Hello...This is Brian..

Sat here wearing a cheap pair of scratched reading glasses with only one arm,  the bridge balanced precariously halfway down my nose, I am pleased to report Progress with a capital 'P'. 'Most excellent' as Bill and Ted would say. 

Having spent everyday at the gym for the last month, my expanding shoulders and chest developed a label overnight which read 'do not inflate to more than 100psi'. Yes, I was becoming an inverted weeble. Its true for each hour I spent in the place a good fraction was leg work, but not being able to load your foot is a bummer and I was losing my neck to 16kg dumbells. 

I can now walk without a hobble and while there's no running on the horizon quite yet, I've been out on the bike for 3 consecutive days, and blidy windy it has been. 

Works been very quiet, but that's good practice for when I retire. I haven't felt too bad shilly-shallying. I've avoided planting myself in a dank corner and staring at the dusty phone, an apparatus that only used to ring with calls from some foreign exotic land; but now they don't even phone me. How I long for a flaky call from 'Brian' from 'Macrosoft' suggesting that there's a problem with my computer. 

It was the Eildon 3 Hills Race last weekend and we went up and had a good afternoon out.  I hope to be in one piece next year to run it. In the meantime, it'll be more biking, more distance punctuated with tea and cakes stops and a wee bit of elevation.  I should get back to the pool, but the weather is warm, so I like to be out and about. 

On the book front I found myself ditching John Banville's 'The Untouchables', a slow page turner that eventually slowed to a complete halt. I moved on rapidly to Denise Mina's 'Garnethill', only to find that I'd read it. Plonker. Thankfully it was a charity buy. Its now Val McDermids '1979' which is an easy read and allows me to wallow in a shallow and murky pond of nostalgia. All good. 

Blaydon Race 2025

Now that the surgical boot is off, I took a chance and moseyed into Newcastle last night with the camera. The light was poor, and there was a drizzle and breeze. Its always an issue where to stand, as the scenery is pants. The 5000 troopers managed to nail the 2025 Blaydon Race. It was a masterful display by Johnson of Gateshead, biding his time to strike just before the bridge. Sonia Samuels grafted for what was a comfortable win. Link to a few photos at the 4 mile mark here:

 Blaydon Race - batch 1 link : https://photos.app.goo.gl/xYv5ZSKxFBunfBKH9

 Blaydon Race - batch 2: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ySGhoA65jx7jwz2PA

 

 

 

 

 

Still Game in Das Boot

Howdy. My recovery from the broken bone in my foot is coming on a treat and I am getting quite adept at stomping down town in my ankle brace walker (or 'Darth Vader boot' as I like to refer to it as. Gives me a certain 'joie de vader' and looks ace when I've got my light sabre out)...I laugh like Methodone Mick out of Still Game....haar, haar. They are non returnable which is not good. However, I estimated their cost at rather more than the £30 they actually cost. I haven't even got a matching pair.

We took off up to the Ben Lomond Race 10 days ago. Speedy was driving (obvs) and, even though we arrived early, the car park was full to brimming and yet we, somehow, managed to shoe horn in the car between two fir trees near the car park exit. It was truly parking mayhem. You might know that the Ben Lomond car park is right at the end of a 'B' Class road and a dead end, so if you don't get parked there, you're in for a 5 mile drive back to Balmaha. The overflow car park was closed (although later we found out that with our heady connections and my dodgy foot, we could have got in there with bags of space.. next time!)

There was a field of around 90 for this sun drenched jamboree of a race up yon big hill. Half an hour before the start I hopped along up behind Missus Mac and Ant, like Winston, with my camera and we settled ourselves for the ascent. It was warming up nicely as the compact field came past us and then they were gone in a cloud of brown powdery dust and we settled down for the hours wait among the ferns. 

My stress levels began to ease the longer I was away from the car, but I could still feel all the exasperation drifting up in the sun motes from the hordes down below still trying to slide, wedge and jam their cars and camper vans into places where there were no spaces. 

