Michael Johnson streaks ahead of the opposition

How many times did we used to see Michael Johnson streak to a win with the opposition trailing as he set his world records?

There have been many good commentary moments from the BBC at the European Championships this week - and so there should be from an incredibly bloated team that has surely set a world record of their own - the commentary and analysis team is into double figures!!

There have been some low points too. But its worth scanning through to find Michael Johnson destroying the field again.

Great performance from Mark Lewis-Francis? Michael says that when he comes back and does something against world class opposition he will stop criticising him. He criticised him in the past because he deserved to be criticised!

Why is it that that, unlike footballers who miss an open goal or fumble when in goal and get the blame, professional athletes who live off other people's money cannot accept any blame for going downhill?

I don't know about down hill but I'm sure Ron Hill would have been applauding Michael Johnson. For those that missed it, there was yet another feature about him in Athletics Weekly this week - the man who has not missed a day of running for 45 years!

I'm not sure that I (or many others) would agree with everything he says. He believes that you should carry on training through injuries and with all the knowledge that is available through books (I don't know if he has found the internet) you don't need a coach.

But I do think think athletes should at their peak should stop making excuses and go out there and make the most of those few years in their career when the sky is the limit.

Back to Michael Johnson. Lane 1 is surely a problem for Martyn Rooney in the 400 metres? Why? Where do 400 metre runners run their fastest times? In the relay from lane 1!

Back to Ron Hill. One of the fastest British runners in the London Marathon this year was let down by the pacemakers. Get out there and run yourself into the ground says Mr Hill who said it was last man standing in his day.

I had a chat with the great man in London, with Paul Curphey and Mike Garrett in 2004, when he promised to come back to the Isle of Man sometime - that's Ron Hill I'm afraid not Michael Johnson.

But would I have to make a confession to Ron if I met him tomorrow? I had a pacemaker for the final stages of a marathon last Sunday morning. I was doing one of my now customary training sessions over the full distance with the aim of getting well inside 2.55 (I had done 2.49 on the same session two years ago). I was a bit sluggish and just picking up the pace a bit when I met Nigel Armstrong at 18 miles. He kept me company for the remainder of the course and we lifted the pace enough for me to get down to 2.52. I ran 6.12 for mile 26 compared to 6.27 and 6.53 without a pacemaker for miles 4 and 5 on Tuesday evening. Its pathetic that some people need pacemakers!

We ought to be out on our own. Just like Michael Johnson.

Ron Hill turns down Mike Garrett and Paul Curphey as pacemakers in 2004

Photo finish for walk

When I got to work this morning I checked that the embedding of the European Championship page had worked and I was amazed to see that the split times for the 50km walk were being transmitted live.

Very exciting to note the progression of Irishman Rob Heffernan up to 4th place.

I was also amused to see that there was a photo finish of the walk. How long before someone says he should have been disqualified for not keeping a straight leg as he collapsed over the line?

Rob during his infamous two visits to the Isle of Man.

SEE RESULTS AND SPLITS FOR 50KM WALK

Email delays

Before treating myself to a quick whiz through some of the recording of the athletics from last night, I had to work hard through some of emails, particularly those relating to our self catering hotel business - planning for people arriving during the next few weeks, enquiries etc.

It also made me realise how many other emails I have still not replied to.

I've just been into our attic looking for some old programmes from the Manx Games - I was going to publish one of them but I can't find the one I was looking for.

So its a quick fix for the website this morning. I went back to one of the emails with a link to the Race the Sun video which I have embedded on the front page.

I am also intending to embed the European Athletics results page if I get a few minutes after breakfast.

I'm glad that there are no fixtures tonight - the first time for five weeks on a Friday night.

Uphill after the sewerage problem

I’ve often advocated runners aspiring to run under 2.45 for the marathon the advice that they should be able to routinely bash out 10 miles in the hour on a fast course.

I label in a “day at the office session”. It should leave you tired at the end but you should still be comfortable turning up for work again the next day.

I have been training for the past year in the belief that I have at least one more sub 2.45 hour marathon in my legs but I really missed the NSC roadway last winter as a place to perform the training session I advocate. When it re-opened, I only ran one in about 62 minutes and I only just ran the marathon (London) under 2.50.

I was determined to rectify that this summer as I build up for the Amsterdam marathon in October. With my current routine, which involves training before work, this necessitates climbing out of bed just before 5.30 with the aim of starting at 6. I found the motivation to do so this morning but had barely run half a lap when I found the NSC roadway fenced off by Island Drainage.

I’m sure that more regular users of the NSC will have been notified of the closure of the roadway for several days but it came as a shock to me. The words I muttered, out of hearing from the men who were only doing their duty at the crack of dawn, would have described sewerage equally well.

I found it hard to convert my motivation to another course and made a half hearted effort to run through Farmhill and round to the promenade.

I had hoped to add to the website content when I got back but I’ve got a few extra household jobs for the next days as Marie has gone away until Saturday. So instead of scanning an old programme I had a programme of scanning the house.

Clapped out

Run in a big city road race and the supporters always give you a clap as you pass by. Run in a local race and you'll often not see any supporters but if you do the most you are likely to get is a "keep going" before you get to the finish.

