open up my mouth, air comes rushing out...

Perhaps it's my age, but I find myself becoming irrationally angry when I see a child on a motorised scooter or mini-buggy or something. It's becoming increasingly common to see them on the paths and playing fields around the river near me. The council have recently built a lovely little mini-roadway around there, complete with pedestrian crossings and traffic signals, designed to help kids become more road aware on their bikes and things. Yesterday, seeing a little girl motoring around there on a scooter with an engine just made me feel cross and a bit sad.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I would have absolutely loved to have one of these when I was a kid... but not having one meant I was forced to get out on my pushbike under my own steam, and I'm pretty sure that didn't do me any harm in the long run.

That girl on the mini-roadway wasn't paying any attention to the traffic lights, either... and I hope she never takes that scooter out onto the roads.

Tsk.

Is it any wonder, I found myself chuntering to a friend as we were doing a warm-up before an interval session on the playing fields, watching a slightly tubby child driving around on a miniature four-wheeled, motorised truck, that type 2 diabetes is such a plague and that our kids are growing up fat?

**Pause for reflection**

.... rather than just growing up skinny and judgmental like me.

even when the paths are all crookedy...

As I was cycling to work this morning and enjoying the change in the seasons that was apparent in the cooler air, it occurred to me that this September marks three years since I first started commuting by bike.

It's only a little under 4 miles each way, but I've just checked back and, in that time I've covered a frankly unbelievable 4,500 miles.  Just cycling between home and work every day has racked up all those miles (and thanks to the tea leaves around here, I'm on my third bike too).  That 4,500 miles is about the distance between Nottingham and Delhi (there's a restaurant here called "4550 Miles From Delhi", but Google tells me it's actually only 4,185 miles, so.....actually I've cycled past Delihi. Would you imagine you could cycle to Delhi in 3 years?  Well, it's only 8 miles a day, so it's definitely do-able. Shall we do it?).

4,500 miles? That's mad.  I don't even really count the time as exercise, to be honest.... I've run something like 3,200 miles in the same period too.

Cycling is in the news at the moment, with Jeremy Vine posting the video of a car driver screaming abuse at him as he cycled in London... which I'm told is something that every London cyclist can relate to.  Well, that mostly just makes me feel grateful that my commute is mostly along dedicated cycle paths along the Trent.  Not much road rage along there; it's mostly geese.  That's Nottingham for you, me duck.

after all, he's just a man...

One of my old running buddies asked me today if I had an opinion on the existence of women only races. This is “Race for Life” season, and the Embankment on the river Trent was covered with wave after wave of ladies dressed in pink last weekend, running 5km to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Alongside their running numbers, many wear hand-written signs detailing who they are running for; some with pictures; many no longer with us.

It’s quite an emotional event, and it always seems like a glorious celebration to me. I have a friend who runs it every year, she trains for a few weeks before the event and worries about whether she’s going to be able to make it and then proudly takes selfies, all red-faced at the finish. She tries to shrug it off and tells me that she’s not a real runner, but I always tell her that she’s just the same as me: runners run. If you run, you are a runner. It’s that simple.  Don't let anyone try and tell you that it isn't.

Does it bother me that I’m excluded from races like this? Not really. You know the kind of person who complains on International Women’s Day that there isn’t an International Men’s Day? Why would I want to be that guy? Why would anyone want to be that guy?   If it bothers you that much, please feel free to set up your own, male only event.  Besides, the other 364 days of the year and most of the human existence has been one long international men's day, hasn't it? Really?

So no, I’m not threatened by a women only race or opposed to the idea of it. Why would I be?  Some of the strongest people I know happen to be women (some of the quickest runners too, for what that's worth).  Sheesh.  Haven't people got more important things to be worrying about?

As it happens, my nephew and niece have just taken part in the schools version of race for life (which is open to both boys and girls).  My 8 year old niece managed a full 5km and her little brother something less than that.  My dad sent me pictures of the cards they pinned to their t-shirts.  To say he was touched is something of an understatement:

and

Adorable, no?
---

If you're interested, here's the Cancer Research position on why Race for Life remains a women only event:

"When we launched Race for Life in 1994 it was unique due to the fact that it was a women only event and this aspect has really shaped how the series has grown from strength to strength each year. The atmosphere on the day of Race for Life events has a strong sense of sisterhood, uniting all women with a common goal, to raise funds to beat cancer. We regularly review our events to make them the best they can be and four years ago we seriously looked at whether we should let men enter Race for Life. However, our research showed that Race for Life’s success is due to its appeal to women as a women-only event and to allow men to enter could bring in less income for the charity’s life saving work. We cannot risk this vital source of income to cancer research. We hope you understand that this decision has been made in the best interests of the cause."

A women only race? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

crosstown traffic...

Nottingham was absolutely gridlocked this evening.  Traffic has been bad for much of the last two years because of the ongoing tram works that seem to have dug up every road in the city all at once, but tonight was even worse than usual.  Apparently there were several accidents around town around rush hour, and it served to bring all of the arterial routes through town to a grinding halt.

As a cyclist, I'm usually fairly oblivious to this stuff.  People tend to assume that people who commute to work on their bikes will be unbearably smug every time the traffic is bad.  Perhaps many are (I assume many drivers are also pretty smug when they drive past a cyclist slogging through the wind and rain of a winter storm).  To be honest, traffic congestion quickly became completely irrelevant to me.  It takes me around 16-17 minutes to cycle from work to home, depending on the two traffic lights that I have to go through.  Almost all of my route is on cycle paths and the volume of traffic has basically no bearing on me at all.  I'd maybe love to be one of those guys who waves at stationary cars as they sail past, but I'm far too busy thinking about what I'm having for my tea.

