids who gets picked last for teams. (I thought I was quite good holding out until the end each week!) I tolerated the team games stoically every week but when you aren’t very good you get nagged at a lot and I wasn’t keen to sample married life at 12.
Rugby was the best of the games I suffered; it seemed to involve lots of anarchic milling about and I could go all afternoon without holding the ball. Best of all was the look of pleasure on my Mum’s face when I went home with such clean kit. If I found myself in possession of the ball I found that the best course of action was to run like hell, especially as all those psychotic kids seemed to have found me at last and were hell-bent on flattening me.
Eventually the games teacher must have spotted that if I couldn’t play, at least I could run away. One of my school reports of the era says “Ian shows potential as a middle distance runner.” Of course no-one thought to mention this to me at the time. Maybe they knew that they couldn’t count on the Second XV to show up on race days to chase me round the 1500 metres.
We had a rather unusual road run which I used to actually enjoy, a circuit of about 4km. (The kilometre hadn’t actually been invented yet. We made do with miles) A group of us used to run the circuit against the clock and I made such good progress that by the time I was fifteen I had become almost feeble, and not many of us were that good!
Of course it wasn’t long before a new teacher spotted how much pleasure we derived from our running, so just to spur us on and make the whole experience more satisfying, he made us run the circuit bare-foot. Initially I was horrified, having visions of cuts and blisters and, even worse, having to walk like you do on the beach. You know; as if the Home Guard had sprinkled anti-personnel carpet tacks amongst the shingle. Surprisingly though, running barefoot was a doddle. It really didn’t hurt, and the savings in shoe leather have appealed to the economist in me to this day. Our times round the circuit were no slower, rising to the dizzy heights of ‘pathetic’ on a good day.
I don’t think I ran again until I was an apprentice and we were pressed into taking part in the Civil Service sports day. In those days I had ‘Wally’ tattoed across my forehead, or so it seemed, as I was deemed the most suitable lad to run the 5000 metres. I was fit as I had been riding a lot of bike races at the time. As a tactic I had learned that you need to be at the front around the first corner. This tactic is not as suitable for long running races. For a start, a race around an oval track is one long corner so my starting effort was a bit of a long one, but not having run for about three years left me vulnerable to the more experienced runners who started at the correct speed, ran the middle of the event at the correct speed and, more importantly, reached the finish line without a spell of lying down gasping. DNF.
When I started working at the university I was still obsessed with cycle-racing but gradually began to run with work-mates, running in our lunch-hour. (Another misnomer - lunch-hour!) The university is well placed for runners, with plenty of footpaths and tracks both on Claverton Down and in the surrounding countryside. Most runs require a climb back up to the campus and I soon realised that off-road running, preferably as hilly as possible, was a great aid to getting some sleep in the afternoons.
Then one fateful day we all entered a running race. It was organised by a club called ‘Chippenham Harriers’. I was doomed…

LLanzarote - Welsh island in the sun.

Our holiday was a really good break and a good deal better than I imagined
it would be. Flew (by aeroplane) from Bristol on the Sunday, getting to
Arrecife in daylight so able to enjoy the strange scenery from the bus on
Day One. The hotel was immense but tolerably so. We were in an outlying
block with a sea view and not much noise. It had beds, A/C, patio and a bit
of garden, telly, not much else. The complex had seven swimming pools, a
gym, therapy-spa, several restaurants, a 'piano bar' (someone sneaked a
saxophone in but he escaped with only minor injuries and a caution from the
Guardia Civil), entertainments hall, (Butlins style but okay)
Lots of naked breasts, which oddly, I somewhat resent. (God, am I getting old,
but I don't like having to avert my gaze because some bloody exhibitionist
wants to flaunt her leathery skin. Some truly beautiful girls too; I often thought of Robert.) Generally relaxed on the first day though we had an
abortive attempt to do the '20 minute' walk to Playa Blanca (It actually
took about that long to run it - I know; I did it) I had already had a walk
along in the opposite direction to the local lighthouse but there were no
ship-wrecks and no people drowning, in fact nothing to laugh at, at all.

Second morning Lynne and I walked into Playa Blanca to pick up our hire car, a
Fiat Ulysses. This is an immense car, not quite a mini-bus. It had
electric side doors (great fun!) and bald tyres. Lynne did her strut and
got it changed, the hire car bloke not being a match for my minder. The
replacement had pretty naff tyres too but was deemed safe, rain not being
forecast before 2027.

First outing was from Playa Blanca to El Golfo where a blooming great volcano has
gone BANG! and made a hole in the ground which the ocean has obligingly
filled with briny stuff. Lynne bought a bit of volcano which has been
brought home in the hope that it will have dust-repellent properties.
On from El Golfo we stopped at the National Park which is a sort of volcano
museum. You have to go round it in a bus. Rather them than me, a VERY
challenging drive and one I would rather not be attempting in a Fiat the
size of the Titanic. Stunning scenery, looking like a place where a lot of rock has
got very hot and crashed down from a great height - which it had. Watched
them cooking meat over a five foot deep hole in the ground - the heat is
enough to blister your skin just a foot below the surface - and some mush
poured a bucket of water down a hole in the ground which went off like a
blunderbuss nearly taking poor Pedro's head with it. (I called him 'some
mush'. Maybe he was 'some geyser'...) A very impressive display without
the benefit of a piece of blue paper to light before retiring. Across the
way someone was chucking hay into a similar hole in the ground which was
self-igniting. You have to ask yourself how they dug these holes. Maybe
Pat and Mick did it with their shovels. So far Jess and Will, the children
of our friend Jackie, had played computer games and been totally bored
throughout. What would it take to raise any interest? I wonder if they
would be excited by being on the next shuttle launch...