Soon enough the leader came by, a strong looking Keswick runner well ahead of anyone else. Eventually, Speedy came by. She had a slight mince on, and I knew immediately what it meant. She had turned her ankle. No matter, she only had 800m to ginger along the forest track and she hung on for a wee win, her 2nd in 3 years on this Mountain. I hung around until most or all the folk had got down. There were a boatload of folk who would have gone off-course had I not shouted them, and I felt pretty righteous, I can tell you. Camera-man and marshal.  Is there no end to this blokes skill? I awarded myself with a cup of lentil soup at the race HQ.  Afterwards, we found out that the car hadn't been boxed in and, celebrating after an ice cream at Balmaha, we zipped home via Dalkeith for a lack-lustre fish supper. 

Linds also won her 10k race in Alnwick at the weekend just gone, so its been jolly fruitful.

I've been back to the gym this week for upper body workouts only. I am hoping to shed the boot in a week or so. I've just seen on a physio website that its only supposed to be worn for 2 or 3 hours a day....oops...I've been living in mine to such an extent that I got a new fitted kitchen in it last week and have sub-let the lower half to a small family of rodents. Oh well, mustn't grumble.    

More Photos at https://photos.app.goo.gl/cc3durVgEqLWmcTj8

 

A new home for orphaned socks

I attended the running club AGM the other week. As 30 of us squeezed into the old wooden running club, now shared with the next door rugby club, the top table were telling us how good it would be to boost club funds. After I left, I thought I could contribute somehow, so I sought out some new off-road routes in the wider area for a possible series of future trail races.  I had been to Newbiggin the week before and found a perfectly formed course based around the golf course and beach. Parking and facilities are, of course, prerequisites for such events. 

The following weekend, I took a closer look at the popular country park near me called Plessey Woods. There looked like there were a network of paths that might add up to a 4 or 5 mile route. 

So it was that I rocked up to the park on the Saturday with my asics trail shoes. It was busy, but there was parking for 100 cars or more, an overflow car park and a mix of woody trails and wider open gravel paths along the river. Ideal. 

I jogged my way up to the far end of the estate. The wild garlic and hawthorn were in full bloom forming a tight corridor for the route along a right of way. The sun was up and it was warm and a little muggy. Not a breath of wind. As I ran back on the return, I was plugged into Simple Minds and, as I ran, I was taking in the shape and layout of the terrain ahead. I wasn't, however, taking much notice of the ground immediately beneath my feet and, as I ran across a shallow depression, I went over on my ankle and as I dropped, I heard the crack of a twig break. 

I lay on the ground and knew there was some serious damage in my left foot. After catching my breath, I knew I'd better get back to the car before the ankle came up too much precluding shoe removal. I hobbled the remaining mile or so to the car park, got home and iced the offending and swollen joints.  

Some days later, after little improvement and a whole lot of bruising, I took myself to the hospital and after 20 minutes, I was on my way out with a diagnosed broken foot, nestled snugly in a darth vader boot. With a minimum 6 week recovery period, it looks like I might have to find an alternative means of entertaining myself. So that's Lomond and Goatfell out the window and half of June. However, I have found a new life for all those single orphaned socks. I'm pretty sanguine about the whole affair. Its just life. 

In recent weeks I've finished Ernest Hemingway's 'Snows of Kilimanjaro' and Adrian Tchaikovsky's 'Children of Time'. The former was a collection of bleak, rather desolate stories. Thankfully a short book. However, Adrian's effort was a top drawer sci-fi adventure and suitably absorbing.  I've returned to George MacDonald Fraser and picked up a Flashman novel which will be all stout hearts and rakish misadventures...a bit like Plessey Woods.

Wink, Wink - the Quayside 5K

In a fit of impetuous mad-cappery, I found myself entering the Quayside 5K and the Battersea 5k. Both events are organized by Runthrough and the cost was twenty notes for the Quayside Event and a further twenty six for Battersea, the latter to be held in the summer. 

