Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category

Playing catch-up

Tuesday, November 30th, 2010

I was on time for tonight’s run but as we set off, realised I’d left my watch sat on the dashboard of the car. I don’t mind running without the watch but I’d rather it wasn’t left in the car on display. The run therefore started with a sprint back to the car and then chasing up Glen Eyre Road after the others. Thankfully they were stopped at the lights for a while so hadn’t got too far ahead. We had a short finish to the run as there was talk of a beer and a curry afterwards. Sadly I was destined for IKEA instead…
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Running with supporters

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

It was busy getting in to Southampton for tonight’s run which was a good indicator that the Saints had a match on. We ran Itchen Bridge which meant dodging the supporters on the way over the bridge (and a road closure meant we took another detour this week). I don’t know if Brighton is an unruly bunch but there seemed to be a large police presence as we headed back up through town.
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Police detour

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

My legs didn’t feel too bad for tonight’s run despite the weekend’s exertions. If you look closely at the route you may see a bit of a detour prior to our entering the Sports Centre. This was to go round the police tapes where a body had been uncovered earlier in the day – the second to turn up in Southampton this year…

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Original Mountain (and Road) Marathon

Saturday, November 6th, 2010

I’m still not sure how it happened… Neil stepped down as my OMM partner so I asked Roderick. Roderick said he wasn’t as fast as Neil so we wouldn’t do as well on the B. So how about we do the A instead? (He had some excuse about qualifying races for the Tour of Mont Blanc.) I said ‘yes’. It was on this basis that we found ourselves racing to the start on Dartmoor near Okehampton last Saturday. Sadly we were eight minutes late having been held up, firstly by the buses going to the far start, and then by the queues for the toilets!

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Guessing game

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

I finally made it out running on a Tuesday night for the first time this month. Sadly, I drove to last month’s venue (Rufus Stone) and by the time I made it to Fritham everyone had departed. Fortunately, they’re a predictable bunch and, having successfully guessed the route they’d choose, after about 10 minutes of running I finally caught them up. As the sunny afternoon turned in to a wet evening I was glad not to be running out in the dark on my own.

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Cup Final

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

Last weekend was the final of the CompassSport Cup up in the Peak District. We’d spent the night before with one of Christine’s cousins giving us the chance to meet the latest arrival in their family. Christine was off first and I was going to take Emma and Duncan around the white course but was told that I couldn’t go out on the area before my run. With no string course either we just wandered around the sunny but cold assembly area aimlessly until a long overdue Christine finally reappeared.

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Muddy Marathon

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

It was the Clarendon Way Marathon today which runs from Salisbury to Winchester. The weather forecast was pretty dire with heavy rain and strong gusty winds predicted. In the end, there was just a persistent drizzle for most of the duration and you only really felt the wind on some of the more exposed stretches. More of a problem was what the rain had done to the ground: turning the exposed chalk in to a skid pad, creating a mud bath of much of the off-road sections and, in places just leaving wall-to-wall water.

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Getting dark

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

It was our last run from Rufus Stone tonight and the last for which we’ll start at 6:30. Despite a prompt start, the fine drizzle meant that it was soon pretty gloomy. We did, however, manage to find Bramble Hill Hotel on the first attempt. Back to Fritham next week and an earlier start.

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