The exception is the Bushy's Great South Run where small groups of people cheer you around the scenic 10km course.

I thought I was in reasonable shape to race last night but I was feeling pretty clapped out by half way and, particularly as this course has been my unlucky one, I was having some negative thoughts. I had run the early stages with Chris Quine and Kevin Vondy and as they disappeared into the distance I relied on the clapping for the runners that were behind me to get a feel for the threat for my 7th position. I knew that someone was fairly close as I passed the Bay Hotel with about 400 metres to go but I hadn't realised that there were 5 within 38 seconds. Number 13 was not so unlucky.

The leaders were too far in the distance so I didn't get the story of the race but I thought the contrasting backgrounds of Ed Gumbley and Lloyd Taggart would be interesting and just 12 seconds kept them apart.

There were a refreshing number of different clubs represented in the top 10 with Manx Harriers (3), Manx Fell Runners (2), Northern AC (2), Manx Tri Club (2) and Belgrave Harriers all listed.

Three Legs of Mann

I only managed half an hour at the Döhle Isle of Man Track and Field Championships yesterday but I saw enough to support what people have been saying on the forum – that the overall atmosphere was better than for a number of years. Numbers are still worryingly thin in the senior events but there was a very high standard, and great sportsmanship, in some of the junior events. The results were published promptly by Cheryl Pryke on each of the two days on the www.iomaa.info site. I’m no longer taking photos of track of field meetings but there are plenty to be seen on the aforementioned site.

We can spend years helping to develop talent but it is only once in a lifetime, or maybe even once in a millennium, that an island with a population of 80,000 can expect to produce a sportsman as exceptional as Mark Cavendish. His 15^th stage win in the Tour de France yesterday afternoon made a mockery of the opposition and Chris Boardman described him as the best sprinter ever. He really has put the Isle of Man on the map.

Not that we need putting on the map. After all we have been right in the middle of the map of the British Isles for the past millennium and more. It is strange that so many people confuse our fair isle with one that hosted a famous pop festival or think we are close to Jersey and Guernsey. BBC2’s Coast programme, the first in a new series, used the position very cleverly last night to move back and forwards from our central position to the five countries around us – the ones with less successful cyclists and without a thriving junior athletics scene.

We have a thriving athletics scene, we’ve all seen Mark Cavendish star in France and the TV also showed the best scenery in the British Isles is right in the middle. I saw a little of all three Legs of Mann yesterday.

Measuring (and splashing) up

People often reflect on how lucky we are in the Isle of Man to go running in the hills just a few minutes away from our homes.

Another great benefit of living within Manx shores, which I have overlooked for years, is to run on the beach. I didn’t feel like raising myself above a jog this morning and didn’t want to run around my usual courses. Within minutes of leaving my house I was running on Douglas beach. The tide was like Mick Jaggar on a high (far out man) and I reflected on how some people would pay a fortune to run along side the gentle tide on a deserted sandy beach with the sun rising.

It is hard to measure the value to our souls, as opposed to our soles, of such runs but it did the former a lot of good for me, although the latter brought sand to our house afterwards.

By contrast, the great thing about track and field athletics is that we can be entirely objective - especially when we come to championships.

The Döhle Isle of Man Championships this weekend will determine who is the fastest, longest or highest within these tide surrounded shores and the European Championships, which open in Barcelona on Tuesday, will determine the best from a much bigger land mass.

In much the same way as I started the campaign for real country sports and then missed every opportunity to attend, I am not going to see any of the action on Saturday and will probably see very little on Sunday. I shall have to rely on the www.iomaa.info website, produced by David and Cheryl Pryke, for my news.

Track and field championships bring a level playing field to the sport but they can be uplifting too.

Inflated values

My compensation for loosing my dad when I was only 21 was a betamax video recorder!

I inherited £400 and I have just used a website calculator to calculate that was the equivalent to £1,700 in today's money. I wanted to buy something with it that would last a long time so I bought something that was out of date in just a few years!

I could not imagine that 32 years later I would be throwing two perfectly good video recorders in the skip because nobody wanted them.

There are several reasons why I have not done anything on the website tonight. But clearing out more of those things that you keep in the attic just in case you need them was one of them.

I remember winning a £40 clock radio for winning the TT walk in 1980. That is the equivalent to £130 these days. There are no many events in the Isle of Man with those sort of values. But no race awarded a video recorder to the winner in those days - if they did I could donate two to the second placed finisher!

Bowled over

Although it now almost 17 hours since I got up today, I've not really contributed much to the website. But for those people who seem to be concerned when I don't produce something, here is a photo that has a few connections with what I have done today.

I started the day with a run around Baldwin, something that I have not done for a few weeks. I turn off the East Baldwin road to go over into St Lukes which the hardest part. At the end of the valley is Ballachrink Farm which is now farmed by my cousin Graham but for many years was run by his father (my uncle) Kenyon. He is pictured displaying at the Royal Manx Agricultural Show (brown coat) in 1963.

Tonight I have walked about 7 miles with Ben around Douglas "skeeting" in all sorts of places. We looked into the bowl and it is amazing to see that work has started on the refurbishment just a week after Tynwald approval to develop it. At the moment it looks very run down.