I am not sure who I am trying to impress with all these short sharp events, but when it comes to road racing, I'm aiming to keep the pain down below 20 minutes. As it turned out, Missus Mac also had designs on the 'B event' and we made our way to the Toon accompanied by PS and GB. We arrived early and walked the mile and a bit to the Baltic to collect our numbers. The course starts on the Newcastle Quayside and is an out-and-back affair, finishing across the Millenium Bridge in Gateshead. The bridge is dubbed 'the blinking eye', because after almost 5k, if your eyes aren't blinking uncontrollably in a Inspector Clouseu/Dreyfus fashion, you've simply not been trying hard enough. 

In the Baltic Building, an old flour mill, I dug out the new Mizunos (after slapping on the Compeed on the heels) and pulled them on. Snug. All white and pastel green. If these new mothers didn't save me an extra handful of seconds I don't know what would.  

I ran over the bridge and warmed up in an implausible manner that had the words 'feeble fossil' plastered all over it.  The Terry O Gara 5k (as the 'A race' is styled) attracts some whippets and with a cut-off time of 20 minutes, I only just scraped in. 

Starting at the back of the 150 or so athletes, it took me 10 seconds to cross the line. After that, things were just a blur of coloured vest wearing trainer-jockeys, its a knockout street furniture and bemused anorak wearing punters and their dogs out for a quiet stroll along the Tyne.  There are no inclines in this event other than the raised edges of slabs waiting to pounce, and, after a mile, I had clocked 6.09min/mile - a tad fast - on the second mile I tried to hang in with a girl wearing a black vest of the Rotherham Club - I reflected that if she had come 100 miles to run here, she would be full on and committed and I could keep out of the very slight headwind that threatened to upset the return.  However, she powered on a little keenly in the last kilometre and I was left to hang on, instead, to a tall Heaton athlete. The photos kindly provided after the event show me suffering badly in the last 200 metres with enough slaver hanging outside my gob to have me certified as a possible rabies sufferer. Missus Mac reliably informs me that this is due to dehydration - so note to self - drink more water before an event or wear a bag over my head when the cameras are around.

I crossed the line in 19:38 and was 3 seconds off 3rd M60. I could see the Tynedale lad in front, but couldn't manage to muster any more gumption to force me forward - I was cooked. Gas Mark 6. Vaporized. 

An expensive pint of Neck Oil and equally pricey comestibles in the Bridge Hotel afterwards, and it was back on the train to Peth. Mental. Where's me slippers.....   

Newburn Relays 2025

Good Friday means either church (for some), shopping for others or the Newburn Easter Relays for those of the unhinged variety - the athletics race meeting is held just at the edge of Newcastle. The run takes place on the edge of an industrial estate which was a graphite works back in the day. In a former life the part of the site was used for mustard gas production during the 1st World War and was known as 'Canary Island'. There was also a power station, Stella North, located in the west of the site which is situated within an ox bow formed by the River Tyne. Yes, I know I am a font of knowledge. I happened to work on the brownfield reclamation in the 1990's. A lifetime ago.  

I hadn't any plans to contribute to the relays, made up of four legs. They are 2.1 miles in length and on a flat course; but I was asked if I was available and, having no other commitments,  I confirmed my availability; which was big of me, I know.  

It was cool but dry with no wind. The ladies race (3 runners per team) was in full swing when I arrived. The 3 Macs made up the Morpeth B team (a family affair) and were already flogging themselves up and down long lengths of tarmac for no good or obvious reason. They finished 15th team out of around 100 teams - yes, one hundred teams - its a big date on the North East running calendar - no fun runners running here.

The men and vets were up next and I was last leg on the crack M60's team. There is no obvious way to tell which age group runners are in, but I guess the thin grey skinned, wheezing spindly affairs dropping off the back of the bunch early doors are more likely to be the oldies. 

I set off on the last leg and got into my stride early, catching 3 very quickly. Always good for morale. On the back straight and on the track that runs between hedges and shrubs I reigned it in a little as there was no one around me and I was a bit knackered. However, at the turn (halfway mark) I could see that there were two or three not too far ahead and, spurred on like a swivel eyed loon, I hit what remained of the gas burners and got past them all by the time the finishing straight arrived. 