This evening though, it was pretty hard to miss the congestion, even when I was still sitting at my desk.  My office is based on a large industrial site with a couple of main gates out into Nottingham, one at either end.  There are several thousand people onsite who drive to work, and the roads out of the site are often completely blocked when all of those people leave work at about the same time and then queue down to the roundabouts that drop people onto the main road.  When something happens around the ringroad, this has a knock-on effect back up these access roads and onto site.  On a bad day this can mean that people will queue for hours to even get off-site, never mind getting home. Tonight, people were leaving their desks for their cars and then coming back half an hour later when they hadn't even got out of the car park.  Many glared at me slightly resentfully because they knew I was a cyclist and could leave at any time I wanted.

Perhaps I could and should have been smugger, but as I was still hard at work at my desk at half-past six having arrived this morning before 8am, I didn't really feel that I had all that much to be smug about..... and when I did finally finish up and head out on my bike just before seven, the huge queue of idling cars meant that the air quality on my ride home was appalling.

Mind you, judging from my Facebook feed, some of my colleagues were still queuing to get home in the time that I'd left the office at 7pm, cycled home, changed, nipped out for a quick 5km run and then showered.... so I probably shouldn't grumble.

I like cycling generally, but tonight it was really handy.  I'm not smug, car-driving friends, I just got home an awful lot faster than you did this evening.  Perhaps we should take a leaf from Nigel Farage's book and blame all this congestion on the increasing number of immigrants?

I've been locked out....

I've been cycling to work for nearly a year now, and in all that time, I think I've only used my car to get to the office twice - both times when I had to get to an appointment in the middle of the day.  We're pretty lucky with the facilities at my office, to be honest: as well as a changing room with a decent set of showers and my own locker, we've also got a secure bike shed that requires a pass to open the shuttered door and contains metal loops bolted and concreted into the floor to lock your bike against.  

At this time of year, as you'd expect with the nicer weather, there are quite a few more people cycling to work.... but as there's plenty of room, this hasn't really been a problem.  I usually arrive at around 07:30, well before most people, so I have my pick of spots to lock up my bike.  When the place gets busy and you have to share a post, the form is for bikes to top and tail on either side so that you get as little in the way of other cyclists as possible.  It's just common sense, right?  Some people are clearly a little possessive of "their" post, and leave their locks on them all the time, but there's nothing really wrong with that, and generally it's a pretty harmonious community of cyclists feeling smug when the traffic is appalling to get offsite in rush hour.

Imagine my surprise when I went to the bike shed to cycle home the other day at around 18:30 and found another bike chained to the frame of my bike.  Not around the post, just around my bike.  I looked at it for a moment, not quite believing what I was seeing.  I then actually unlocked my bike from the post, as though somehow I thought that I would be able to take it out and ride home.  Sadly, no.  Some idiot had managed to lock their bike directly to mine and make it impossible for me to cycle home.  Brilliant.  I imagine it was an accident, but that didn't stop me trying to work out what I had done to warrant such an act of antisocial stupidity (my bike was a lot bigger than the one locked to it, so I assume only a moron would want to come back to the bike shed to find an enraged much larger man waiting for them).

My options seemed somewhat limited: wait for the guy to turn up and move his bike? Walk home? Ugh.  What a massive pain.  More in hope than expectation, I went round to reception before they closed and explained my predicament.  They called security.  Security turned up with bolt cutters.  They checked my ID - presumably to make sure that I wasn't a splendidly inventive thief - and then spent the next five minutes cutting through the cable of the bike locked to mine (I guess those locks have improved over the years, huh?).  They then put the bike into their truck and took it away.

Well that escalated quickly.

On the one hand, I'm delighted with the result and the idiot had it coming.  But I can't help but feel a little bit bad about what must have gone through his head when he knocked off work, changed to ride home and found his bike had completely disappeared.  

Well, let's not overdo the sympathy though, eh?  What a plum.

[This kind of post is the reason you read this blog, right?  Insightful, funny, thoughtful, challenging..... none of these things.  It's not even quite an amusing middle-class problem.  Well, look... I nearly wrote about how awesome Metallica are.  Again.  So count your blessings.  I've saved that for tomorrow instead.  Something to look forward to]

bad apple....

No.

I went to the gym this evening for a swim.  I arrived feeling smug already after cycling past enormous queues of people stuck in traffic on their way out of the office.  I find cycling therapeutic at the best of times, but it's been fairly mild this week, and it's definitely getting lighter in the mornings and staying lighter for longer in the evenings.  This makes me feel pretty good, and the ride along the canal to the gym this evening was excellent.  I was feeling pretty tired, but my mood was good and I was slightly surprised to find that the gym was quiet as apparently most of the New Year's Resolution crowd have now given it up for another year.  Excellent.

The swim was okay too, but my sense of karmic wellbeing was soon to be totally shattered.  I've grown  sadly accustomed over the years to seeing young men preening in front of the floor length mirrors; I don't like it, but there it is.  Apparently some people need to style their hair both before and after exercising.  It's not something I've ever felt the need to do, even when I had hair, but there you go.  Each to their own.  O tempora, O mores and all that.

Look, I use moisturiser; I wear fragrance from time to time, I trim my beard.... although that's clearly not going the full Beckham, I think that makes me sensibly metrosexual.  I don't have my eyebrows plucked or shaped because I have no desire to look (more) like a Vulcan, but I won't deny that I have occasionally attended to hairs located elsewhere on my body.  Not in public, mind.

There are limits.

So when I walked past the mirrors in the gym this evening, I was somewhat perturbed to see a young man hunched right up against the mirror, meticulously setting about his - not very long - fringe with a set of straightening tongs.  His portable set, obviously.  Small enough to pack into his gym bag, but powerful enough to get the job done.  As he worked at his hair, the rest of the world seemed to have disappeared, so rapt was he in his task.  Somehow, it seemed, he had forgotten that he was standing in the middle of a public changing room at the gym in full sight of everyone else there... and that it was a Wednesday night, that he didn't really have all that much hair in the first place AND THAT HE WAS A MAN.