I probably bored Ben with my stories of how the school sports would be held there on the bumpy grass track. And then as we walked up towards Ballakermeen came the stories of the school cross country races finishing by running up the Gooseneck.

Thinking of running up the Gooseneck as an 11 year old made me think, for the first time today, that running up Algare Hill at 6.30 this morning was not that bad.

I'm going to come back to traditions, good and bad, in the next few days but if you support tradition, don't forget that we are about to enter the "show" period of the summer. But they don't hold them at the Bowl anymore - not when we are about to spend £3 million on replacing that bumpy grass field. Some traditions maybe best brought to an end.

Red wine and red eyed

We've really enjoyed having a full house for the last couple of weeks since Ben brought his girl friend, Olga, to stay. She is on the "red eye" flight tomorrow morning and we are going to really miss her.

I've been a lot less prolific on the website during the past few days, partly because we have been extending our meals and chatting over a few glasses of wine.

I've also cleared my pile of newspapers and have now started doing the same with my pile of part read Athletics Weekly which go back to last November. Plenty of issues to comment upon in the next week or two.

Actually its white wine that we have been drinking tonight but it doesn't make such a good heading.

Feeling sorry for the fell runners - again

I was too busy cleaning and working in the garden of our holiday cottage St Johns on Saturday to get to the Laxey Fell Race. With the garden and hedge cutting complete I was cleaning the en-suite shower room when the skylight was hit be a deluge. I looked at my watch and noted it was exactly 2 pm - the start time for the fell run.

I don't know whether the weather was the same a few miles further north but I certainly felt for the runners again.

Lloyd Taggart was travelling to the British fell running championships later in the day so did not plan to race so it was known that (finally) there would be a different winner of a round of the Rentokil Fell Running League.

I've still not seen the results put I know from a personal email that Nigel Armstrong was the very proud winner of the fine James Coulson trophy. I understand that Simon Skillicorn was second and Ian Gale third. I don't know anything else.

60s night

Following a trend of late, during the exceptionally busy period of local fixtures, there was a low turnout on Friday evening - just 50% of the number who turned out in the first leg of the Scott Physiotherapy Dave Philips road races.

The over 60s were leading the four lap race for all but the final few yards. Alan Pilling was first away and held the lead until his fellow 60+ Dave Corrin took over on the final lap. Roy Crellin out sprinted Dave to take the win and the younger element were also represented in the first three when Sarah Franklin passed Alan for third.

I was able to see more of the race than planned. I had a particularly hard week of training, including an early morning run, but I should have been able to manage another 4.75 miles. But even when you are not taking a race too seriously you need to be prepared for it and there were some events just before I left for St Johns that left me anything but focussed (we arrived at St Johns at 6.55) and I couldn't bring myself to push myself hard and dropped out just after half way.

Congratulations to Western AC who now publish the results very quickly after the event. It takes me back to the days when Dave Philips did the timing for the (then) Peel Commissioners Road Races. We would race, after a cup of tea Dave would read out our results and if we waited a few minutes longer we could take a photocopied set of Dave's handwritten results home with us. For a time the results were much harder to obtain but now we have almost gone full circle.

It would be nice if the result sheet was longer next time but with round 5 inexplicably scheduled for 2 days before the marathon (and a week of five events in six days including two organised by Western) I fear that numbers will be low again.

Friends reunited

The veterans mile on Wednesday night was the first of 14 local events in 30 days, and that doesn't include the weekly track meetings held separately by Manx Harriers, Northern AC and Western AC.

I never intended to go to them all. Is anyone? I would have liked to have gone to the Manx Harriers walk at St Johns but just had too many family matters taking place.

Later last night we were joined by the lady next door and her husband who are staying in our holiday apartment. I won't name her here because of the power of google searches. I don't want her to be linked to the photo above.

But she is. It was taken nearly 50 years ago in Farnborough in Hampshire. She and her sister were the girls from two doors away in our street that we used to play with, although I hadn't seen her for over 40 of the intervening years.

She discovered this blog and knew all about me when they started their Manx holiday last Saturday. Last night I learnt more about her and her family whilst sharing her old photos and remembering how we used to watch Dr Who in their house. I don't know if she has ever seen this photo though. I found it among our own family collection later.

I will be at St Johns tonight but not Laxey tomorrow.

Extremes

On Monday evening I came home from work with no particular agenda for the website but ended up completing a project I had wanted to do for years. Last night I came home full of enthusiasm but tiredness struck and I achieved next to nothing.

I slumped in a chair reading about some of the world events that have passed me by these last few weeks whilst listening to those at the other extreme with the live broadcast from Tynwald.

But there has been time for more reflection on the Commonwealth Games and its interesting to see how some athletes have travelled the world for 11 seconds of action while at the other extreme one athlete competed for nearly two days.

The action today, the Manx Harriers track meeting at the NSC, is usually dominated by youngsters. Tonight it will be invaded by middle aged men and women running in the veterans mile.

Yesterday it was a beautiful morning. Today it is miserable.

