Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Still around

After making a great song and dance about people not updating their blogs, I've now left mine lying for over a week without a hint of some new and exciting story. I haven't even responded to allybea's tag. I can only apologise, and offer the somewhat pathetic excuse that I have been 'too busy', along with the fact that I've been struggling to think of any decent advice that anyone has ever given me, or think of something about me that would surprise people - or at least something that I can write about on a public forum. No doubt I'll come up with something soon, in which case I will respond properly. So keep watching.

I have entered my WHW taper phase, but it didn't stop me doing a 20 mile Tour of Strathearn run in the scorching heat (22 degrees) on Saturday, or running in the Auchterarder 10k tonight. I like the Auchterarder 10k - it is not an officially permitted race, which means very few people know about it, which in turn means I have a much better chance than normal of winning a prize. And win a prize I did - I was 3rd vet (6th overall) in a time of 39 minutes and 21 seconds, for which I received a fairly hideous medal. That doesn't matter: I've never been one for prizes, medals and so on - experiences and memories are much more important in my book, and after all how will I ever forget the experience just after the half way point where I thought my bottom was going to explode into the surrounding countryside, or that feeling of how I was about to be sick after crossing the finishing line? Fortunately neither of these things actually happened, although it was a close run thing, I can assure you, particularly the exploding bottom scenario. As you might have guessed it was a tough course - downhill for the first half, which lulls you in to a false sense of security, then uphill for the second half - so I was quite pleased with my run, although I would have been even more pleased if I hadn't been overtaken by a clubmate in the last 100 metres.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the fact that we had an incredible turnout of 17 runners from my club, Strathearn Harriers. I didn't know most of them, which shows how out of touch I am at the moment, but it was definitely a record turnout for a club championship counter. Well done to everyone for making the effort. A few years ago the club had only 17 members in total, so it shows how well things are progressing.

And yes, allybea, I got another t-shirt :)

1 comment:

Tim said...

Well done on another sub-40 Ian, this time on a hilly course and with a bum related handicap!

It good to hear that your club sounds like it's doing well, or more to the point, taking part in local races. Sometimes I think Troon has lost its way a little. There seems little drive to participate in anything much as a club. A few runners racing here and there but rarely a good turnout for any one event. I'm as guilty as the rest of course.