We went on a bit of a trek the next day, firstly to Cesar Manrique's house
which is a load of rooms built in holes in the ground (more blooming holes,
these ones somewhat cooler luckily!) He was an artist contemporary with
Pablo Picasso and, as far as I can see, nearly as potty. Smashing house but
rather tellingly he moved out and changed its use to a convention centre and
gallery for potty artists so maybe it was a bit of a 'mare to live in.
Then we went to Jameos del Agua which is a natural cave in the lava which
contains a very rare type of blind cave crab. Manrique had been there first
and turned the place into a strange auditorium and café etc. Good, very
restful - unless you are Jess and Will who found it a bit...boring.

Went into Playa Blanca by car that evening, a very hot version of Burnham on
Sea but without as many parking spaces, which in an ocean tanker named Fiat
was a bit of a challenge.

I took the car back next day (Thursday) at the crack of dawn and ran back, the only running I did all holiday despite my very best intentions. Slobbed for a while and then came over all energetic and went looking for some scuba action...

CLICK here for diving posting

Well that gets us to Friday...and to be honest the time was rattling by and
a routine had built up of get up, scoff up, lie down, get up for more scoff,
lie down, swim, lie down, scoff up, lie down, swim, scoff up, sleep.

The scoffing was amazing. Jackie had wanted to go for 'all-inclusive'
catering, something I greeted somewhat coolly as I had visions of a vast
greedy orgy of Dutch and German gluttons being paid for by... us. I have to
admit that we gave as good as we got, or rather we scoffed in most impressive
style and put on a stone each. I just hope the Germans were impressed as we
picked up four puddings each at every meal. For once Jess and Will were
paying it their full attention. Beer was 'free' as was wine etc though they
were of average quality to be kind. The range and quality of food was very
good and even Lynne, so hard to cater for normally, was generally very
pleased with her food and smiled several times until she realised we were
watching her!

The heat was the other notable thing. It got hotter and hotter with a
breeze blowing from the general direction of the Moroccan Sahara, maybe
cooling a tad over the Atlantic before passing over the Rubicon Desert on
Lanzarote, a huge field of almost jet black rock. Even then you'll be
amazed to hear the temperature reached 48 degrees one day. Ouch. None of
us really felt good in that heat. You could only get away from it in the
pool and to add to the discomfort we realised that the A/C was playing up
and we were not cooling down a lot at night. Eventually even the mosquitoes
gave up trying to fly, but not before giving one or two of us a nasty nip,
especially Jackie, who is pretty tasty.

Going down in the world

This year's holiday stands out from many of the others as I didn't have my bike with me. You could hire them in Lanzarote but the roads were unappealing and the heat fearsome so I never got round to it. But very soon we realised that there were several scuba diving schools in the area around Playa Blanca where we were staying (Playa Blanca - White beach. Someone should be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act) The hotel rep suggested a good scuba school and so we wandered along trying to look like cool water-sports dudes amongst all the tanned and muscular divers. I think my favourite tanned and muscular divers were the girls. Does diving do something to women? Why are they all gorgeous?
The school was essentially a shed with a small pool in front of it, this being just like a normal swimming pool but with no shallow end (It's a diving school after all!) In it we experienced the strange but exhilarating feeling of using the breathing apparatus. I tend to breath through my mouth anyway so it was just like walking around in the living room with the exception that there was a foot of water above my head. It's odd how quickly you accept that strange fact.
Lisa and I both tried the pool experience. She is a fearless and strong swimmer and I am, well, too timid to admit terror, so we booked a 'Try-Dive' on the Friday afternoon. Lynne, infected by our enthusiasm said she would come along and try the scuba gear or at least a snorkel. As time went past she demonstrated such a considerable talent for back-pedalling; she should ride fixed-wheel bicycles. Anyway Friday dawned as ferociously hot as every other day that week and we nervously checked in for our dive. Some form filling followed, followed by a short but useful explanation of theory and hand signals. Then there was a sizing up of feet and leg-length etc. in order to get the right size of wetsuit and fins. It was my first experience of rubber clothing - what a laugh! The legs are the main problem. It was one of the few times when I might have been grateful to have skinnier legs. Got the bottoms pulled up eventually and then it was time to struggle into the top half too. The thing to do is to plunge into the pool to fill the suit up with water as it keeps a constant temperature. It's hard to over-state the value of this as it limits the cold shock of getting into the sea and even more importantly in Lanzarote in August, it keeps the heat at bay. The temperature was 46 degrees that day! When I got back out of the pool Lisa was still struggling with her legs and the wet-suit. Three pairs of hands makes light work though and eventually we shoe-horned her into it.
Of course it takes more than a stylish rubber suit to make a diver and next I was fitted with a belt with lead weights on it. "Don't go near the pool!" I was told - not bad advice as the belt must have weighed about 20 pounds. It certainly pressed down on the hips.
The breathing gear goes on next. Obviously there is a tank of air, but also a waistcoat which can be inflated to give you buoyancy. I haven't seen James Bond in one of these (I kept thinking of dear old James; I shall never see him in scuba gear again without laughing) but it was a fantastic bit of kit.
The final touch to the ensemble is a mask, a tight fit on the face to keep the water out.
"Spit on it; think of it as a Chelsea Mask!" said the instructor, adding "unless you happen to be a Chelsea supporter. Keep it to yourself if you are..."
Saliva prevents the mask from misting up; there's not much point in going to the bottom of the sea and not being able to see through the window!
Then at last it was time to 'take the plunge' and our group of about 8 novices and 2 (or 3?) instructors, partly English and partly German, strode off purposefully to the nearby beach. (Could we not have been lifted there by crane? I must have weighed 18 stone). Walking across the stones of the beach was agony, weighing as much as a beached whale and having no shoes on. It was like heaven when the instructor called on us to sit down in the water and lie back and let the inflatable jacket do all the work. You can't walk with the fins on; they are about 18 inches long so you have to put them on once you are floating. Maybe it's just me but I found that quite a challenge. What with the buoyancy, the exaggerated weight and my general lack of flexibility (especially in all that crazy gear) I found myself rolling madly all over the Atlantic Ocean. The instructors were good though and noticed a geriatric and struggling baby diver when they saw one so I was unable to drown quite yet.
We were told to move forwards, as if crawling, into the water. This was done gradually until all the party are in the water, with head submerged, and hopefully all breathing the tank air. On our initial dive the instructors kept control of our buoyancy. I was unaware of it as the air was released from the jacket to make us float with neutral buoyancy in the sea. There is a mad rolling time as the jacket and air tank interfere with your stability then suddenly all is serene and you are apparently weightless.
As we moved into the water, and it shelves down steeply there, the instructor moved a few feet away from us and then beckoned us forward. So we moved forwards into the sea in a series of stop-start movements as the instructor moved back and then beckoned us on.