One per cent

There were 139 visitors to the parishwalk.com site yesterday, the lowest for more than 2 months. Although that is only 1% of the 13,567 who visited the site on race day, its still quite a few for an event that is still almost 50 weeks away - or happened two weeks ago.

Jacqui in the archives

Whilst looking in the BBC archives for some vintage shots of Manx athletes in the Commonwealth Games last night (I was unsuccessful) I found this clip from the 2002 mountain bike race of cyclist and athlete Jacqui Fletcher:

http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/gallery/clip/1B28334_0001.do

Dead centre of town

The photograph above is from a cemetery next to the Commonwealth Games village in Brisbane, the, home of the 1982 Commonwealth Games. I went to compete in the 30km walk and, as we were arrived in the village more than two weeks before the event, I did a fair amount of training, some of it through the cemetery. At least that is the only reason I can recall having taken a photo as I only took about 30 in total - if it was these days I would probably take about 30,000!

I have been thinking a lot about the Commonwealth Games during the past few days since the team was announced on Friday but waiting for others to comment on the composition of it.

When I got home tonight I was reading the story about the team on iomtoday and I decided it was time to make a list of all the Manx athletic competitors since 1958. It was something I have been looking for for a long time so I decided to take on the task myself.

After we had eaten I resumed the task and surprisingly it only took about 2.5 hours to rattle off in total including the publication.

I had suggested to Marie that we ought to be making better use of the light nights and she suggested a walk later on and we wandered off up Somerset Road and through Nobles Park.

I keep saying that there are so many places in the Isle of Man I have never been to and tonight, quite by chance, we crossed the road and walked through the cemetery where I discovered a garden of remembrance which I didn't know existed.

Which takes me back to the Commonwealth Games. As soon as I got back I re-read the piece that I had published when Marie was shouting "are you ready to go for a walk?" and took out a few typos. I then looked for a photo from 1982 and thought that it was a good link.

There are bound to be a few more errors but now that the job is done its easier to improve than to start from scratch.

And a final memory from the Brisbane cemetery. I recall that the day after the closing ceremony, complete with hangover, I went for a run around the cemetery with badminton player Phil Mead. After not running since the previous winter I was stiffer in 20 minutes than I had been after the 30km walk. Stiffness in the cemetery? Dead right.

Officials in disguise

When I was watching the World Cup final last night I found myself assessing the performance of the referee almost as much as the players, because he was English. It was a colourful match not just because of the bright orange worn by the Nederlands team but by the record number of yellow cards issued by the ref.

Its a thankless job being a football referee and the Dutch team felt that the winning goal should have been disallowed.

Its a thankless job being a race walking judge too, especially at international matches when video evidence is likely to show that anyone with any speed is unlikely to be maintaining contact with the ground.

Steve Taylor has done both. He used to put up with the abuse from the supporters at the local soccer matches but has progressed to much greater heights as a race walking judge. As the story on the front page this morning relates, he is off to Canada to judge in the world junior championships.

The photo above was taken in Canada at the opening ceremony for the 1994 Commonwealth Games in which Steve competed in the 30km walk. I was the athletics team official and shared a room with him for the three weeks.

There has been a lot of water under the bridge in the intervening 16 years but I hope that all Steve's decisions in Canada are good ones and that he doesn't have to use the outfit in the photo as a disguise.

By the way, the reference to the football team as the Nederlands was a follow up to my comments about the British incorrectly referring to Holland (which is only a part of the Netherlands). Manx Dutch resident Johanne Smythe supported me on this but went one step further to say that it was really the Nederlands, which begs the question why do we translate the names of foreign cities like Roma?

IOMAA publicity

The request yesterday to increase the publicity for the IOMAA came a good time for me with nothing else particularly lined up for the front page. To hammer the message home, I'm repeating the two items here.

The Döhle Isle of Man Track and Field Championships will take place on Saturday 24th & Sunday 25th July 2010 at the NSC, Douglas.

Entry Form for 2010 IOM T & F Championship

Closing date for entries is Thursday 15th July 2010.

Commonwealth Youth Games (Athletics Manager)

The IOMAA is currently seeking a well qualified and highly motivated person to act as Athletics Team Manager for the Commonwealth Youth Games hosted by the Isle of Man in September 2011. This challenging voluntary position will involve working with athletics coaches, the Development Officer for Athletics, the Head of Performance (Athletics) and other key personnel to help potential CYG competitors to achieve their goals and then to manage and ensure the well-being of the selected team during the Games.

If you would like to be considered for this position, please email your interest on the link mail@iomaa.info

Decks cleared

The front page was getting a bit untidy and so I have this morning archived four of the features from last week. I'll put something new on the front page this afternoon when I am back from cottage cleaning. Very misty this morning but I am about to go for a short run in it.

Parish walk on TV part 2

If you have not yet seen it (I gather it was shown once before the list I published too) its well worth a viewing. Some great shots of the Isle of Man and in some ways, at half the length of previous years, it was better for being snappier.

