Racing at work
November 21st, 2011Classic Mistake
November 20th, 2011A belated post to offer my excuses for appearing at the bottom of the results for the Brown course at this year’s November Classic. Having done our helping in advance of the day it meant we didn’t have quite the same rush on the day. I took the children round the string course which was conveniently located adjacent to the parking and assembly area. When the chill wind dropped and the sun came out it was actually quite pleasant. Christine then took over the child minding and I jogged off to the start.
I was pleased to find that my ankle, although still slightly swollen from the CompassSport Cup final, didn’t seem to be causing me any trouble and, not having done a huge amount of running, my legs actually felt reasonably fresh. My navigation wasn’t particularly clean though and I seemed to spend rather a lot of time about 50 metres adrift from the control site. It wasn’t a bad run though and would have put me in fourth place had it not been for the small fact that, on downloading, I appeared to be missing control number 4…
I try to use a backup card at larger events using Emit but there was apparently no mark in the appropriate place. Unfortunately, the use of a backup card was probably my downfall. Without one, I’m pretty good at checking the display on my card to ensure I have punched but I tend not to when I do have a backup card. As is often the case with Emit though, on this occasion there were several controls where I found it impossible to get my wrist oriented to get the card down flat. It would seem that control 4 was one of these and, although my GPS shows that I did at least visit the control (I found I couldn’t actually remember!), I stand disqualified.
Screaming fireworks
November 13th, 2011In the run up to fireworks night Emma was once again very excited and was in high spirits as we set of for the display at her school. That lasted until all of 15 seconds in to the display when, as two years ago, she then proceed to scream the place down and we had to make a rapid exit. Even the other side of the rec (from where we had watched last year) wasn’t far enough away for Emma although the display did mercifully finish as we reached that point. Worse still, Emma has now become absolutely paranoid and the slightest bang during the evenings will set her off in to screaming fits, even if it’s just someone closing a door. There has still been the occasional firework going off this weekend but hopefully that’s it now at least until the New Year. Duncan, of course, loves fireworks…
Alarming outing
October 27th, 2011I was on child minding duty today. We had a good morning with a trip to the swimming pool where both children had a great time. It’s the pool where Emma has her lessons and she certainly seemed at home paddling up and down with a froggy float (it was fun time) and jumping in from the side (although still trying to ensure her head stayed above water). This afternoon we headed in to Southampton for a bit of shopping. I can’t claim it was all that successful. We spent the first half an hour waiting to pick up my wedding ring (now without a break in it and also looking very shiny once again). Duncan and Emma had their feet measured – still 6F and a marginally larger 10.5G so no new shoes.
We did manage a few purchases before heading back to the car. A decided we should pick up an IKEA catalogue on the way which required us to descend to the first floor in the lift. I mistakenly still pressed button two – the floor for our car. We let the floor pass… and then the lift ground to a halt with the doors open adjacent to a blank wall!
The buttons no longer responded so we hit the alarm. There was a series of modem like noises from the speaker and then nothing. We tried again. More noises. I had no mobile reception but one of the other people in the lift did and she phoned her Mum who phoned the number under the CCTV. After leaning on the alarm button for a couple of minutes we also eventually raised someone on the intercom who dispatched assistance. It turns out that they had been ignoring the alarm up until then – apparently people are always setting it off. So, the moral of the story is that it pays to be persistent. Mysteriously, when they finally prised the other set of doors it turned out that we were on the 10th floor! Somehow the lift must have taken us to 10 instead of 1 and consequently opened the doors on the wrong side before shutting itself down.
Half Term-O
October 27th, 2011Ankle injury at Longshaw
October 20th, 2011I didn’t have a bad run after that with just a couple of minor wobbles on 11 and 22. I was, however, simply just too slow ending up down in 47th place albeit out of a large field of 129. I’d like to think that maybe without the ankle injury I could have completed the course 3 or 4 minutes faster and may have just scraped in to the top 30. It was a tough field though. I was just glad not to be the one doing the driving as, once the adrenalin left my system, the ankle was pretty sore. Today, the swelling has started to subside and the ankle seems to be pretty flexible so I’m hoping for a quick recovery.
Playful Puppy
October 20th, 2011Farley XC
October 9th, 2011The cross-country season started this weekend. Christine cried off with a cold so I made the short trip to Farley Mount on my own. The course had changed this year with a shorter loop meaning 4 laps (and hence 4 chances to head up the hill) to make up a course just under 10k. My legs felt sluggish warming up so I started slowly. After the first lap I was somewhere around 60th and hoped to work my up through the field. Unfortunately, the field had different ideas and despite swapping places numerous times I eventually finished… 61st. Nothing like a Hants XC race to put you in your place. Still, there have been races in the past where I’ve barely been in the top 100 so it could have been worse!
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