Nutty Burgers

I’ve been living off home-made veggie burgers of late. Aunt Aggie's made some mushy nut and bean mix and stuck it in a glass bowl in the fridge. All I have to do is take it out, dig out a handful of the ochre coloured dough, make some interesting shapes out of each handful and drop it into a frying pan. Makes a nice change from beans on toast. Today I fried a car shape, a cloud and a dodecahedron.  

The Weather’s been brill lately and after a tough ten mile test on Monday, I took the plunge and gathered my gear together for tonight's George Ogle (GO) Memorial 6 miler. I’ve clearly never got over Guns 'n Roses as I turfed my bag into the car and eased myself into the driving seat in my skull and crossbones bandanna, waving nonchalantly to the concerned neighbours, peeping out from behind the curtains.  Thankfully for them, I’d misplaced my top hat and shades.

The GO Memorial is a trail race, or rather multi-terrain, with 2 miles on tarmac cyclepath and the remaining 4 miles following a former mineral rail line on hard gravel with a small detour up a hill with steps and then down a hill and along the river bank. All in all about 1100ft of ascent,  although none of it too steep. Well, you can’t have steep gradients on a rail line.

Around 120 lined up for this event.  We set off and it became evident that the snails were out in force. I guess evolution will train these slippery ground huggers to stay indoors at this time of the month. Thankfully there were plenty of marshalls for this PB Fitness event but I needn’t have worried as I spent 5 miles tracking a young Blaydon athlete and trying to keep the speed up and the distance between us down, but without much success.  I consider myself pretty useful on the old trail running scene but the last 2 miles were a long slow descent and the only technique I needed was to run faster and avoid inhaling any insect wildlife. I caught myself at 5 miles trying to imitate a locomotive with my arms as the trains used to do and it was then that my left cerebral hemisphere had some strong words with the right one. Must be the nutty burgers.

Finished in 36:49 and nipped back to the car to get my camera to take a few shots. A t-shirt, banana and some mini Pringles was my reward for the £12, but as I drove back north all I could think about was nutty bean burgers. Must get out more in June.....