Athletics in a different size

A few years ago one of my elderly relatives was in trouble with his wife for talking too much about the past. "Well when you are our age there is not much point about talking about the future" was his reply.

Its a challenge I always face myself, and have probably talked about previously in this space. When do you look forwards and when do you look back?

As a sports administrator I felt I always looked to the future writing three year and five year plans as I did with the Parish Walk in 1990. When I became Chairman of the IOMAA around that time I said we had to have targets for the year or how else could we report our achievements at the end of the period.

As a website publisher, I think it is known that I value publicising events six months ahead not six days or even six weeks beforehand. I face a constant struggle to make information available about future events.

I love looking back too but I think that should be the fun side of it. It should not be an end in itself to constantly look back.

Its almost two weeks ago since my mother-in-law passed away. Marie did not want to make an announcement on Facebook but it has subsequently been mentioned. We are facing the challenge of sorting through all of the things that have been saved for years and it has renewed my determination not to leave the planet with tons of my possessions that others have to deal with.

Alongside clearing my mother-in-laws belongings I am clearing more of mine. Last night I brought my collection of very old Athletics Weekly down from the attic to have a final flick through before disposal.

Its going to be harder than I imagined. I took a 1978 copy to the little room before I went for my run this morning and read about a great 2 mile race between Henry Rono and Steve Ovett.

An odd distance but a great race. An odd size magazine, it was printed in A5 size, but a great magazine.