The instructors were understandably anxious that we should not swim all over the place but remain instead in a tightly packed group where they could see us and count us at all times. This lead to a bit of bumping and the odd elbow or hand knocking you as eleven or twelve scuba divers occupied the space which might be quite intimately cosy with just two or three rubber clad nutters.
The stop-start advance continued for a few minutes and we started to gain a little depth. Very soon the pressure became apparent. The water in your body is virtually incompressible and your body doesn't change shape much as you dive - not so the air in your body, as the air in your lungs slowly becomes more compressed and the air in your sinuses gets squeezed down small. It is the sinus cavities compressing that cause some ear pain. I have rather waxed up ears and I found it hard to 'equalise' the pressure difference across my ears. This led to a few minutes of quite unpleasant ear pain but it soon faded.
Once I got lower in the water and started to feel more relaxed I felt confident to look around me and see my new universe, about a hundred feet across with no obvious North, South, East or West. (No wonder they don't want you swimming off - which way is home?) Under Lanzarote's sunshine there is much light and plenty to see. I checked to see where Lisa was and she was giving me the 'OK' signal and obviously having a good time. Shoals of fish came to check us out, fascinating colours and patterns. Above us was the inflatable boat belonging to the dive school. How odd to see an anchor in use from the business end! Plenty of noise down there too, mostly the sound of me breathing but also the general hubbub of the ocean smashing itself tirelessly against the shore and various other things banging about including the gentle tinkle of the boat's anchor cable. One of the instructors had clearly got the family relationships sorted out in advance as he was taking photos and getting shots of mother/daughter and father/son groups etc and photoed Lisa and I together.


Our group was still tightly packed but we moved around the sea-bed a short way, wheeling in formation like rubber soldiers in a very odd military parade. In time we made it back to the same place as we had embarked from and in no time we were floating on the surface again, not before taking part in the rolling motion of the sea which was a mildly alarming experience as the environment seemed to go backwards and forwards past us in time to the waves. Standing up we were reminded of how heavy and ungainly we were on land. I felt like I weighed a ton! Naomi, one of the instructors, help me stand and haul myself back up the shingle and stone slope of the beach. Normally I would be embarrassed to be helped to walk by a girl but I was prepared to make an exception for blond, tanned Kiwi Naomi, partly because she was a great advert for the benefits of the outdoor life and partly because my tired old legs could only just hold me up!

Then it was back to the 'school' to divest ourselves of all this weight, having help to remove the breathing gear and jacket and Oh-so-carefully taking off that lead belt. (It was foremost in my mind that the heavy belt was vertically above the delicate and unprotected toes!) The wet-suit seemed to peel off somewhat more easily than it went on and off we went to see the photos of ourselves. Everyone seemed to have a good time and when it was suggested that we did another dive the next day Lisa and I agreed immediately.

