Autumn Almanack

Another random update to while away a Friday afternoon.I ran the Kielder Marathon in the pouring rain and finished in 5:17:25. Now this is still slow but timewise it was my fourth fastest marathon of the last three years and 6 minutes faster than the last time I ran round the reservoir in 2011. Consequently I was pretty pleased with myself as I sat with a cup of tea and a Vegan flapjack ( baked by the local WI) waiting for my running buddy, Andy to finish in his slowest ever marathon time. I was however put in my place by another running mate Ed who finished in 4:30. Not a record breaking time but Ed is 70.

I only have a 10k in December so Kielder was my last distance run of the year. Another up and down year of running , a poor Spring marathon in Copenhagen, a good 10 mile run around Northumberland in August and return to form Great North Run in September. But it all means that I have not really made much improvement in times or performance. I need to rethink my running goals and strategy for next year.

Outside of running, work remains the same, that is, tedious. Some Friday's I leave the office dreading the return on Monday. it can almost ruin the weekend.And that isn't me. Bills and mortgage prevent me from jacking it all in as well as sheer bloody mindedness. It doesn't help that my boss is useless. And I am 58, not that old but old enough to be most of my colleagues' Dad. That is sometimes hard to deal with. At least I get well paid for it.

Football wise Peterborough seem to be mounting a real promotion push this year, but I am refusing to get involved. I have only been once this season and don't intend to get overexcited this time round. I will see if I can maintain this detached position if we are top of the League come next February.

Music wise it has been a good year so far , Embrace, Suede, Billy Bragg, Sharon Van Etten and St Etienne. I did miss The Wedding Present though as we were away in Norfolk

My son is currently at home after returning from Poland. He has got overexcited at the prospect of a general election and is disappearing back down to London to campaign in Chingford to support the strong local Labour attempt to unseat Ian Duncan Smith. Talking about Universal Credit that benefit continues to bring misery and uncertainty to claimants here 3 years after it was first introduced in Newcastle. Apart from the still lengthy wait for new claimants and the capricious application of sanctions,structurally the benefit is fundamentally flawed. Here's hoping for a Labour Victory in December. although I am not getting overexcited about that either. My daughter remains in New Zealand but is returning in December for a month. It will be only the third time in four years we have physically seen her, although the internet means we are in touch almost daily.

I really don't like this time of year after the clocks have gone back. A brief respite of lighter mornings but soon get up in the dark, go to work in the dark and leave work in the dark, home in the dark. Dark, dark, dark. It's shit.

Long Distance Runner

I mentioned Copenhagen marathon in my last blog. Well, my time was frankly shit at 5:34:45 , my second slowest time ever. However this time I have a real excuse as I have been suffering from a proper running injury for months now. A real excuse that is as opposed to the usual lack of training excuse.

I have plantar fasciitis in my left heel. Bloody hell it's painful. This meant I started the Marathon in pain and finished it in even more pain. But like the hard long distance runner I am , I still completed it and beat my running buddy too!!!

Of course this has meant that ,apart from the Blaydon Race,I haven't run in 5 weeks. I wouldn't have run at all but I wasn't wasting my entry for the Blaydon, not after spending 3 hours on my phone, laptop and Kindle one evening earlier this year in order to get a place. That run was painful too, only not as much and I finished the 5.4 miles in 50:49. which is a good time for me.

I finally gave in and spent 42 quid on physio assessment and my heel is slowly getting better.I have had a couple of pain free days this last week so I intend to start running again soon.

A friend on my completed the 69 mile race along Hadrians Wall a couple of weeks ago. That's my aim for next year.

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It's Spring Again

As the weather warms up, well apart from yesterday when we had snow here in North East England, thoughts turn to the end of the football season and spring marathons. Peterborough started really well then faded really badly and now sit on the edge of the Play Off places in League One. Darren Ferguson is back ( third time lucky) and who knows what will happen now. I've seen them a few times this season and we haven't looked good.

This year's overseas marathon is in Denmark, Copenhagen to be precise. Hoping to get back to faster times and enjoying the run and fingers crossed it wont be in the high 20Cs temperature wise.

Autumn 2018

Another long delayed post. Now,as the weather turns after an improbably long hot summer, seems as good as any time to commit some thoughts to the Blog.

Life is pretty much as it was. My daughter is now in New Zealand working on a dairy farm and trying to get sponsorship to stay on the other side of the world on a permanent basis. We have only seen her twice in nearly three years. Of course the internet means she is never out of contact but sometime I just miss her presence. Out of the blue last night my wife said she missed our daughter with such a poignancy it made me sad. It looks like we will have to go out to see her next year.

My son's long term relationship is now over and he is coming to terms with that. It hasn't been easy for him to progress but there are signs that he is moving on.

There has been a lot of illness in the family over the last few years, cancer and heart problems for the wife's parents and our brother in law. It does make you realise how fragile life is and how it can take an unexpected turn without notice. You just have to go with flow and try and deal with it all and accept that for a lot of things you are not in control. A hard lesson for some.

I ran the Stockholm marathon in June this year finishing in my 2nd slowest time of 5:42. It was unusually hot which is a theme for my international marathons since Paris. Stockholm is a lovely city and the Swedish people were helpful, considerate and all spoke perfect English. I would recommend a visit.

I have a further marathon around Newcastle's Town Moor in November and I am panning to run Copenhagen next May although I must admit I sort of lost the passion for running post Stockholm. This loss of passion resulted in under training and disastrous 20th GNR finish time of 2:38:33. This time means I will be in the fun runner pen come next September's GNR, competing with the blokes with tutus on or dressed as s Spiderman. Nothing wrong with that but it's just not me.

My passion for running was rekindled by the Kielder half marathon earlier this month which I finished in 2:22:45. Still slow but that run is hard with a wicked switchback hill at mile 8 and long slow inclines which are real tests. The run is a cross between a cross country/trail road run and different experience for most of the runners. I completed a 15 mile training run on Sunday and plan to finish the Town Moor Marathon matching last year's time of 5:10. We shall see.

Music wise it has been an OK year. Paul Weller,The Wedding Present in Newcastle Upon Tyne and The Cure at Hyde Park. The Cure were great it was only the second time I'd seen them , the first time being 1979.

Peterborough United continue to delight and frustrate in equal measures but hopefully this season with a whole new squad and manager we will finally recover from the hangover of relegation from the Championship on the last day of the season that has been hanging over us for 5 years now.

Well that's it.See you again , soon.

Mark E Smith

I never really listened that much to The Fall but whenever I did I liked what I heard but I don't own much of their stuff.Even so the fact that Mark E Smith has died is still something I feel sad about. You can hear his influence on a lot of bands around now as well as in the past and of course he did do things his own way which is always something to be admired.

He was only three years old than me (the same age as my brother)and his death is a reminder of how old I really am now.