Grumpy old man

Oh dear, and I know that I will upset all the Will Young fans who loved every minute of it, but when someone pads out a show for an hour and quarter and its 45 minutes before they get the sound up to anything like an acceptable standard, its time I stayed away from hyped up modern shows. Apparently the van carrying the gear went to Liverpool instead of Heysham and they only had a couple of hours to set everything up but if there is one sound you want to hear it is Will Young not the bass. The whole show made me think of a big box of packaging that has something nice in the middle, but its very small compared to what you are presented with. And when he brought people on stage to give him facts about the Isle of Man (part of the packaging) he announced that 95,000 people lived on the Isle of Man and when someone else named Laxey Wheel and Snaefell as "facts" about he Isle of Man he asked what they were in pure ignorance.

I can barely remember a wet Ramsey Park run in the all the years that they have been held. There was one there tonight and and I wish I had been there.

More Parish Walk videos

I mentioned that I still have some work to do on my Parish Walk filing.

I've still got a number of emails from people to help improve the database that I have not attended to and a few miscellaneous but interesting emails.

Then there were the videos taken by my brother Mike that I didn't get a chance to edit and publish on race day (they were in a difficult format) but which he has now put on YouTube.

His channel is here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/mikedroit#p/u

Rather sadly I am the only subscriber so far!

If you do a search on YouTube you will find lots of new publishers of Parish Walk films in addition to the dozens that I have there. I am not going to try and list them all although I have just seen (I had forgotten) that I had a Playlist. I'll update that sometime.

End to End Walk entries

Online entries for the Ramsey Bakery White and Healthy End to End Walk were launched on 1 July and there is now a link from the front page fixture list to:

https://www.sientries.co.uk/event.php?event_id=357

The layout is so familiar having analysed the Parish Walk entries for months that I have had to resist the temptation to start reviewing the list each day. I need a break from that particular exercise.

Parish Walk on Sky

I've just checked the coverage which is back on Sky Sports this year.

4 results for 'Isle of Man Parish Walk'

1

Sports

Isle of Man Parish Walk

Fri, 9th, 2:30pm403Sky Sports 3Expand

2

Sports

Isle of Man Parish Walk

Sun, 11th, 6:30am404Sky Sports 4Expand

3

Sports

Isle of Man Parish Walk

Sun, 11th, 3pm404Sky Sports 4Expand

4

Sports

Isle of Man Parish Walk

Mon, 12th, 1am404Sky Sports 4

I've been able to setup my Sky+ by remote over the internet (its worth setting up an online account if you have a Sky Sports subscription) and I'm looking forward to watching it over the weekend.

Although I might try and take a backup copy to disk, please don't rely on my copies any more - it took up too much time in previous years to record multiple copies.

See the Isle of Man adverts

Isle of Man Tourism recently announced:

Island Lives TV Advertising Campaign – Summer 2010

Isle of Man Tourism are pleased to announce that the ‘Island Lives’ TV campaign will be back on air for one month from the 25th June 2010 to the 25th July 2010.

The TV campaign will be shown on a variety of channels in the UK and Ireland including ITV North West, ITV Tyne Tees, Channel 4, Channel Five, TV3 (Ireland) and Sky TV. The adverts will feature on a number of different programmes including Emmerdale, The Bill, This Morning, Come Dine with Me and the early evening ITV News. Each of the three advertisements will be aired on a rotation basis.

The adverts have been recently adapted to improve the perception of the Isle of Man as easily accessible and good value for money. The adverts have been extended from 30 seconds to 40 seconds and now highlight that the Isle of Man can be easily accessed from 23 locations across the UK and Ireland from a starting price of just £23.99.

Although at times it can be possible to reach the Island for less than the price stated, stringent criteria set by Clear Cast (an organisation that approves TV advertising content) had to be adhered to.

Our previous TV campaign proved very successful and it is hoped that this run of advertising will further position the Isle of Man as a visitor destination.

Turning into Cringle

Well here goes, I've had some good feedback from my ramblings about country sports and here are three that are publishable.

Steve Taylor recalls (as part of a reply which includes other blog feedback):

"Your comment about townies turning up with their spikes made me smile. The difficulty is that the fayres always want to attract more people and this is the price they pay. I attended Cronk y Voddy sports certainly once if not twice but never competed I did compete at Laa Columb several times and must admit that in my early athletic career packed my spikes to compete in the sprints. As I recall what was considered Mike Karran's best ever performance came at LCK when beating you which would have been 1985ish."

It was 1983 that Mike beat me when I arrogantly did a hard 20km training session the night before thinking that I could still win the LKK walk. Mike dug in well and put in a devastating kick around the field at Colby which he has never let me forget!

Ben Scott was able to give a report on the big (2 lap) race at Cronk-y-Voddy on Monday:

"Five runners toed the line, including myself, Lloyd Taggart, and 3 guys I didn’t recognise (and certainly hadn’t seen at any running events). Lloyd was 4^th out of 5 and I was about 15 yards behind Lloyd at the end. We were soundly beaten by a crack squad of country sport athletes who never venture out to the organised races, whose very existence of chasing after livestock and vaulting over gorse hedges renders them fitter and faster than the Isle of Man’s 2 highest finishers at the recent Commonwealth Mountain and Ultra Running Championship. How many more country folk are hiding out there who could set the track at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi alight?!!"