The next day the preliminaries were sorted out more quickly and then Lisa and I were shown the workings of the jackets so that we could control our own buoyancy and set the height we floated at in the water on our own. This is done with three possible release valves which discharge air from the jacket. Air rises in water so generally you use whichever valve is at the top. If you try to use a valve which is at the bottom the air just stays inside the jacket! We quickly got dressed in our scuba gear this time and Lisa was issued with a different suit, one which she managed to put on in no time.
Somehow we contrived to enter the water from a sandy part of the beach, (why couldn't we do that the day before?) and even the fin-fitting acrobatics were less embarrassing. As old hands we entered the water somewhat more quickly which for me was not a good thing and the compression and the struggle with equalising my ear pressure etc never went well. I was in some pain for quite a while. This does diminish however and I was just getting comfortable in the water again when I realised everyone else had gone back to the surface. Not sure if I had missed some signal to go back up I followed like a lemming, only to discover that Lisa had risen to the top somewhat involuntarily and the instructor had gone with her to see that she was okay. Of course this meant that we all had to dive back down again from the surface and I had to endure the ear pain all over again. I was equalising my ear pressure as much as I could but it was still very painful for about two or three minutes. Then it fades away slowly and is soon forgotten in the fascinating submarine world. I started to experiment with the buoyancy control which is when I realised why Lisa had gone to the surface so unexpectedly. As you start to rise the air in the jacket expands, thus causing even more buoyancy and making you rise still more in a chain reaction. Anyway my experiments led to me hitting the surface suddenly and sheepishly explaining that nothing was actually wrong; I just didn't weigh enough... The instructor later explained that even quite experienced divers often surface quite involuntarily which made me feel quite a lot better.
Well, off we went again back down into the 'depths', more ear pain and more exhilaration as a reward for my suffering. This was still, after all, my first hour under water so I didn't expect it to come too easily. We started to swim out across a large expanse of light coloured sand, moving quite slowly - in fact the instructor seemed to hang in the water like a true amphibian. I've seen newts do the very same thing. It was interesting to watch the experienced divers too; they seemed to breath so slowly whereas Lisa and I were a steady stream of bubbles. They were using their air intake to vary their depth very accurately. We beginners seemed more preoccupied with just making sure each breath was followed by another one!
After a distance of maybe a hundred yards we came to a length of old anchor rope, maybe lost from a fishing boat. Our instructor slowly pulled on it; I couldn't make out why at first but he was examining it. He had hoped to find a seahorse clinging to it but when he came to the end of his rope he produced an underwater notebook and showed us the words "SEA HORSE GONE" As a consolation he handed us a crab which ran up and down our arms and amused me by running in 'mid air' as it fell back to the sea bed. As soon as it reached the sea bed it buried itself in the sand, very aware that there are things out there that eat crabs, and not knowing if I was one of them. Twice during the dive he caught octopuses, the first one conforming to Hollywood stereo-types of scary undersea monsters by glueing itself to the front of his mask and squirting brown ink all over us all. Having failed to find any seahorses we swam back to shallower water and looked at the fish in a great grassy reed bed, many small yellow fish, some amazingly bright. On a nearby rock reef, an outcrop of volcanic lava, were more brightly coloured fish, some of electric blue, some multi coloured Wrasse and a few seriously ugly things skulking where the nasty divers couldn't see them. Bigger disc shaped fish, many with a large black spot half way along their lateral line came to view us and inspect the sand we stirred up.
All too soon it was time to leave the water though and experience the effects of gravity on very heavy people again. I asked where we had been and had it pointed out on the sea's surface before us. Our depth had been about 6.5 metres, not a great depth but that's not the point. Just going where people don't normally go is the point.
Both Lisa and I are left wondering whether to go for diving qualifications, if only to find out what on earth PADI stands for.

Pool experience free, try-dive 58euros, further dive 44euros

Joggers in the Fossil Record

Wikipedia: Joggers in the Fossil Record.

You know those dinosaur footprints that you see in rock that was once the sea shore or a river bank? Well there were a certain two fossils out for a lunchtime run around the uni campus and to get back to the buildings they had to run through the car-park of the golf club, a public footpath. The car-park encroaches on the path a bit at this point and one gentleman golfer with a flash Porsche was getting into his car, with the aid of a shoe horn to prize his grossly fat backside into the unfeasible bucket that passes for a seat. Naturally he had his door wide open and it took up most of the path. As the elderly joggers got to this point they had to step aside from the path and one elderly fossilised jogger, a guy with receding frizzy grey/brown hair, had to step on the doorstep of the groundsman's shed to get by. This was an interesting and novel experience as yesterday the groundsman had no step to his shed. It turned out to be a mass of wet concrete and the grey haired jogger sank in to the top of his expensive trainers, leaving a fossil record of the day two prehistoric runners passed through. The prehistoric runners felt obliged to scarper quickly despite the taller one (he with the grey/brown hair) wanting to claim for cement damage to a pair of Nike Air Pegasus Trail shoes. The shorter jogger, with almost no hair and laughing like a drain, said that it had added new miles to the shoes which, in scientific parlance, were said to be sh*gged months ago anyway.

One day those footprints will be in a human museum - proof of the existence of the fabled Laughing Jogger or Joggus Fossilus. Until then it would be best to stay out of reach of the groundsman who is probably hoping to give the Nike Air Pegasus Trail shoes a decent burial in a sixth hole bunker, ideally with the tall grey/brown haired jogger still wearing them.