What has happened to us?  I'm hardly nostalgic for a time when men were men and never spoke of their feelings.....well, not too much..... but how did it become essential for a man to remember to put his straightening tongs into his gym bag with his towel, padlock and trainers?  I might be talking out of turn here, but that's not essential packing for most women, is it?

a normal man, yesterday.

I'm saddened this evening, friends.  Saddened and disappointed in my sex*.  I've had to come home and shower using a bar of Imperial Leather, splash my cheeks with Brut aftershave, pour myself a pint of mild and settle down in front of One Man and his Dog, but I just can't rid myself of that shocking image.  One bad apple, it seems, can spoil the whole darn bunch.

It's just one bad apple, right?  No other man does that, right?  Not in public, anyway....

* Sex, that is, rather than gender.... gender is a construct, innit.

fairest of them all....

Since I’ve been cycling to work, I’ve naturally been spending a lot more time in the locker room at work. I’ve had a locker there for a while now because of my occasional lunchtime runs, but now I’m clearly in there a couple of times every day and not just once a week when I've popped out for a run. It’s nothing too fancy, as changing rooms go, but it’s pretty handy to have access to a proper, hot shower and somewhere to store your sweaty kecks whilst you’re working.

As you’d imagine, the clientele here are nothing like the people who frequent the changing rooms of my gym…. Or so you would think.

At the gym, I’m constantly amazed at how some guys seem completely unconcerned by their surroundings and think it’s okay to stand, butt naked, in front of the floor-length mirrors, gently massaging body lotion into their chests or carefully teasing their hair up to make sure that they look their best before hitting the gym floor. There’s also a lot of walking around topless, wearing only a skimpy towel or - much worse - a tiny pair of budgie smugglers, displaying your guns to anyone who looks like they might be even passingly interested. Apparently this is a thing in our gym, my wife informs me.  To be honest, they're so aggressively on display that I’m a little scared to make eye contact with some of them. For some reason, the guy who runs C’s ballet class seems to have taken a shine to me, and when we’re in the sauna together I find myself looking fixedly at the floor as he tries to catch my eye. I’m sure he’s lovely, but it’s really hard to concentrate when someone is wearing trunks like that....

Anyway. At the office changing rooms, people are mostly focused on just getting ready for work, and haven’t really got much time for preening and selling tickets to the gun show. Sure, there’s a bit of ridiculously over-macho talk about the training you’re doing for your next race, but that’s probably only to be expected. I’m sure at least some of these people read Men’s Health too and are keen to find out the latest way of getting a six pack within six weeks. There may even be a few metrosexual males, but as they’re putting on a shirt and tie and rushing off to their first meeting, they haven’t really got much time to display it.

Or so I thought....then, as I was changing the other day, I noticed a guy slowly getting dressed by his locker, making fierce eye-contact with himself in the big mirror. He didn't look away from his reflection once and was clearly mesmerised by himself: he admired the way he carefully buttoned up his shirt, turning slowly to admire his side-profile as he tucked it into his trousers. Yes, he clearly thought, I look pretty damn good today. He paused to tease his hair, before giving himself a final, lingering look up-and-down, imperceptibly nodding his satisfaction with himself before reaching into his locker for his shoes.  If he had another pair of lips, he'd kiss himself.

Mind you, whilst this little ritual was going on, I couldn’t help but notice, as he was admiring himself and congratulating himself on how amazing he was looking today, that he had a massive hole in his socks and his big toe was poking out.

His admiring eye clearly wasn’t especially discerning.

Quite the catch ladies. Catch him while you can.

impress me much....

As far as I'm aware, no actual comparative measurement of penis size happens in the changing rooms at work.  I've had a locker there for a while now, and I've never seen any, but it is split into two distinct halves with a wall separating them, so I can't really speak for the other side.

No actual penis measurement, anyway.

....there's plenty of virtual size comparisons going on, that's for sure.  I used to only really pop in there when I went for a run at lunchtime, and it seems the running crowd is pretty small and pretty quiet.  The cycle-to-work crowd is much more boisterous.  It's been pretty quiet when I've been arriving at 0630am, obviously... but at the other end of the day it's a completely different story and the place is full of people pulling on baboon-arsed lycra and talking large about how far and difficult their commute is.

There are a few guys in particular who seem to be training for the same event, a triathlon by the sound of it.  They're not in open competition, but they keep asking each other in vaguely passive-aggressive ways about how much training they're planning on doing when they get home, and then trying to go one better.  I've learned an awful lot about swim times and how having the slower swimmers start first might affect overall planned times.

"Yeah.  If anything the swimming used to be my weakest of the three events, but if anything it's now the strongest."
"I really struggle to drive myself on the bike.  I can go flat out in the pool or running for ages, but on the bike I just seem to sit back after five minutes."
"Have you got tri bars?"
"Of course.  I'm fitting them when I get home."
"Have you used them before?"
"No, but what's the worst that can happen?  I can always put them on and not use them..."

They're not actually comparing penis size, but they seem to be edging towards it.  Naturally, they all have very impressive, expensive looking bikes, team branded lycra kit and sunglasses that they seem to wear in the gathering gloom of a late Autumn evening.

You know the sort, right?

.....and then one of them mentioned this evening the race that they're all training for: it's a super-sprint triathlon.  400m pool swim; 17.6km bike ride and 5km run.  Nothing to be sniffed at, certainly and well worth doing, for sure.  I've done the very same course myself and enjoyed myself enormously.  But is it really worth bragging about?  It's hardly an Iron Man, is it?

Put your junk back into your lycra, boys and put your rulers away.  For goodness sake.  Do you think this kind of thing would happen in the women's changing rooms?  Why can't *we* talk about Channing Tatum just once in a while?

skin tight....

At the end of this evening's 5.33 mile run with Running Club, as we were both stretching off, a girl told me that she always thought I looked really un-aerodynamic when I ran.  My running gear did, anyway.

I looked down at myself.

