April update - continuing post-race generosity from friends near and far means I have now raised a total which, with gift aid, comes to more than £1000...

THANKYOU ALL.   

(I mean, I got to the Tower hotel for the Virgin London Marathon press conferences, and who should I see but a Scotsman bearing down on me waving a £20 note insisting I must take it. This is what I mean by generosity - and thankyou Mr Doug Gillon...)

incidental update - prompted by one of my other journalism buddies, I have rashly got a place to run in next year's London marathon. But don't worry!! I won't be requiring sponsorship on this occasion...

 

 

8-3-10

Shamefully late breaking news....broken news?..I finished Bath half on Sunday in 1hr 48min 11sec, which was leaps and bounds inside my target of two hours. Then again, whatever I ran would have been a personal best...

No somersaults required - experience so heady and pain-free that I might have done well to subject myself to a post-race doping test.

Great relief to have covered the course and raised a goodly amount of money for Dorothy House, whose dotty outfit I bore round Bath in company with many others. Once again, thank you so much all who have sponsored me. I will be posting a fuller report, plus, if I can work it out, a couple of pics taken en route and maybe even video footage. OK maybe not video footage. anyway...

update 9-3-10

OK - I will post the pics as soon as they arrive - they should be around tomorrow (Wed) if anyone wants to know. But in the meantime I just want to say a bit more about the day. I counted myself lucky really, being able to run in my old trainers, as I had had to argue my case pretty insistently a couple of days earlier when I went into our local runners' shop to buy some shorts.

It had occurred to me that I shouldn't be thinking of running the race in my tracksuit bottoms, even if they were Puma and nicely designed - thanks very much to my old chum Phil Minshull for that particular freebie, although why it came my way I still don't know. Anyway - word of the week - anyway I knew the little wiry bloke who owns the shop because he has been running marathons for years, fast, and has been in the Herts and Essex Observer many a time.

He was sitting at the back of the shop when I came in, and immediately announced: "It's the dregs...the rubbish...all there in front of you..." I told him that was not the finest sales pitch I had ever heard - then noticed there was someone else sitting round the corner. "I was just saying," wiry man continued, "I went to the bank this morning and I had to queue for bloody hours. Bloody queues of people in front of me, and none of them could speak English. I really hate that. Don't you?"

This was not the sort of conversation I had envisaged having at the runners' shop. I bottled the big conversation - wiry man would probably have tried to chuck me out if I'd started - and changed the subject to running, saying I was doing a half marathon on Sunday. "Which one?" "Bath." "Oh. Big one." I said I didn't think I should run it in the tracksuit trousers I was wearing. He looked at me for a moment. "Course not." "No." "You'll be wanting some shorts." "Yes. What sort of thing have you got?" He was already hauling his way through a rack. "These are what you need. These are our most popular shorts." Black. Nike. But black.

"How much are they?" "Twenty quid." "OK".

But now he was looking down. Fixedly. At my trainers.

"You're not running it in them." "Erm..I am." "No you're not." "Yes I am." "No you're not..."

You get the picture.

Anyway, my towering will prevailed - (I wriggled out of it by making some comment about coming back to buy some shoes in time for my next race)

So it was in my grubby, worn out old trainers that I toed the line on a bright, cold Sunday morning in Great Pulteney Street. Although of course I didn't toe the line, because the line was a couple of hundred yards down the road, in front ot the next batch of runners, the elite, and the only ones toeing it were the Kenyans who went to the front from the gun and stayed there.

I'd stayed the night before with my Dad and Aunt Stella, who live up towards Claverton Down Road. Perfect for me. A couple of games of snooker with Dad, two cans of Stella Artois - not allowed? News to me that it's not allowed - and a reasonably early night. Perfect.

In the morning, Stella kindly and carefully safety-pinned my running number in place and Dad gave me a lift down to as close to Henrietta Street as he could - I had an even closer pied a terre in the form of Matt - my stepson's - flat. Tig was already there. You could look out of the window and see the runners due to go in the back group assembling for their start. As my wiry friend might have said, bloody perfect.

So I didn't toe the line - I toed the pavement. By moving to one side of the street it was possible to get a bit of the sun that was just edging over the chimney pots on the opposite side. It was cold enough for shivering, so the warmth was welcome.

A couple of guys behind me were talking about times. "I did this last year." "Yeah? How'd you get on." "1.45." "Christ. I won't be seeing much of you today..."

Up ahead, on some kind of dais - I didn't have my glasses on - was a blob of red that people said was Amy Williams, Bath's favourite daughter and Britain's only medallist at the recent Winter Olympics, who was the race starter. Amy did her thing, and there was a commotion further along the road. We stood. It was a bit like being held in reserve before a battle. After a while I said to the lady shivering next to me "I'm comfortable with this early pace." Slight laugh.

And then we were actually moving towards the line, and across it, and I was embarked upon my first big serious run in the bright Bath sunshine, feeling a bit like I hadn't woken up and this was all still a dream. Having done nothing all week since my rubbish 10-miles run the previous Sunday, I felt strong and full of running. Thank God for that.