A race called Grizzly

I took part in the 2008 Grizzly. It's a race across a variety of terrains (all of them horrid) which is now about 19 miles in length, though the race varies from year to year for operational reasons. There were about 1400 starters. The race is always fully subscribed so you have to enter quite early to stand a chance of getting in. The question that burns a hole in your head is why would 1400 people develop such insanity simultaneously?
The start is on the sea-front at Seaton, Devon, a quiet and pleasant place to be on a sunny morning in March. I travelled down to Seaton with Allan Cox, a member of Corsham Running Club and also one of my work colleagues. Seaton was still quiet when we arrived though the streets were quickly filling up with people in strange attire and talking loudly about PBs and racing flats etc.
Then the real noise started and the sleepy residents of the town were shaken from their slumbers by the Tannoy.
Soon the front was rather full and people were gathering at the start line (still being hastily marked on the road with a chunk of rock-chalk) I managed to bump into a few of the other Chippenham runners who had entered, Bumble, Nelo, Dave Jones, Sue and Tom and there was time for a crafty 'pee' in the sea (working on the theory that there is no-one out there whose decency I might outrage - it works at Weston Super Mare too) Looking around me on the start line, there were all the usual suspects but worryingly most were carrying drink bottles, wearing 'bum-bags' and sporting gel sachets pinned to their racing vests. In contrast I was not carrying anything edible. This did little to calm my nerves, though the nerves were soon forgotten as someone sounded the 'off' and we were all tripping over each other to get going. The race immediately turned left onto the beach, a shingly affair with a steep slope and big waves crashing against it. We turned through 180 degrees and headed east for about a quarter mile, some of the runners so far down that they were almost in the sea (some were even less lucky) while some runners were high on the shingle trying to run on the very biggest of the stones. Which is best? - I never found out but soon we were leaving the beach and pounding amongst small craft over-wintering high above the water on the 'hard'. Then we came back through the start area and set off for Beer, which means a wicked steep climb over into the next bay.
I had never been to Beer before which is odd, given that it has a youth hostel and sports a name I might normally be attracted to. It was a steep and slightly worrying place. Off-road shoes are quite poor when worn on tarmac and the road was slippery.
Beer is a small place and we were soon through it and on our way up through a static caravan site, a steep place with a huge view. (The whole area has a similarly comprehensive view of the caravan site which is a bit of a shame but it brings in holiday makers in a place with no industry)
Above the caravan site is a flatter area, agricultural in nature, which was hugely enhanced by a Scotsman (to judge by his attire) playing the bagpipes to everyone in the neighbouring fifty square miles. Excellent! I forgot to suffer briefly though we were all breathing quite heavily after the first few minutes of the Grizzly.
The fields continued and we were treated to superb views of the Devon coastline stretching way ahead of us. Then we started to descend quite sharply and we arrived at a beach; it is Branscombe where the course had been crafted to send 1400 willing idiots through almost waist deep water. Luckily my waist is higher than most...
At Branscombe a man was standing on the roof playing a saxaphone. We ran past,trying not to look surprised.
The next hour or so was spent up hill and down dale through woods and fields with all-too-frequent visits to boggy morasses. In one bog I pulled myself out using the over-hanging branch of a small tree which cracked and collapsed under my weight, making me no friends at all amongst my fellow strugglers.
We ran into a farm-yard where there was a drum band playing a thunderous but unrecognisable tune. Shortly after this the sky darkened and it grew colder. Hail started to beat down like machine gun fire. I could hear squeals and groans from all around. It really was painful and it went on for quite a while. Of course it did end eventually as we dropped down into a wooded valley, having passed the farm with the drummers again.
The miles passed by, many with mileage markers -useful, if only to tell how much more hell to expect. A sharp descent led to a dash through the patio area of a pub and for a few short seconds applause filled our ears and it was necessary to dodge someone carrying a loaded tray of drinks. Beyond the pub was tarmac but that was one of the hardest parts of the course, a serious climb which saw all around me walking.
A woodland climb had me puzzled. I could smell incense, not a normal woodland smell. As we mounted a sticky wooded track there was a Buddhist temple complete with prayer flags, incense burners and Buddha himself. The 'monks' handed me a couple of jelly babies as I grafted my way past and up round to the left and more woodland climbing.
In a while the runners emerged onto Branscombe beach where we ran past the wreck of the Napoli, a ship which had achieved some fame the previous year when it was wrecked there. Certain of the locals discovered that the ship contained a fortune in imported products, even some brand new BMW motorbikes. By the time we arrived all the goodies had been 'saved' from the ship and it was in the process of being broken up to remove it from the beach. The beach turned out to be memorable in other ways, most notably that once again it was necessary to run across the slope of nasty shifting shingle, hard at the best of times but evil as we tired in these later stages of the race. This shingle section seemed to go on for some while, certainly not less than a mile, before the marshal pointed the way off the stones...and up the cliff!
During the climb of the cliff I was caught up by Jason, a newly joined member of the Harriers. Jason lives for these odd off road epics and runs a diet of Long Distance Walking Assoc events, some of which are as much as 100 miles long. Given that he had taken about 14 miles to catch me, he seemed strong and on the cliff, while I increasingly looked like 'the deceased', he strode up purposefully and was quickly lost to sight. The ascent of the cliff was windy and steep, single file all the way, so we all went at the same speed up that bit. (Sorry to all behind me; you went at my speed!)
At the top of the cliff was, not suprisingly, a cliff top and some mercifully easy running for a short while. This is shortly followed by descent through the caravan site and return via Beer to Seaton. By this time I had started to really fade, so much so that I couldn't run down the slopes and was more or less walking up and down hills with a sort of jogging-like-a-statue on the flat bits.(What flat bits?) The beach had one last nasty go at us all as we ran in to the Start/Finish line. Within seconds of crossing the line, Bumble, a pretty and phenomenally tough member of the Chippenham, was telling me that she had almost caught me - it was down to just a few seconds after almost 4 hours.




to be continued

Good Samaritan or suspicious Brit?

Have you ever wished you weren't such a kindly sort? I sometimes do, wishing I hadn't got involved or getting duped by someone a bit less scrupulous than me.

Last night I was driving home from work and as I came up the slope from Chapel Plaister to Rudloe, I caught sight of a figure desperately waving, flagging me down to stop. Initially I thought there was debris in the road or something like that but as I slowed I sensed that the man wanted my help and I jumped to the conclusion that he was broken down and needed a lift. Easy, and my humane duty too, except that this encounter lead to a situation which plumbed my suspicions and prejudices and caused me to question myself and whether I live up to my own ideals.