Apparently Lloyd knackered his knee when he snapped some lad’s chain when he borrowed a bike for the mountain bike race (forfeiting his fell race prize money to pay for it) and Ben had a 3 ½ year old on his back as he wouldn’t let go of my leg on the start line and it was the only compromise we could reach at short notice! "Poor excuses I know but it really was an afternoon of quality entertainment" said Ben.

Richie Stevenson remembers Cronkie well:

"I used to deliver mail to the Cronk Y Voddee some years ago and enjoyed some fabulous yarns with the Quirks of Lambfell and Eric Goldie of Lambfell Beg, three great characters of the area.

The Cronkee Sports had not taken place for a few years I think and Ned Kennaugh was very keen to see them revived. He knew I was involved with the fells so asked me to go out one evening to plan a course starting and finishing at the sports field on the straight.

Eric Goldie volunteered to drive me around and so out I went one summer evening accompanied by Tony Rowley. We expected to jump on a tractor or some other 4 wheel drive machine but no, Eric opens the door of a clapped out old Ford Fiesta and in we piled, with, I must admit, a certain amount of trepidation. We proceeded to go over terrain a Fiesta was definitely not built for, up steep slippery fields down even steeper ones, along the side of hills where it felt we were about to “turn turtle” with the car bottoming out on huge stones and piles of earth. Tony and myself were just hanging on to whatever we could hang on to, praying we would get back in one piece. Eric on the other hand was completely at ease and obviously enjoying going for a spin in the country.

We got back in one piece, I`m glad to say, but made sure I never volunteered to help plan a course in that part of the world again!"

Great story Richie and as I know the people he was referring to and can relate to them.

With my collection of old Manx postcards and feedback like this I could stand in for Terry Cringle if ever he needed a break from his nostalgia column in the Examiner!

Nothing to do on the Isle of Man?

A few months ago Marie suggested that, as a friend was going to queue for tickets for the Will Young concert tonight, we should go with them. Wary of how much of my time was going to be spent on athletics this summer, I thought I should go, to keep a balanced lifestyle. I didn't realise that it would be the third visit to the Villa Marina this week.

Nor did I check the fixture list or I would have realised that it is the Ramsey Park runs, a series that I have rarely missed since it first started a decade ago. Robbie has missed even fewer than me and thankfully Ben is able to give him a lift there and back.

And then there is the heavily publicised Island Games fundraiser - see all the Manx websites. I hope that this is successful as fund raising is notoriously difficult and each Island Games seems to get more expensive.

If that is not enough, I know that the media are heading to the Institute of Sport tonight for the announcement of the Commonwealth Games team.

Its often said that there is nothing to do on the Isle of Man!

Big meetings come around so quickly

Edinburgh Commonwealth Games 1986 - I thought I was going to get a scoop when I photographed Daley Thompson failing twice at his opening height in the pole vault decathlon. He cleared at the third attempt and went on to win at the gold medal.

I was talking to the Commonwealth Youth Games 2011 director, Geoff Karran, at one of the Tynwald weekend events.

As I always say, it is only by asking questions and learning about other people's jobs, lives and commitments that you ever have a chance of understanding, or even thinking about, the effort that goes into events and activities that "just happen" as far as the general public are concerned.

I think the difficulty that most people have with these extra big events is that they are already so involved with the other sporting events that happen every year. But thank goodness there are always people who raise their heads above the local level.

I was on the IOMAA committee when the idea of the Island Games first surfaced via Noel Cringle and Geoff Corlett. I think it is fair to say that nobody on that committee ever expected the concept to grow to the levels that have occurred.

And I am sure that the Commonwealth Youth Games will bring enormous pleasure to those that do sign up to help - they need lots more helpers. Have a look at http://cyg2011.com/ if there is any chance of you assisting.

When I visited the site I suddenly realised how close the event is to us - only 425 days.

Its the same with the London Olympics. Did you know that 5 years have elapsed since the games were awarded to London?

I remember the date, 6/7/05, very well because I was in London on the day of the announcement. I planned a rare business trip for my previous employers when we were negotiating with a software supplier. I chose to go the day after Tynwald Day and I was so glad that I didn't go the following day as there were a series of bombings including one very close to where I had been near Liverpool Street Station. The first thing I did on the day of the bombing, on hearing the news, was to try and contact the people who I had visited to ensure that they were ok. They were.

Only 24 hours earlier there had been much rejoicing, and I would say some surprise, that the Olympics had been awarded to London. That was five years ago and now there are just two years to go.

And only four years until the Commonwealth Games are due to be held in Glasgow. They can only be better than the last time they were held in Scotland, indeed Britain, in 1986. With awful weather, African boycotts, a cash crisis and a general lack of enthusiasm for the games that were returning just 16 years after Edinburgh had previously staged them, they left a lot to be desired.

Here we go then, 1, 2 & 4 for the Commonwealth Youth Games, the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games all accessible in an hour of where I am typing this in Ballasalla. And they are all probably too close for the organisers who will all be wishing they had more time to prepare.

That's nothing on the Commonwealth Games team for 2010. I understand that the team was selected last night and will be announced tomorrow evening.