 But I deliberately held back from any extravagance - I wanted to run sensibly for the first half, then push on as best I could. After going through the 10k marker - I learned afterwards my time was 52.38 so that was fairly steady 8min 30 miling - I started to move past a few runners and kept on testing out the legs with little bursts forward. Still feeling good at the 10-mile marker, I thought to myself, this is something you have been training for for six weeks, you're not even hurting, it's to raise money for mum's memory and the Dorothy House charity, so what are you holding back for?

At around this time a black guy who looked like a rugby forward was advancing into the street, half jokingly, half seriously encouraging us  all, leaping up and down to emphasise his words "YOU can DO it, YOU CAN do it, come on, don't stop now, DIG IN, DIG IN."

So I dug in, and didn't feel too bad at all. Matt had warned me the last stretch up to the final turn was an incline, if not exaclty a hill, but when we turned left at the fountain there was only a flat stretch to the finish and I produced what passed for a sprint to the line.

Halfway up the hill I had found myself emitting a mysterious and rather embarrassing noise. It was a kind of sob. I found that the memory of my mum was in danger of overcoming me, like a sudden wave at sea, and I had to concentrate hard on not losing it in the final 100 metres or so.

After the line, as the field flowed on for their medals and goody bags, I turned right and I must admit I cried - I was overflowing with emotion. 

This is something I wrote with my mum in mind - I felt something similar on Sunday.

 

GRIEF

 

it's coming

 

glistening backed, intent

it's at your chest

your throat

 

feet lose the hard sand

sound tightens in

your throat

your eyes

are water

 

in an element

that has no words

oh, your throat

your eyes

your eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please see updates below...

 

I'm writing this in purple, because my mum, who died of breast cancer in 1996, loved purple. Her final weeks were made easier by a stay at Dorothy House, which is in Bradford on Avon, not far from where she lived in Bath. There was a serenity about the place which I think she found of great comfort.

Shortly before Christmas I took part in the Santa Run around Battersea Park in company with my stepson Matt. I say in company - he went off at the front and I didn't see the boy until the finish line. Anyway, he had entered the Bath Half Marathon, and suggested I try to get in as a late entry. When I enquired about charity places, I found the main beneficiary this year was Dorothy House. So I felt it was meant to be.

I can't promise that this is going to be a one-off, but I would be very grateful if any of you out there who know me as a colleague, a friend or a tiresome pain-in-the-arse would contribute to this cause. It is hard to put a value on the environment that Dorothy House creates for those in extremis, but it is an environment that should be nurtured - and financed.

Many thanks.

Update at 18-2-10.Having spent a month off considering my race tactics thanks to flu - see how the obligatory runner's excuse slips in there, I must be getting the hang of things after all  - I have endeavoured to make the best of the six weeks leading up to the race. I now know, for instance, that if I run from my front door to the posts just after the Co-op in Hatfield Heath and back again, I will have done 10 miles. I also know that if I continue to run in my black woolly Juventus hat - nicked from my son Jim, for whom it ceased being either desirable or cool about a decade ago - I look like a wally. But here's the wonderful thing about running. It means you just don't care about looking a wally.

A heartfelt thankyou to all who have sponsored me so far - including cheques I have now raised at least £300 for Dorothy House, which is already more than I had anticipated.

And a heartfelt thanks to all of you who have made known your intention to sponsor me - please feel free to go that extra mile and pledge money! Remember, if you cut corners, you're only cheating yourself...

Update at 1-3-10. Got back from five days in Doha on Friday, went out for a 10-mile run on Sunday - yes, the Co-op, the posts, the hat - and felt slow, tired and awful. This could mean one of two things - either I am secretly ready for next Sunday, or I am slow, tired and awful. Whatever the weather, I will get round even if it means proceeding by forward somersaults. Once again, many heartfelt thanks to my generous friends and relatives for sponsoring me - as you can see, I am way over my target and I am just pleased that so much money will be finding its way to such a good cause.

Update at 2-3-10. By chance, I came across a cutting of an obit I did for The Indy on Cliff Temple, the former Sunday Times athletics writer who died in tragic circumstances just over 16 years ago. With it was an article of excerpts  from one of his many lovely books, Cross-country and Road Running (Stanley Paul, 1980), where he presents five experiences of running - a local 10-mile road race, a training run for some youths, a cross-country race from the point of view of a young woman, a view of the teeming mass that is - or was - the English cross-country championship and finally a description of a runner winning an Olympic marathon title. As always with Cliff, the beauty is in the humour and the detail.

Eg, in the first piece: "Seven, eight, nine miles. You're going to finish. You try to pick it up a little on the final mile, and as you cross the line, you feel a weight being lifted from your chest and a momentary urge to be sick over the timekeeper's clipboard. Swallow hard."

Eg in the second piece: "The streamer slowly fades into one or two stragglers. Then a tiny lad in a vest three sizes too big for him appears, walking and holding his side. He sees you, and starts running again.. 'Stitch,' he gasps, half apologetically. 'Never mind,' you say, 'Keep at it.' "

Typical Cliff. What a desperate shame he is no longer with us.

This is something I wrote for him.

 

FREE

 

perhaps

as you negotiated

the fence

and heeled down

the embankment

it recalled

a training run

 

the irony

even as you walked into

the tunnel

ahead of

the express

would not

have been

missed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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