I opened the car door and the man outside pointed to himself and said "Turkey, Istanbul!" So we had established his nationality in the first two words, (and liking Turks, I had already accepted him as friendly - why?) but what was his problem? Basically the story went that he needed money to refill his petrol tank to get to London. Whether London was home or whether he wanted to get to the airport I never found out but he claimed to be so desperate that he was willing to part with his very large gold ring, "18 carat Turkish gold!" he told me, in exchange for £20. I have little experience of rings but this was huge and under the car's interior light it did indeed feel and look like real gold but I am a suspicious old soul and have no great desire for Turkish gold. The other snag here is that it is a rare day when I actually have £20 in my pocket. It took me five minutes or more to persuade him that I really could not or would not help him and the last I saw was of him walking dejectedly back to his estate car, an elderly white Peugeot 405.

It could of course have been a scam, or he could have had a whole estate car's worth of big vicious mates hiding behind a bush, or he could have grabbed my wallet and run with it (it's not heavy so that would have been easy but hardly lucrative) but somehow it just seems such a mad place to launch such a scam and he really seemed very genuine and very desperate. So instead of helping a man in need I just feel that I slammed the door in his face.

His car wasn't there this morning.

French Alps 2005

Composed originally after a tour in 2005, an incomplete account that I wanted to save.