Alcohol fueled training

We had a great night at the Quo gig last night. Anyone seeing me letting my hair down might have thought that I had enjoyed a few scoops but, because of some difficulties with Robbie, I didn't touch a drop at the Villa. Soon after we got home we were joined, off the Snaefell sailing from Liverpool, by Ben with his girlfriend from France. They have both been studying in Denmark and it was the first time Ben had been home since New Year so I enjoyed a few glasses of wine with him and the clock had struck two by the time I hit the sack. I nevertheless had a great blast around the streets at 7 this morning.

I had a lot of email last night about this blog and I will select some of the funnier comments for sharing with you. Before I start work this morning I am going to try and get an old postcard of Mooragh Park scanned in as a comparison to how the park looks now - there is a run there on Friday night. I inherited a large box of postcards which I had almost forgotten about.

From the Palace to the Villa

I didn't make it to the Scottish Widows Parish Walk presentation last week so I'm making up for it this week with three separate visits to the wonderful Royal Hall.

There was no royalty at the Tynwald Ceremony but, because of Marie's role in the Clerk of Tynwald's office, I attended a function for the guests that did attend, and for those that work so hard behind the scenes.

One of those is civil servant Tina Kelly whose responsibility it is to get the Fair Field ready for the big day, something none of us really think about. I was talking to her and her husband Mike before the dinner and Mike mentioned that he had recently seen the Pathe news report of his uncle, Bill Kelly, winning the London to Brighton run.

I immediately thought that it would be an interesting link for the website and particularly given that I knew that Bill had also been extremely successful in the TT40, the ultra distance run held over an extended version of the TT course, starting and finishing on Douglas Promenade. Peter Cooper had recently given me a copy of the programme and results sheet for the 1996 event, the last time it had been held.

I'm going to add that to the current feature in the next day or two and also revive the statistics that I compiled on the TT40, one of the early databases I compiled (from Peter McElroy's little book) and published in 2001.

I used to watch the TT40 on May bank holiday weekend from our house in Kirk Michael alongside the course. It was from there that I started heading to Douglas on a Saturday night just before my 16th birthday in 1972. That was the year that, I am fairly certain, Status Quo first played in the Isle of Man. I had previously enjoyed their early hits such as "Pictures of Matchstick Men" but their new style on the" Piledriver" album suited my teenage preference for something loud and heavy.

It cost £1 to see Quo perform on the stage at Palace Lido, the first professional band I had ever seen. I was so impressed with the atmosphere I even wrote a letter to NME which was published, the first of many letters to national papers and magazines. "Paper Plane" and a few pints of bitter......

From there their popularity grew and they were to return on 16 June 1974. That one I could find when I googled. But despite adding the "Hello" and "Quo" albums to my collection I refused to attend. I didn't realise how young I had been when I became a grumpy old man but "I'm not paying £3" I went around telling everyone. Well that was about my entire earnings from two weekend jobs!

I think we've paid about £45 tonight! It will be the first time I have seen them live since the Bowl in 1991 (check) although I also saw them in public at the start of the Great North Run in 1998. Without any warmup they belted out a medley of hits at 10 o'clock in the morning, even the harmonies they did with the Beach Boys were there. It took me a while to realise that they were miming!

The TT 40 feature will have to wait until a day or two as we have another important family event after the concert. It could be a late night.

Let's call the Isle of Man Douglas

Why do ITV insist on calling the Netherlands Holland.

This is what Wikipedia says:

Holland is a name in common usage given to a region in the western part of the Netherlands. Moreover, the term Holland is frequently used to refer to the whole of the Netherlands. This usage is unofficial and while generally accepted, it has caused a number of people from the Netherlands to complain.

It would be like calling the Isle of Man - Douglas.

Campaign for real country sports

Having started a campaign for real country sports I was disappointed not to have been able to attend any of the events I promoted.

The most recent event was the Cronk-y-Voddy sports held yesterday afternoon. I am reliably informed that Lloyd Taggart was the comfortable winner of the “fell race” which is about as much a fell race as Laa Columb Killey “marathon” is a marathon. Mind you I found it tough enough when I did it a few times when the Cronkie sports were first revived and like Lloyd I had lots of youngsters following me, probably a lot closer than Lloyd did.

Some things don’t change there though and I understand a few loose elbows on the sharp bends of the track ensured that there were no victories in the track race for Lloyd.

I remember one of my first appearances at Cronkie, probably around 1967 or 1968, when I was about 10 or 11. I was belting down the bumpy grass when a strong arm of an older lad came around my shoulder and pulled me to the ground.

Fair play in the country sports? You’ve got to be joking. There was a great event in the Ballaugh Sports called the Balloon Race. You had to run half way down the track, pick up a balloon, blow it up until it burst and then run to the finish. The gorse in the hedge was a handy aid – you held a little in your hand and only had to blow the balloon half way before bursting it with your piece of trickery and claiming the prize money.

There was another race at Ballaugh called the Shoe Race. Again you ran half way down the track but with no shoes on. They were all piled in a heap and you had to claim yours, put them back on, tie them up and run to the finish. That was difficult when you found your “mates” had removed the laces!

I got as far as the Sulby Sports a couple of times but I recall that they were a bit more conventional as part of the Sulby Show (not to be confused with the Royal Manx Agricultural Show which many years later was staged across the road). The Show included arts and crafts, and this is the bit that Marie never believes, I won five shillings as the outright winner of the handwriting contest, probably the last time I could even read my own writing!