As it turned out we won the M60 category. Mind, there were only around 8 teams in that age group, but mustn't grumble.  We took off back home via Newcastle where a little retail therapy resulted in me cashing in my old prize vouchers and some cash for a new pair of Mizuno's. Free pair of socks and 10% off thrown in.

 

Cock-up at the Queens 5k

 

 

The Queens 5K held in the University Quadrant of Belfast was a race which I've fancied for a while. It looked like a good course, a good field and was accessible for Easyjet. I should add that Easyjets Belfast airport is around 20 miles away from Belfast proper and a return trip on the shuttle bus costs 13 quid and takes half an hour. However, the City is not too big and, at this time of the year, the hotels are not too busy so booking a twin room overnight didn't cost an arm and a leg. The Holiday Inn Express even threw in a cooked breakfast with the room rate. 

Speedy and I scrounged a lift to the airport (thanks, linds) on the Wednesday morning at 5.30am and by 9.30am we were enjoying the early morning sun and a latte in a cafe beside Bittles Bar. Quite a contrast to our earlier trip to Dublin in January, where it poured throughout the visit.  

We mooched around the town centre before opting for spag bol in Zizzi's. Early in the afternoon we had walked the mile to the Hotel and got into our room early. I crashed for an hours kip before chilling with a cuppa, half watching blah-blah-television. We made good use of the kettle and I nipped out to get some milk and biscuits to supplement what the hotel had provided. 

Before long it was 5.30pm and we got out gear on and strolled to the athletes village beside the University sports centre. The race is a two and a half lapper around the river. There is a 3k juniors race, then the Elite 5k for those who have gone sub20, then the public race. The Elite race, which both of us were entered into, was due to start at 7.15pm and was the Irish Championship 5K. The rules stated that anyone finishing in a time over 20 minutes would be DQ'd. 'Harsh', I thought. 'Me', I thought. Better make sure I picked up my heels. 

We arrived early and picked up our numbers. We warmed up with a lap around the river and then stretched and preened, making all those facial and body contortions that would get normal folk certified. 

The road was closed at 6.45pm and the Junior race commenced.  Fifteen minutes later, we were 'up'. 

We made our way to the start and with 10 minutes to go wished each other well. I disappeared off 100 metres away from the start to get in some strides while many of the 250 elite runners gathered around the start. I suddenly heard a klaxon and turned to see the mass of runners moving off. But how could that be? it wasnt even 7.10pm? I looked around and realised 'this was it' and galloped toward the line in blind panic, even as the back of the runners peloton cleared off at high speed. There were a troop of surprised and dismayed runners passing me and a few behind me. There was no option but to crack on. Not even time to set the old garmin.

It took me the best part of a kilometre to catch the back of the group.  I knew that almost everyone in the race was faster than me, so upon reaching optimum velocity and cruising speed, I sat in with a grey haired old fella in a yellow and black vest. He ran evenly and I reckoned he was in my category. 

We passed a handful of runners, but we were still rooted firmly in the bottom quarter of the field. I stuck to my new mentor like glue, only daring to move up side by side on occasion. Coming round the embankment turn for the last time, my buddy put in a spurt to pull away from me, and I couldnt react, having used my reserves at the start. However, I knew that I probably had 20 seconds on him, assuming he had started when the Klaxon sounded. I crossed the line in around 19.40. However, chip timing gave me a finish time of 19:12 with speedy finishing a minute ahead. The premature start was certainly a talking point. We got our t-shirts and goodies and cleared off back to the hotel, as the B race runners filed past on their first lap. There were a boatload of elite runners in the B race - runners who presumably had missed the start of the earlier race. Around 100 of the runners of the B race went sub 20.

After showering, we nipped out to the Empire for a pint and a good light hearted moan about the race; but there's no point in feeling short-changed. It wasn't like we were there for any medals. It was a fast race and a 3 year PB for me. 

Waking the next day to more sunshine, I trogged 4 miles around the waking city before breakfast. Afterwards, we sauntered to the town centre and took a trip on the open top tourist bus round the sights. What are we like!