I've started to feel human again after the holiday tour of the French Alps..
We flew to Geneva from E.Midlands (Easy Jet) (That's Hugh, Dick, Colin, Martin White, Fred Gascoigne & me. ) and made a bee line for the French border on the SE eastern side of the city, making sure not to buy anything at Swiss prices! It is possible to get into France straight from the airport gate but we were going to the Alps and that meant crossing Geneva. (Fun that was as well!) Finally escaped into a suburb of Geneva called Annemasse which is actually in France. A quaint place, think Croydon. This was our first and last night's stays.
Next day Dick had to go back into Geneva to get a front mechanism as his had not survived the ride on an hairyplane. (Mostly down to extreme old age - you should see Dick's bike; it's a modern day miracle) While it took four of them to go and get a front changer, Colin and I cleared off up the valley towards the mountains. We took the opportunity to buy the first of the picnic lunches which we always eat. This saves money that might more readily be used for alcohol. Then we sat in a bar and waited for the others. They never arrived as they had overtaken us while we waited at one junction and they were at another. After a while I remembered the mobile phone I no longer use much and we got in contact and arranged to meet at the top of the first big hill through a huge gorge, the Gorge des Eveaux, so we sat and ate our belated picnic outside a bar where we had supped a few bargain price French beers ( bit of irony there - it was great to get back to the British £2.40 pint!) The ride took us eventually via the Col des Aravis, to a small town called Flumet, distinguished by me having forgotten everything about the place! The reason for this was that we found nowhere to stay and so were directed to the nearby village of St Nicholas la Chapelle. Here we stayed in a chalet beside a Hotel which was stuffed full of English walkers from Kent, most of them in their sixties and raring to get up the next alp. Their walks were bus assisted to the high land then walking on to places inaccessible by road then down to a rendezvous (presumably with a couple of glasses!)
The walkers overtook us in their minibuses the next morning as we rode the first hard kilometres of the Col des Saisies up through the ski village of Notre Dame de Bellecombe. I had quite a hankering to walk with them in the quiet paths up near the snow line, looking out for chamois and eagles but there were miles to be covered and the beautiful Cormet de Roselend to cross, a pass with lakes and reservoirs and beautiful views. A few days later the Dauphin, the local paper showed Lance Armstrong riding past the same chapel at the top of the Cormet, but we had got there first.
After the descent of Roselend we found ourselves in Bourg St Maurice, a bustling place with narrow interesting streets and sprawling modern outskirts, in which we found a supremely unmemorable night's digs on the main 'drag'.
Had little to do with the town but bought a new map as I had fallen clean off of the Michelin sheet 328 and now needed sheet 333, the two maps overlapping frustratingly so that I only ever got three 3 euros worth, not the full 6!
The new map showed our way out of town, heading towards the Col de Petit St Bernard. I quite fancied seeing this little Saint Bernard with presumably a little barrel of brandy hanging from it's collar. This is undoubtedly an eccentric place to store spirits. However we turned off before this mighty climb as we were off to climb a still mightier one. Lunch was sought, and not found, in the depressing and empty Val d'Isere, a place I had seen full of clamour as it hosted various winter sports events on the TV but today a useless and ugly blot on the landscape where even the Spar shops were closed for the summer. So we climbed the Col de L'Iseran on empty stomachs. At least that kept the weight down! At 2764, (nearly 9000ft.) Col de L'Iseran is the highest tarmac pass in the French Alps and by the top we were passing snow drifts higher than our heads though the summer sun had got the snow well and truly on the run and it was pouring itself into the mountain streams as fast as possible. Until that morning we had kept Mont Blanc to our left, hardly glimpsing it despite it being one of the bigger items in the general area. Now we had our backs to it though with the twists and turns of a mountain climb it is behind you, in front of you, now to the left, now to the right. A a sign of my general lack of condition and encroaching age I found myself walking stretches of the pass, a habit which I never got out of in the whole holiday but which kept my back and knees from getting too sore. I'm not proud. The pass top came at last and as with all passes, if there is a view to be seen, which is rare, you are too cold to linger and look at it and I was away almost immediately in a quest for warmth.
I can't resist mountain pass descents and I was well into my stride down this one when I saw something in the road ahead of me. An animal. My initial reaction was "badger" but it wasn't a badger; it was a marmot. Marmots are actually members of the squirrel family, as you realise when you see them in their characteristic sitting up pose, but a squirrel that you can confuse with a badger? That is one big squirrel!
The southern side of the Col is steeper and bumpier and dropped us quickly down to a quiet valley where, after a couple of beers as a reward for all that hard pedalling, we found accommodation in a village called Bessans in a comfortable and quiet gîte.
The ride in the morning took us on downhill for many a mile but the first village provided amusement as we could see a huge clamour of people milling around in the middle of the N6. Initially I thought that we had stumbled into some violent scene like a political demonstration gone out of control. But as we entered the main street of the town we realised that the village was having it's communal photo taken with all sorts of people gathered on the church steps and such a huge throng of onlookers that they were being man-handled off of the road by desperate marshals.
100 metres each side of this odd event there was the usual alpine peace and quiet.
From there the road got busier as we neared a town called Modane, the entrance to the Frejus Tunnel. At Modane the road meets a motorway and the railway twists and turns to find it's own tunnel . The trains were busy, scurrying under the mountains into Italy but the motorway was almost empty; a fire a few days earlier had closed the road tunnel. We headed out of town expecting a quiet time of it on deserted roads but came to a place were the main road was blocked by 'Route Barré' signs which ordinarily we ignore. On this occasion the presence of a two gendarmes made us follow the diversion. In fact they were quite insistent. This turned out to be hilly and by the time we reached the end of the diversion, a significant pass in its own right, we had lost Fred. After much seeking he turned up, unaware that we had been concerned, having punctured. It was to be the only puncture of the tour. A picnic was had on the side of the deserted dual carriageway with trains behind us and, in front, a very few cars. Not the most idyllic of sites but we had got hungry in the morning's confusions.
Following this valley we rode on an empty road beside and under the deserted motorway, beside the River Arc and the very steep railway until we reached St Michel du Maurienne. Here we were able to abandon this modern concrete ribbon and start the climb of the day, the Col du Telegraphe.
The Col du Telegraphe is a steep pass and, frustratingly for the photographers amongst us, almost entirely wooded so that opportunities to take pictures were few. I always enjoy the wildlife and the flowers on these passes so it was no hardship to be pedalling along through orchids and butterflies on a hot summer's afternoon. The top came at 1566 metres. We treated ourselves to a beer (more than one actually,) and then dropped quickly down to the town of Valloire. By one of those foibles of my memory and the onset of fatigue, I can't remember a darned thing about Valloire! I must have slept well.
The next morning we climbed the Col du Galibier. It is a magnificent road, climbing to 2646 metres. Actually we didn't climb very far as Valloire had been so high anyway that we had done most of the work during the climb of the Col du Telegraphe. But the bit we did climb was so spectacular, with the road glimpsed as bridges and buttments above us, hairpins hanging out into space above more hairpins and the view below of the road stretching away below us like a narrow grey ribbon, snaking all over the hill side. The road cuts through a tunnel near the top which probably keeps the pass open for quite a few extra weeks each year. Bikes are banned from the tunnel and quite right too. Who wants to miss the roof of the world? At the top is a rather surreal gift shop selling the usual knick-knacks including road racing vests, T. de F. tee-shirts and very welcome coffee. Nearby is the monument to Henri Desgranges, 'inventor' of the Tour de France. Had 'mon courage' complimented by various Belgian lady motorists for having ridden up one hill (didn't feel very courageous; I save that for the crazy descent) Maybe it was a Belgian chat up line, a bit late to find out now.
The descent was, of course, delicious but surprisingly not very long. At the BOTTOM of the pass is a sign telling us we are at the TOP of a pass, the Col du Lautaret. This seems a joke to have descended to the summit. We started to descend again, aware of a great convoy of trucks, with trailers, all carrying caravans and motorhomes. I let them get ahead; I didn't want to mix it with tons and tons of HGVs. What I hadn't realised was that the Col du Lautaret was the best alternative for many of the trucks and cars that couldn't get get through that fire damaged tunnel.
As we sat and ate our picnic in a purpose made area and a large number of trucks hurtled as hard as they could to, or from, Lautaret, we realised we were all sitting directly opposite a glacier, the first I had ever seen. To be honest it was nothing to write home about, just a streak of very mucky ice 5 miles away. Still, I can cross that off the list...glacier, yeah, seen one of those!
That evening we stayed in Briançon, a bustling town made more bustling by the road being so abnormally busy. The Tour de France would finish a stage here in July. One has to hope they sorted the tunnel out by then!
Next morning we woke to the only rain of the holiday and this caused a flurry of sight seeing around the old town of Briançon, with narrow streets and a gloomy and austere cathedral. Around 11 am it dried up a bit but we had already decided to cancel our assualt on the Col d'Izoard. None of us had any appetite for climbing for two hours in the cloud with no views to enjoy so we rode down the Durance valley instead. The main road is fairly busy but we found a pleasant way out of town and it was 10 km before we were forced to join the main road. The rain had stopped and all was fresh and cool; how soon you miss that when you are in sunshine every day.

International Motorcycle and Scooter Show

So...having passed my test but still owning no more than a pair of motorcycle gloves, it was time to get some clothing in preparation for buying the bike. I was advised that the best way to get affordable clothing was at one of the motorcycle shows and decided to go to the one at the Bath & West Showground. That idea was scuppered when I realised that it wasn't until the spring so we decided to go the International Motorcycle and Scooter Show at the NEC in November.

The NEC was a place I'd heard of but not seen yet, the car-parks are the size of a small county and there is a definite feeling that you are buying a season ticket, not just the parking place for a day, at £8.