As usual at this time of year, I was wearing a pair of compression leggings/tights with baggy shorts over the top, as well as a very fetching long-sleeved fluorescent green number with scotchlite strips that reflect light.  Not very stylish, obviously, but fairly functional for a run in the gathering gloom of a pissy Autumnal evening.

She went on: "Why do you wear those big baggy shorts?  You should just run in the lycra."

At this point, I had to laugh.  There are guys who will run in skimpy, figure-hugging lycra.... but I'm definitely not one of those guys.  I own more lycra than is probably healthy for any man, but it's all worn as an under-layer..... It's just not outerwear.  It's something of a point of principle for me that I wouldn't inflict the sight of me running clad only in lycra on anyone.  "To be honest", I replied to this girl, "aerodynamics aren't really at the forefront of my mind when I go out running".

Besides.  I really wasn't feeling it tonight and the whole thing was a bit of a slog.  Whilst it's true that I ran past her in the final mile of the run on Monday (prompting her to remark that men were simply better built for running than men, prompting me to reply that she was about 30kg lighter than me and therefore had a lot less to carry around), I'd run the entire distance tonight approximately 20m behind this girl and getting no closer.  Quite where she'd had an opportunity to assess the aerodynamism or otherwise of my running kit, I don't know....

I suppose I should probably be flattered by the attention, no?  After all, who doesn't love a bit of lycra porn?

Anyone?  Anyone? Bueller....?

give me some steam....

I'd promised myself a sauna as motivation to get myself to the gym for a swim.  I dragged myself through the water for 44 wearisome laps and then headed off try to ease some of the aches out of my poor, broken body in the heat.  No such luck: the sauna was full to bursting, so - reluctant to give up the idea of getting a good sweat on altogether - I headed into the steam room.

I'm not really a steam room kind of a guy.  The sauna in our gym isn't what it used to be, it's true.  Gone is the little stand of heated stones that you could pour water onto, to be replaced by an invisible heating element of some kind.  It's not as hot as I'd like, but it's still preferable to a steam room that, if you sit in it for more than about five minutes, seems to drain entirely of steam before refilling.  There can't be many things worse than a bunch of hairy-arsed men sat on wet plastic benches in their towels pretending that they can't see each other when they clearly can.....

Anyway.  The sauna was full and so I entered the steam room.  There was enough steam to slightly obscure my vision, but I could see that there were already four other guys in situ, two engaged in an overly-loud conversation.

"So, his teacher asked is anyone knew what the minimum wage was.  No one said anything, so he stuck his hand up and said 40k.  He was being deadly serious too."
"How did you hear about that?  Did he tell you?"
"No, the teacher told me over dinner."
"You had dinner with the teacher?"
"Not in a weird way"
"When you have dinner with your teacher, it's always in a weird way"

The steam cleared a little, so I looked up from a studious contemplation of my navel.  They were young.  Students, I assumed.  They continued.

"I saw a programme a while back that had different people on and how much money they earned."
"Oh yes?"
"Yeah.  This is John from London, he's a merchant banker and earns 90k.  This is Bob from Bradford, he's a plumber on 20k.  I remember watching it and wondering how on earth anyone could live on £20,000."
"Yeah."
"....But now I'm 20, I find myself thinking that 20k would be pretty nice"
"Absolutely.  So are you ready for Vegas?"
"Sure.  We're going to be getting three times as wasted as normal.  You know they give you a bottle of vodka in these places.  Not Smirnoff or anything.  Grey Goose....."

At this point, they sadly got up and left.  Unfortunately, they continued their conversation in the showers for the next five minutes, talking loudly enough that I could still hear them even from 20m away.

I couldn't help but notice that they'd hired towels too.  As if the gym membership (and the trip to Vegas) wasn't expensive enough.

With guys like that coming through the further education system, I'd say that the future is in good hands.  Or should I say, the International Futures Market will be in good hands.

Good grief.

On a related topic, A Level results came out today, and a colleague of mine was proudly telling me how his daughter had got ABB and would be going to Sheffield University later this year.  She's been something of an awkward teenager, I think, so I could tell that he's pretty relieved that she's going to finally be leaving home.  Sheffield is only a short hop up the motorway from here, so she'll be close enough, but also far enough away..... Apparently she was thinking of living at home, but my colleague has been busy telling her how much she'll be missing out on if she doesn't stay on campus.  Although, he also tells me that she doesn't drink....

Yeah.  Right.  Your 18 year old daughter doesn't drink? Whatever you say.

Pffff.

I wonder if there's anything else about his daughter he might be in denial about, eh?

wishing I was skinny....

I don't know about you, but when I get changed at the gym, I tend to keep things simple: I don't sit around in my pants and socks checking my phone or trying to make conversation, I find a locker and I just get on with the task of getting out of my day clothes and into my swimming gear.   I don't really have a problem with getting naked in an environment like this; nor do I have a problem with other people doing so.... but it's not really something that I would want to take too much time doing, if you know what I mean.

I mention this as tonight, as I was getting changed, the guy changing next to me went to the trouble of wrapping himself in his towel before getting out of his underwear and into his gym shorts.  I haven't seen anyone doing that since I was in a gym class at school.

My immediate reaction was to think that the guy should get over himself: I certainly wasn't interested in whatever he was packing and he was definitely flattering himself to think otherwise.  Then it occurred to me that he - a slightly tubby guy in his late twenties - was perhaps just extremely body conscious.  This thought was more or less confirmed when I saw the same guy later on as I was sat in the sauna: he was making his way into the showers wrapped up in his towel and wearing a t-shirt.

It made me think of this article that Kevin Smith wrote and was published in the Guardian over the weekend: "I haven't taken my shirt off since I was nine".  In it, Smith talks pretty candidly about what it is like to grow up fat and how he will not take his shirt off in front of anyone, even his wife.

