Basking in Reflected Glory

The Elswick relays were a blast on Good Friday. We watched the women give the other clubs a good old easter pasting, with the A team winning in a record time around the 2.2 mile course and the B team landing 4th. Little Miss Speedy made the A team with Jane Hodgson and Laura Weightman - quite daunting company. Her sister, known affectionately as the dark destroyer, was getting back from injury and made the B team. They were no slouches either.

I was selected for the vets B team and I was first off. With such a short and flat course there are no tactics; its simply a case of how much oxygen you can get in and how much lactic you can stand before the falling apart malarkey starts. I tried to track the A team runner Rob, but he got 20 seconds on me in the second mile. I got round in 12:41, only 5 seconds slower than last year. We finished 9th. I wouldn't like to say what the cumulative age of the team was, but it was over 200 anyway; a bit like my heart rate at the end of the stage.

We nipped over the watch the North Tyneside to watch the 10k where DD finished second to Alison Dargie and picked up £50 for her efforts and with no ill-effects.

We tracked down to London last weekend to watch the play 'The Miser' on the Saturday with Lee Mack. A right hoot. We were hoteling in Swiss Cottage so I got me trainers on and took a wander up Finchley Road on Friday evening, a park run on Saturday (19:30/1st V50 at Finsbury Park in cold conditions) and then past Hampstead Heath on the Sunday morning.

After a quick wash and breakfast, me and Mrs M took up our usual positions at Rotherhithe at the 11 mile mark to watch LMS (at her second marathon) and DD improving every day and taking part in her 4th London Marathon. It was a metronomic and measured race by LMS hitting the line in 3:11, a 30 minute improvement on her Loch Ness Marathon last year. Meanwhile DD set off too fast; We all shook our heads and stroked our chins as we supped our lattes and studied the app. that tracks runners around the course. Very clever, really. She passed the halfway mark at 1:26 and bulldozed on to finish in 2:59 and win the Army marathon champs and inter-services title to boot. toot,toot. Probably broke the club record also.  Pb's all over the place.

They took forever to get back to the hotel and it was a hug, a quick burger and the train back up the road.

So its back to normality this week, other than I'm a few quid poorer, but strangely there seems to be a second hand lightweight tandem in the hall, So no excuse for Mrs Mac anymore not to get out on the road. If you see two mentalists out in the lanes on a Mercian and out of control, that'll be us.