I was probably about 17 or 18 when the late Frank Keig convened a meeting in Kirk Michael to organise village sports which I attended thinking that we should have something closer to home. I think I might have been on a committee but it was certainly Mr Keig, with the resources of the Kelly Brothers building firm, that did the work with a big marquee in White House Park. I can’t remember how long they lasted for but I do remember (no joking) one of the races with the most pressure in my life when I ran in a mile race there in 1979. I was just starting to make a mark as a race walker and had been out training in the afternoon with Graham Young and went to watch the sports in the evening. Under pressure from the locals to take part (like now people think that if you are an athlete you can do any event) I lined up against a field of visiting campers and other youngsters with the Michael crowd shouting “never hurry a Murray” referring to the old Murray Mint advert, as I struggled to keep up before getting to the front about 50 yards before the finish.

But Cronkie was always my favourite and as teenagers we used to cycle from Kirk Michael on wrecks of bikes (often without gears) up the hills, do every possible event and then cycle (mainly freewheeling because we were knackered) back down.

One event was called musical sacks based upon musical chairs. You cycled round the edge of the track until the music stopped and then ran to be the first to stand on one of the sacks positioned in the infield with one being removed each time. The funny thing was, I don’t remember any music - the time for action would be the hooting of a car horn and needless to say you would get an unofficial intervention.

The advertising for the event these days is so professional compared to the old days. A notice used to go in Edgar Quayle’s in Kirk Michael shop a week or two beforehand but sometimes the organisers forgot! On one occasion we arrived at the advertised time and the farmer was still baling the hay on the field and we all had to help.

The track was never measured and there were some sharp bends. My favourite recollection of all though was the year the half mile was run over four laps. An hour later we held the mile race over 6 laps!

The crazy thing was thing was that, like most of the Manx athletes of earlier years, I should probably have never been allowed to take part in official events as I had become a professional by taking part at places like Cronk-y-Voddy. What is more, there was a “contamination” rule that meant that anyone who competed against someone like me was also labelled a professional.

Professional? These were amateur sports at their best and there was a feeling that it was when the townies started arriving in shorts and spikes that the decline set in. It’s five or six years since I have been to Cronkie but I still ran in jeans out of respect for the event’s heritage – and I still fell over in the track race but with aging legs I didn’t take a push like when I was a young fella.

Race the sun

I've just been setting up the report feature on the Race the Sun which Mark Eastham sent to me recently. Unfortunately it arrived on the Friday afternoon before the Parish Walk just when I was going into panic mode with my parishwalk.com publication. You will recall that I effectively suspended publication on this site for several days and even now I am only just getting on top of my normal stuff after the Parish.

In fact, even though I closed down the Parish Walk site and blog just before 11 on Friday night I have been continuing to receive an enormous number of emails about the event. I will try to get back to everyone eventually but it might take another week. I am off to my final function of the weekend which is a black tie event so I must loosen my tie on this computer and get ready.

Manxness

I hate jogging; I would much rather be pushing myself to the limits but sometimes, like when I have trained hard over the weekend, I realise that jogging is my limit.

And jogging brought its rewards this morning. The promenade was at its best, the sea at it bluest and Summerhill Glen its more deserted. On past one of the Island's landmarks I ran, the TT Grandstand, and through Nobles Park, finally back to being the park Mr Noble intended after several weeks of abuse.

Abuse is something that prevails these days when we talk about politics. And yet we have one of the most democratic and open systems of parliament in the world but we take it for granted. Just like we do our countryside and everything else that is so good about the Isle of Man.

It never ceases to amaze me how few people who live here actually celebrate our National Day. Instead many of our residents prefer a day at those great centres of Manx culture - B & Q, and Tesco.

I know which half of my ancestry means most to me.

Pity the fell runners

I was out running this morning, around the Marine Drive and promenade, enduring the wind speeds of up to gale force 8. As soon as I got in I started to prepare my cameras and get Robbie ready to go with me to grab some of the action from the the Narradale Fell Race.

I originally thought of going to the top of Snaefell but that would have been pointless and unbearable to wait in these winds so plan B was go walk from the Tholt-y-Will Road along the Millennium Way to Block Eary. It started to throw it down and, as I had been unable to find out how long we would have been waiting for the runners, I decided to turn around and come home. It was the classic case of had this been the only event I went out to each year I would have grinned and bared it but I had to think of my other commitments this weekend.

Marie is with the Tynwald guests this morning and am joining her for the next two events - hopefully I will meet a few athletes at the Tynwald garden party and get some skeet.

But I do feel sorry for the fell runners who should be nearing the completion of the fell run now. I hope that the weather is much better for the two remaining races.

Back in business

If you don't know why I have been quiet for the past 10 days then go to www.parishwalk.com

This site will be getting back to normal now although I wish there were few bigger events on rather than quite so many as in the next few weeks.

There were only just over 20 runners in the "main" event at the Dave Philips meeting last night as fixture congestion was biting back.

I've just published over a 100 slightly sub standard photos from the meeting.