So different to last week

I started a gruelling training session at the National Sports Centre at 6 am today and the roadway was completely dry. It could not have been more different to the same time last week when I went there for a few laps before the Parish Walk to find the road still flooded.

I've only missed a handful of the Ramsey Park Runs since they were first held in 2001 but last night was one of them. It was the only night that we could meet my brother and his family before they return home after a 9 night holiday in the Isle of Man. For Mike, that included taking thousands of photos at the Manx Telecom Parish Walk; for his son-in-law David, that included walking half of the course.

I've just managed to publish the results of Laa Columb Killey (thanks Adrian) before heading off to clean our holiday cottage - had to pay a cleaner last week so as not to miss the walk. I'll only be back briefly later this afternoon.

Despite reminding others to watch Keith Gerrard in the European Championships tonight, I shall be out tonight with a couple of visitors from work and my local colleagues. Right now they may be wearing some of my clothes as they arrived yesterday afternoon but their baggage didn't! So I had a hectic hour taking them around Douglas shops, our house for coats and shoes and leaving them at their hotel before going south again for our family dinner at the Hop Garden.

Blues all day

As was expected, the funeral service for Martin Caley was a sad occasion yesterday. And as so often happens, you learn things about people  when they pass away that you did not know when they were alive. Five degrees is quite staggering. And to get a first class maths degree on the Open University "for fun" says it all. Over a 1000 books on an incredibly diverse range of subjects.

On the previous blog post I asked if someone would like to add more names to the photo at the NSC which included Martin and Steve Taylor has responded:

Girl in red pants - Trisha Crellin

Girl in blue jacket - Tracey Crellin

Over John Cannell's right shoulder - Tommy Kelly

Over John Cannell's left shoulder in yellow jacket - Andy Garrett

Next to Jim Anderson - Melanie McDermott

Next to Denis Lace - Steve Taylor and next to him Robbie Lambie

So it took Jools Holland's rhythm & blues orchestra to take the blues away and what a night. Two hours of wholesome sound.

It was just a shame that I missed Laa Columb Killey yet again but thanks to Tom Cringle for sending me Sarah's photos. I published one last night and another just now.

I've extended my coverage of the Manx Telecom Parish Walk on the other channel because I have so much to do yet. Its going to be a struggle though as we have social engagements nearly every day until a week on Sunday. 

The European Championships seem to be hidden away this year, the BBC only has coverage on the red button, but I must watch some this weekend, particularly to see Manxman Keith Gerrard in the 10,000 metres. Probably too late to watch the Olympic Trials now but I read last night in Athletics Weekly that the air was blue when Dwaine Chambers was interviewed.

Its been a while

Just in case anyone doesn't know, the reason I have not been blogging here is because of the time I have committed to the www.parishwalk.com site in the past couple of weeks - and I have been writing another blog there since last Friday. http://manxtelecomparishwalk.blogspot.com/

Some other events have passed me by. I've not watched any of the UK championships and I'm going to have to give a few of the local events a miss in the next couple of weeks.

I returned to the www.manxathletics.com last night and for part of tonight though to complete the tribute to Martin Caley following receipt of an envelope containing photos and hand written notes from Phil Cain.

Its still bugging me that I can't find certain photos of Martin in my own collection but at least here is one with him in the distance. He has his red jacket on and he has his camera in hand. I think it was taken around 1983 or 1984 before the first version of the clubhouse was put in place.

One of the groups of people watching is John Cannell, Tony Varley, Dave Ronan and Jim Anderson.

Nearest to the camera is Frank Williams while I am crouched whilst lapscoring. Gladys Callow is also in red while two of the people wearing hats are Dennis Lace and Johnny Quine, both now deceased.

Who else do you recognise?

Don't want to see the back of Adam Russell

Here is a side view of Adam Russell in the 2011 Snaefell Race. I've got a good reason to see the back of him after the stunt he pulled on me on Saturday.

I was helping him compile his Parish Walk programme for local radio station 3FM. I went to the studio in Victoria Street armed with all my statistics and before he switched on the microphone I checked with him about the type of question he was to ask me so that I could have the stats at the ready.

Then he pulled a fast one. "Name the first three in this year's race and their times?" he asked me. "Starting with third".

"Vinny Lynch in 15.10" I said assuming that conditions would be reasonable and that Vinny would make a further improvement. As far as possible I try to get other people to make the predictions so the heat, that had been so lacking when only an hour earlier I had been running up and down the nearby promenade in the pouring rain, was well and truly on.