The place is huge so the first thing is to catch the bus to the exhibition halls. No queue to get in on a Wednesday so we are straight in, looking at a huge hall full of the manufacturers main stands. The main manufacturers were all there, Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki, Benelli, Ducati, Triumph, Harley Davidson, BMW etc plus a few others such as the newer names from the far-east, not yet familiar. We wandered round, frankly a bit bewildered and identified a few familiar models and did the 'big kid' thing of sitting on them and trying their positions. Showed Lynne the modern edition of the Suzuki I had passed my test on and also showed her a Honda Transalp which is a bike I am considering buying. We sat on a few totally enormous bikes, some of which seemed less than practical, and Lynne insisted on getting on behind me (two big kids)

There were displays of 'custom' bikes which were breathtaking works though, in line with my dis-interest in bicycle machinery, I admired them without the least inclination to own one or emulate the achievement. One particularly extreme 'chopper' had a large crowd round it, none of whom seemed too bothered about the drive chain running along under the thigh of the rider. I've always been attached to these legs and I thought it was a bad idea in general. That's just what you need at the International Motorcycle and Scooter Show, some kill-joy who hates being chopped up by a chain.

Off to one side of this hall was another huge room holding some of the larger displays, mini-moto racing, a skills testing area run by Buell and most interestingly a Wall of Death! Lynne was off in it's direction like a shot, no stopping her. To her it was 'sole reason for visit'.
The Wall of Death is small, obviously small enough to be towed from place to place in a lorry. We had to pay £2.50 each for entry to this circus-like side-show and on entry we found ourselves looking down from a cat-walk into a wooden cylinder about 20 feet across and about 20 feet high. At the bottom were three motorbikes.
When enough people had filled the show, a slightly-built blond girl appeared through a hole in the Wall and started up one of the bikes, deafening with almost no silencer and in such a confined space. Suddenly she was away, riding around and up the wooden fillet at the edge that made a gradual change between the flat floor and the vertical barrel-vaulting of the Wall. Then you were aware that she was doing the 'impossible', riding on a totally vertical surface, blipping the throttle and going from top to bottom of the Wall on every lap, so close to the top that you had to remove your fingers from the edge of the track as she passed by. Each pass shook the structure; you were very aware of the weight of bike and rider passing right past your stomach. My initial reaction was that she looked like a rag-doll. With no helmet, her hair was streaming out behind in the wind and she was shaken as her bike passed over the planking. This was because the bikes were a bit rigid, having no suspension and probably very hard tyres. Yes that's right - no helmet, but it got madder before it finished. A young man took her place on another bike and did more or less the same stunts though at greater speed and with even more alarming shaking of the Wall of Death.
I pointed out a steel wire running round the top of the wall and said to Lynne "What do you think that wire is for?"
"To catch the riders and keep your hands out of harm's way" she said.
"Er, no" I corrected her "It's to stop the wall bursting!"

The next rider was an older man and just when I thought it couldn't be madder, it got madder. This guy stood up and rode with no hands, climbed over the handlebars and sat at the front of the bike, stood on his 'chain-stay' and waved as he passed by, riding 'no-handed' and generally doing things I could not do if the bike was on it's stand in a car-park.

There was an interlude while the girl drove a buggy car round the wall, noisy and mad but nothing compared to the finale, a few laps with ALL THREE riders riding round three abreast. The whole thing must have been about 15 minutes of noisy unforgettable craziness - fifteen minutes when I don't think I breathed once. I was simply stunned into silence. (There are some who would say this too is quite impossible)

We went and sat in another part of the hall then and let our ears have a rest while we ate our sandwiches (food at the show comes with a Securicorp guard - or at least at that price it should!) and watched the Buell skills riding. Felt that I could have done better than a couple of the riders I watched but a Buell is a wildly powerful bike so I doubt it really.

My purpose in visiting the show was to buy clothing. I visited a few stands and tried on a couple of crash helmets. It's very hard to actually know what you get for your extra money but everyone says "Don't buy a cheap one - you can't put a price on your head" I remain a bit unconvinced that the £600 helmets work 10 times better than the £60 helmets. Certainly there will be a diminishing return with great spending. That said I bought a helmet for...quite a lot of money. I put my credit card where my mouth is and effectively put a value on my head ( "What; it's worth THAT much?" ) I bought a Shoei, a well respected make, but last year's model so well discounted. Then we found a stall selling 'water damaged' clothing from a shop which had been flooded in the summer. Couldn't find anything wrong with the boots and trousers I purchased at bargain prices. Think about it - waterproof trousers that are discounted as water damaged stock. Is it me, or is there something rather strange about that?

Watched a rather dire dance sequence on the 'Black Horse' stage with some questionable characters of indeterminate sexuality prancing around in some odd clothing as well as some very good motorcycle gear. More entertaining watching the faces of the people in the audience, trying to keep from guffawing out loud.

There was still time to eat an outrageously fattening Greek Yoghurt and Honey ice-cream and have a look at a few more bikes including a Kawasaki that felt as if it's saddle was made of old house-bricks. The average leather bicycle saddle is surely no harder.

Then it was time to head south into the worsening weather and by the time we got back to Wiltshire it was teeming with rain.

We later learned that one of my friends met with an accident whilst riding home from the show and his bike had continued on down the hill after unshipping it's rider and felled a tree, 'totalling' the bike in the process. Hoping to hear that he is well again. He has had some time off work as a result with bruises in places not fit to be describe in a public blog...