I'm thinner now than I have been at any point since I was a teenager, so it might seem weird to you that I can relate to this, but I can.  People call me skinny, but my self-image is anything but.  Ten or fifteen years ago, I was maybe about seven stone heavier than I am now; when I was at University a few years before that, although I wasn't particularly tubby at the time, I was nicknamed "Chunky".  All my life, I've never been able to fit into "average" sized clothes, and nothing is more certain to make you feel fat than needing to buy bigger waistlines so that you can fit your legs into trousers.  I'm taller than average, and it stands to reason that I might need bigger than average clothes, but logic doesn't really come into it.  It's still a depressing experience to be made to feel like you're somehow fat and over the years I reckon this has contributed to giving me the body-image of someone much bigger than I am: inside this skinny person is a fat person desperately trying to get out.  The stretch marks I developed when I was about 19 years old certainly didn't help, either.  Yes, I was filling out significantly at the time as my body developed, but only fat people get them, right?  Maybe it was inevitable that I really did let myself get a bit tubby after that.  Hell, I thought I was fat already.

I lost all that weight steadily over the course of a number of years, and I've been getting smaller every year since.... but it will take a lot longer than that for the wiring in my brain to change, if it ever really does.

Alright, so I don't feel the need to wear a t-shirt into the shower at the gym, but you know what? At least that guy is going to the gym at all, right?  Good for him.  Anyway, I think I prefer that to those guys who stride around the place completely in the buff, or stand six inches in front of the full-length mirrors lovingly massaging moisturiser into their own pecs.  Those guys are just creepy.  Can't you do that at home, seriously?

 ---

Speaking of the gym, in case I was in any doubt about the truth of the theory of Evolution, I was sat in the sauna when an old guy - in his 60s - made his way steadily out of the shower and began to slowly dry himself off.  As he stood in front of the sauna towelling himself down with his back to me, just for a second, it was impossible not to see the echos of the quiet dignity of a gorilla in the little pot belly and rounded shoulders.  He was only there for thirty seconds or so.  Long enough, anyway, to just know that Darwin was right.

---

I'm off to Holland for a few days tomorrow.  Have a good break, y'all.

worth the pain....

Justgiving sent me an email the other day saying that they were closing down my site for donations.  I know the little widget showing showing the total we raised has been on the right hand side of this page for at least six months, but before I clear it all down and move on, I thought it was worth taking a moment to pause and reflect on what we've achieved:

On September 11th last year, LB, C and I ran the Robin Hood Half Marathon to raise money for the MS Society.  I won't lie to you, it was a bit of a slog.... but between us, thanks to the generous donations of people like you, we raised (including gift aid) the amazing total of.....

[drum roll]

£3,417.50

That's a lot of money.

More money, in fact, than we raised than running the same race in 2009.  Given the imminent collapse of the global economy and the way that most people are feeling the financial squeeze in one form or another, I want to thank everyone who made a donation from the bottom of my heart.

This is obviously a cause that is very close to me, and it makes me feel so proud that together we were able to make such a big contribution.  This money will help to fund the research to find the cause and cure for this devastating condition and to support and inform those whose lives are touched by it.

Thank you.  You guys rock.

I'm struggling to run much more than about 4 miles at the moment for various reasons (including basic laziness), but I'm toying with the idea of a triathlon at some point in the not-too-distant future (you remember the suits, right? both of 'em?), and have a mind to work my way up to the Olympic distance (1500m open water swim, 40km cycle, 10km run).  The first symptoms of what was eventually diagnosed as multiple sclerosis forced me to withdraw from the 2005 London Triathlon with all the training done and about a week to go before the off.  My name is quite literally on the damn event t-shirt.  It feels like unfinished business....

2013, maybe?

Who's with me?

Anyone?  Bueller?

cooler than the red dress...

I was out running at about half-ten on Saturday morning. It was my usual four-and-a-bit miles around and, like most of the runs that I’ve done over the last few weeks, it felt like a bit of a slog. I consciously tried to run a little slower than normal in an attempt to find a more comfortable pace, and at first this seemed to be working and I was able to focus on the world around me a little instead of disappearing into my own private world of pain. By the last mile, however, it felt like I was towing a caravan. My legs didn’t feel too heavy, but I felt weak right across my arms and shoulders and it was a real effort to drive myself forwards. In the last half mile, as I turned away from the river towards home, I saw something that dragged my focus away from my own misery and kept me amused all the way home.

Like any Saturday morning, the streets around where I live were filled with a fairly steady trickle of people, especially family groupings, emerging from their homes to wander into town with their kids. It was a grey, damp day with a bit of a chill in the air, and most people were wrapped up in coats and hats. I say most people, because as I ran down the street, I could see in front of me a figure wearing an outfit that was causing people to stop and stare: a blonde girl in a sheer, very short, strappy orangey-red dress. Amongst people wearing their drab coats, she stood out an absolute mile, and people were stopping to stare.

As I got closer, I saw that not only was the dress every bit as short and incongruous as it looked from 50m further behind her, but she was walking through the wet, grimy streets in bare feet, swinging her towering heels in her left hand. There was only one sensible explanation: here was someone doing the walk of shame; walking home wearing her outfit from the evening before after spending the night with someone else. There was no hiding it, and as I ran past her, I have to admit that she was walking with a bit of a spring in her step, a smile on her face and a definite swagger. She might have been incongruous in the dull light of a suburban Saturday morning, but she looked good.

Chapeau, mademoiselle. Chapeau.

Here's a question for you: do you think that the very term “walk of shame” reinforces gender sexual stereotypes?  I mention this as I was trying to think if a man walking home under the same circumstances would have provoked a similar response.  As they would likely be dressed differently, I suppose not.  As a man, you don’t tend to wear clothing that would look as jarringly incongruous the morning after… a tuxedo is likely to be from the evening before, but it’s hardly as revealing, and a skinny shirt and a pair of shiny shoes is hardly in the same ballpark as a micro-skirt and stilettos, is it?  It was probably the clothing that attracted the attention to this girl, but was there an implicit,  gender-based judgement too?

If there was, then she looked gloriously impervious to it….

happy shopper....

I took one of my colleagues to Sweatshop over lunch the other day to get her a new pair of running shoes.  We often go running together at work, but recently she's been having some problems with the tendons in one of her feet, and a trip to get her gait reassessed and to purchase a new pair of trainers was long overdue.  Apart from anything else, until she got a new pair, we couldn't go out running together.... and it's good to get away from your desk every now and again to have a good old moan in the fresh air.

As ever, Sweatshop were brilliant: expert staff, detailed video analysis and a good set of recommendations.  We quickly ascertained that the old shoes were knackered and that, although they were supportive enough for a mild overpronator, the toe-box was too large for someone with such narrow feet.  Over time, the foot bed had moulded her foot into an awkward running position that was hurting her tendon as she planted her foot.  Good, detailed analysis, eh?  For a runner, it's a great shop.

A pair of shoes was duly selected and we wandered over to the till to complete the transaction.
"Do you offer a discount for Virgin members?"
The store is attached to the Virgin Active gym in Nottingham where I am a member.  My colleague lives in Derby, but is apparently a member at the Virgin gym there.  Mind you, she'd be lucky.  I've been buying my trainers here since I joined the gym more than a decade ago, and I've never once received a....
"Yes.  If you've got your membership card, then I can give you 10% off."

WHAT?  You mean that I've been paying more than I need to with every item I buy here?  For ten years? [slight pause as my brain runs through the trainers, running tops, hats, swimming goggles, gloves, shorts and who knows what else that I've bought here over the years] And you don't think to advertise this fact to gym members who walk past your shop every single time they come training?

As my colleague pointed out with a smirk: if you don't ask, you don't get.

GAH!

Still, the last laugh is on her: when I got home, I remembered that I still have a 20% discount voucher for Sweatshop that came with my entry into the Robin Hood half marathon.

Ha!

Could have saved you an extra 10%! IN YOUR FACE, SMART ARSE!

Dammit.

you had one eye in the mirror....

It’s Fresher’s Week at the University of Nottingham this week. This means that not only was the supermarket full of students, many squeezing a last trolley’s worth of cash out of their anxious parents, but the gym was full of them yesterday too. They’re pretty easy to spot, on the whole: they’re the absurdly young, skinny ones talking about when their first assignment is due in.

You have to wonder about their priorities. Apart from anything else, the membership to the gym costs them somewhere between £30 and £40 a month (the university gym, by way of comparison, costs £195 a year for full access to the gym, playing fields, pool and fitness centres). Nevermind the cost though – hey, might as well be £50,000 in debt as £40,000 right? – why is going to the gym the first thing that any self-respecting student chooses to do when they return to University at the start of term?

What’s wrong with getting absolutely blasted and/or sitting alone in your room listening to The Smiths and wondering why no one loves or understands you but Morrissey? What’s this unhealthy obsession with fitness all about? No good can come from it.

As I was on my way out of the gym after a swim last night, I saw one of these students preening himself in front of the full-length mirrors in the changing rooms. Sadly, this in itself is not an unusual sight. In “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, Robert Pirsig talks about a monkey trap that involves nothing more complex than a hollowed out coconut filled with rice: an unsuspecting monkey smells the treat inside the coconut and reaches in to collect it. However, the opening, which was just large enough for its open paw to go in, is too small to allow its clenched paw to pass back through. No matter how much the monkey yanks, he cannot escape as long as he tries to hang on to the rice, but is so focused on his prize that he will not release even though his survival depends upon it. It seems that the modern metrosexual male has the same problem with full-length mirrors…. worth knowing, I'm sure you'll agree, should you ever want to trap one.

What caught my eye particularly about this particular student was not that he was carefully teasing his hair into position with loving care, infinite patience and the careful application of hair gel – that’s common enough. This guy finished with the gel, and then reached into his bag for a can of hair spray, which he then meticulously applied on top. Astonishing. Take two hair scuplting products to the gym? When he’d finished, his hair didn’t look all that to my eyes, but in his mind, you probably can’t be too careful, right? I imagine he sleeps in a hair net too. Or perhaps standing up.

I had my remaining hair shaved back to a grade zero on Saturday morning, so clearly I’m not in much of a position to understand this kind of behaviour…. But it did strike me that I must be saving literally HOURS every week by not having hair. Hours that can clearly be put to much better and more productive use.

Um…. On twitter and blogging and shit like that.

done, done...onto the next one(?)

Well, that's that done then.

My official time was 1 hour 56 minutes and 22 seconds. That's exactly 30 seconds faster than I ran this race 2 years ago.  I'm pleased at any improvement, and a one second improvement would probably have been enough, but I can't help but feel slightly disappointed.  I ran the 13.1 miles at an overall average pace of 8m51s per mile, but I had hoped I might be able to manage an average of 8m45s (thus knocking another minute or so off my time).

It's not the end of the world, by any means, and conditions were probably more difficult than they were in 2009 (it was quite windy).... but at 10 miles I was ahead of my overall 2009 time by a good 2 or 3 minutes, and in the last few miles - probably the last mile, really - I let all of that slip bar that 30 seconds.  I can't help but feel it's a whole lot of effort to go through for 30 seconds.

Oh well.

To be honest, I should be pleased with what I did achieve.  I tweaked a muscle around my backside/top of my thigh on my last training run on Thursday, and spent all of the weekend desperately applying tiger balm and stretching it off, hoping it would ease up.  In the end, I ran with a heat pad stuck on.  It didn't hinder me all that much, I don't think, but I could feel it tightening up after about 4 miles and it certainly didn't help.  Maybe that's a minute, right there.  Who knows?

To be honest, I know I ran the race quicker overall, but this felt like much more of a slog much more quickly than it did 2 years ago.  In 2009, I experienced a bit of a rollercoaster of emotion, alternating between feeling great and feeling terrible, culminating with a tricky last couple of miles.  This time around, although the hills didn't seem to hit me as hard (with less hill training!), the whole thing felt more of a grind from about 3 miles on.  I don't think my splits show a dramatic slowdown (apart from labouring up the hill in the University park at mile 6, a wobble on the hill in Wollaton Park at mile 8 and then the final slog up the embankment to the finish line when my legs had pretty much stopped responding properly at all and I was stumbling along trying not to fall over).  It just felt harder.  Maybe it was the wind, although I was quite focused on ticking the miles off as they came and wasn't really paying much attention to anything else.  Apparently, when I finished I looked like I was travelling at a reasonable speed but looked drawn and deathly pale.  Sounds about right.  I felt pretty drawn and deathly pale too.....

mi	Pace (min/mi)	Elevation (ft)
1	7:55	-6
2	8:18	7
3	8:24	6
4	8:36	40
5	8:37	-44
6	9:30	112
7	8:10	-86
8	9:27	73
9	9:06	-61
10	9:08	-20
11	8:42	-17
12	8:48	-17
13	9:56	6
14	10:48	-10

Still, mustn't grumble.  The important thing was that we all got round in one piece (C. knocked 4 minutes off her time from 2009, coming in at 2:14:25, and LB smashed his 2009 time by a full 15 minutes to record a personal best for this race with 2:03:54.... not quite the sub-2 hour time he was hoping for, but a bloody good effort on a difficult, bumpy course in quite windy conditions.  Abi, pictured to the right above, did brilliantly too for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and clocked a time of 2:06:50).  WELL DONE TEAM!

Best of all -- and in no small part to contributions from people like YOU -- we have so far raised £2,786 for the MS Society, with a further £510.50 to be added in Gift Aid.  That's well over £3,000.  A brilliant effort and I'm so pleased and grateful for everyone's generosity.

I was very tired yesterday afternoon and I'm very sore today, but it all feels worthwhile for that if for no other reason.  Mind you, when I was asked if I was going to be running this race again next year, I could only reply that it was FAR TOO SOON for me to be thinking about that just now.

Give me a chance to get over this one first, eh?

he's going the distance, he's going for speed....

Runner's World (@rwchallenge) tweeted an interesting link today:

"Get skinny get faster? Maybe, maybe not. http://ow.ly/5N7Ym"

Will losing weight help you to shave a few minutes off your half-marathon time?  Apparently, for every pound you lose, you cut about 2 seconds off your mile time.... or nearly 30 seconds off your race time.

Since starting training in earnest for the race 3 weeks ago, I've lost about 3kg.  By that logic, I should have already shaved the best part of 3 minutes off my half marathon time.  If my weight loss continues at the same rate of about a kilo a week (which it won't), then in theory I'll be shaving another minute a week.... or about ten minutes in total by the end of my training schedule.  Not too shabby.... although, as the video goes on to say, if you're already skinny, then weight-loss can be counterproductive by taking away muscle-mass and sapping your energy.

To be honest, I don't really have a whole lot weight to lose and I hope I don't lose much more: I already know that I'm running about a minute a mile faster than I was a couple of years ago.  All things being even, then I should stand a pretty good chance of beating my 2009 time of 1 hour 56 minutes and 52 seconds.  I'm not setting myself any targets though: I'd like to beat 2 hours and I'd like to set a new personal best, but that's not the most important thing by any means.  I think I'd actually get much more of a kick if LB manages to achieve a lifetime's ambition and complete the distance in less than two hours.  To do that, he'll need to maintain a pace of a little over nine minute miles..... most people can manage that over a short distance, but the trick, of course, is to keep that up over thirteen miles.  That's what the training is for, right?  To put the miles into your legs so you can run further and faster.  That's the theory, anyway. 

I ran nine miles with LB ten days or so ago, and we maintained a pretty steady pace of 10:52 mins/mile.  During my training for 2009's race, in the second week of August that year, I ran the same distance at an average of 9.42 minute miles, a bit faster, but not unachievably so with another couple of weeks of training in the legs.  With the excitement of the day itself, you tend to run a bit faster anyway (I managed 8.57 min/mile, so nearly a whole minute a mile faster than my training times).... I reckon that a sub-2 hour time is definitely not beyond LB's grasp.  It might be a stretch, but I don't think it's impossible by any means.

Does it matter if he doesn't make it?  Not at all.... but it's great to have something to aim for (and no, before you ask, I don't think he particularly needs to lose weight either.  I reckon he can hit the required pace exactly as he is).

Together with C, the three of us are running the race to raise money for the MS Society.  You can sponsor us all here.

baby, we were born to run....

In 2009, LB, C and I raised over £3,000 for the MS Society by running the Robin Hood Half Marathon.  It's taken me about two years to recover from that, but we've committed ourselves to running it again this year to raise money for the same charity.

This is something of a self-interest charity for me, of course, but LB and C are going to be raising money and putting their bodies on the line to help fight a disease that they don't even have.  How about that?

I've said it here before, but the MS Society provide an invaluable service to people diagnosed with MS and to their families: they provide information, advice and the MS Nurses that they part-fund are the gateway to the services of the NHS when you need them.  At a time when the government are threatening to make cuts to healthcare services like these, we need the MS Society more than ever before.

I'm obviously going to be banging on about this quite a lot over the next 12 weeks or so..... but I've set up a page where you can make donations to help us towards our fundraising target.  I've set an initial goal of £1,500 but I'm hoping that ultimately we'll be able to beat the total we raised in 2009.  Anything you can spare will be gratefully received.  If you'd like, you're also more than welcome to come and join us on a training run or to cheer/laugh at us on the day.

You can make a donation here.

Speaking of fundraising, here's a photo of me taken on Sunday about six miles from the finish of the Great Nottinghamshire bike ride, which a team from work took part in to raise money for Macmillan.  We've managed to raise £1,500 so far, and it was a good day.  As you can see, as an athlete in training, I took the refuelling stop very seriously indeed.  My body is a temple.... and lager and monster munch were just what the nutritionist ordered.

One last 4 mile run today, and it's now a bit of a break from exercise as we head to Somerset tomorrow night in advance of getting into the Glastonbury Festival first thing on Wednesday morning. The weather forecast is a bit patchy....

....but they'll still have cider, right?  Even for athletes in training? Especially for athletes in training?

See you on the other side of the festival.

every cowboy sings his sad, sad song....

About halfway through a 6 mile run on Saturday, I was running along a canal towpath when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my left foot. At first I thought I had somehow got a stone in my shoe, and was cursing the need to stop for a few seconds to fish it out. It was one of those days and one of those runs: a run and a swim on Friday afternoon meant that I had precious little energy and the run was already something of a slog with three miles still to go. My pace was steadily slackening off, and about the last thing I needed was to waste a few precious seconds fiddling with my shoe. A quick glance downwards revealed that I had bigger problems than a stone in my shoe: I had a small hawthorn branch attached to my foot and had, in fact, trodden on a thorn (like the one pictured above - ouch).

I stopped and kicked off my shoe. The thorn had, in fact, gone right through the sole of my shoe and buried itself into my foot, just below my middle toe. It didn't actually hurt all that much, and it wasn't bleeding, so I just carefully picked it out and went on my way... grumpy about the fact that my new running shoes now had a hole.

Once I got home, a closer look at my foot revealed that the thorn had actually gone quite deep into my foot. There didn't seem to be any fragments, and there still wasn't any bleeding, but quite a bruise was developing. Ouch. But what about my shoe? Your running shoe is your most crucial piece of gear and I'd gone to some trouble to make sure that I'd got the trainer that was best suited to the way that I ran. How could I be sure that a thorn wouldn't fatally compromise the support of the shoe? I wasn't keen to write off the money I'd spent barely two weeks before, but I would rather buy a new pair of trainers than to potentially do myself a mischief by running with one damaged shoe.

But what could I do? At lunchtime on Sunday, I went to the Brooks UK website, found the "contact us" link and sent them an email:

"Hi - I bought a pair of GTS11s a few weeks ago, and they've been great. Quick question though: I was out running yesterday and managed to stand on a large thorn that went all the way through the sole of the shoe and into the ball of my left foot. I'm basically okay, but was worrying about whether or not this could have compromised the support/cushioning the shoe is giving my foot. Apart from the hole, they look ok, but I don't want to risk hurting myself if something has been damaged and it affects my gait. Have you got any advice?"

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much. It was Sunday, for starters, but what was I expecting them to do? They were hardly going to offer to replace the shoe, were they? Well, nothing ventured, I suppose. If they only gave me peace of mind, then it was worth doing.

A couple of hours after I sent my email, I had a reply:

"Oh dear - glad you were not injured along with the shoe! I have forwarded your query to our Sales Manager who will know the answer to your question. He will be back to you just as soon as he can"

Not too shabby on a Sunday, I thought. As well as trying to get an answer to my question, they actually seemed concerned about my foot. It got better. A couple of hours after that, I received this email:

"Hi Tim. Don't worry, the thorn won't have damaged anything. The midsole material "biomogo" is a solid foam so the splinter won't cause any problems. The GTS11 also features our new cushioning called "DNA" which is also a solid compound so won't be affected. You should get many happy miles out of your shoes still. Enjoy the training"

You've got to admit, that's a pretty speedy turnaround and also a pretty thorough answer..... and it was a Sunday, to boot.  I was impressed.

So, Brooks Sports (Martin and Reina especially): I salute you!

We're quick to moan when we get bad customer service, so good customer service is worth flagging up, I reckon.  Anyone googling their way here wondering about Brooks' Running Shoes and/or their customer service... both are great.

Still no reply from their (US-based) Twitter feed though.... I suppose you can't have everything.

shining light....

The clocks moved forwards this weekend and British Summer Time began. It never fails to amaze me how many people think it's suddenly worth remarking now how much lighter the evenings have become, as though shifting the clocks forward by an hour has absolutely nothing to do with that. Still, there's no denying that the longer evenings are welcome.

As I was driving home at about 7pm last night, the streets seemed to be filled with runners, many of them women.  There are always a few runners around each evening, for sure, but the lighter evening seemed to have dragged an unusual number out of their winter hibernation.  I actually quite like running in the cold and dark of winter, but then I've also started running wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the logo "Punish Me", so perhaps that's just me and everyone else prefers the warmer weather.  Weirdos.

Longer, lighter, warmer evenings are clearly much more conducive to getting your trainers on after work and heading out for a run.... if only because the lighter skies mean that it's probably safer too, which would explain why there seems to be more ladies out for a jog. Another possible explanation is that we're entering Race for Life season, the series of 5km runs just for women organised by Cancer Research UK to raise money for their work. There are a couple in Nottingham this year, but the first one is in May, and it seems eminently possible that some of the new joggers out on the roads are starting their training for that. Hey, whatever works... not only do these races raise enormous amounts of money for a great cause and help to remember the victims and survivors of cancer, but if it gets people out and running, then that's good too, right?

I managed to find time to go out at lunchtime today. I've felt pretty fatigued after a long weekend and my legs haven't entirely felt as though they belong to me so far this week, but it was a beautiful warm, sunny day and I was happy to get away from my desk for an hour. I actually ran pretty quickly too, coming in at an average pace of 8.01 minutes per mile over the whole 4 miles, dipping under the 8 minute mile barrier on miles 1 and 4 (I always seem to dip in mile 2... no idea why).

It hurt like hell, and it was actually quite hot, but it's nice to know that you're alive once in a while (and...luckily for me... I don't suffer from Uhthoff's phenomenon: the worsening of neurologic symptoms in multiple sclerosis when the body gets overheated from hot weather, exercise, fever, or saunas and hot tubs. Could you imagine a life without saunas?)