Wanting to show faith in so many walkers that I knew I realised that this could only backfire if I predicted record times so in the time it takes to count to ten the times had stopped flowing from  my mouth. "Richard Gerrard will finish second and Michael George will win. But I'm not prepared to guess the time" I said.

Escaping from the second floor of what was once Martins Bank and where I last went above the ground floor to visit my Uncle John to open a bank account after it became Barclays, you would think I would be glad to see the back of Adam after failing to find a place in the top three for Robbie Callister, where I think he will be, never mind demoting the poll favourite to second and leaving the perennial over achiever Vinny Lynch trailing.

But I'm not. I've seen enough of it already.

Take the 10km at the Easter Festival for a start. I passed him at two miles only to see his back floating past me with a mile to go. The following week at St Johns he goes off too fast, I catch him up only for me to have to watch the back of him again for the last 10%.

We head for London. For 26.1 miles of the course I am ahead of him. We turn into the Mall and guess who goes past?

Since then we've raced again at St Johns and twice in Ramsey. Always I end up with a view of his behind.

I didn't like his question but I would rather such an affront than allowing him to continue as a past master.

5 years on

Since watching my first London Marathon in 1983 the event has meant so much to me. It has every range of competitor from Olympic champions to "Joe Jogger" not to mention the pantomime horses.

What is also had in the early years was a lot of younger athletes and running sub 2.30 was good but not special. People were coming from nowhere and with a couple of years running beating 3 hours.

Five years ago I told the story about a group of my friends who did exactly that.

http://www.manxathletics.com/2007features/London1983.htm

And five years later one of them is no longer with us. 

I'm grateful to Robbie Lambie for writing the obituary to Martin Caley who passed away in the early hours of yesterday morning. 

Reading Robbie's tribute has left me without any further energy to continue working on the Parish Walk site which was my main focus tonight. 

I've spent ages during the past 30 hours or so trying to locate a photo of our winning team from the 1982 Millennium Way Relay - an event that Martin re-took the lead on the third leg. 

10km track report and results

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/sport/isle-of-man-sport/personal-bests-by-ollie-and-gail-in-10k-1-4651017

Clear view?

I'm hoping to cover the Bradda Fell Race tomorrow. I hope that the view is clearer than when I made the video below in 2007 - the first of the action videos on my channel.

Someone asked then what the connection was between Dylan and the Bradda Fell Race and some wit replied that Dylan had broken off from his UK tour to run there in the 60s. Not true of course but it started a tradition of matching the soundtrack for this race to a Dylan song every year. This one has had more than 1500 hits.

Dave Phillips event

Bad weather and low light are the reasons for the cancellation of the event tonight. A replacement event will be rescheduled later.

No rest for the wicked

Head teacher Andy Fox did a great job of organising the Steve Jacobs Memorial Mile last night and former organiser, Chris Quine, backed him up and had distributed the results to the media by 6 minutes past 8.

After the presentation I had to go for another run to honour my promise to exercise Marie's dog. So we ran up Somerset Road and past St Ninians so that the dog could use up all his energy going flat out down the hill towing me. As we started the decline we met Rebecca Wallace, who an hour or so earlier had almost caught me (starting behind) in the mile. She was on her mountain bike at the steepest part of Bray Hill and she said "No Rest for the Wicked". It could have applied to either of us.

It could have applied to me this morning as I hit the road for my earliest ever training session soon after 4.30 am. And what a beautiful morning, perfectly light, dry and little wind.

I was on the "red eye" flight to Gatwick and I'm glad I don't have to travel much as I was shattered today. I can't face the 51 emails that arrived during a 14 hour absence from these shores. I was inspecting the London Marathon course as I had a meeting close to London Bridge and I hadn't realised how close the marathon course went.

I hate Gatwick Airport and only go there through necessity. By the time you have spent 20 minutes queueing for security and passed through the shopping centre that passes for an airport terminal you also forget that the purpose of the terminal is to allow you to travel on a plane.

So for tonight's website contribution it seems appropriate to promote the Laxey Partners No Rest for the Wicked series.

I'll be having a break for the wicked fixture list though and will snap a few photos at St Johns rather than racing again.

Yet another torch relay

I didn't think there had been enough torch relays at the weekend so I started the latest one after 11 pm on Sunday evening. I tried to persuade the fastest Manxman in the 1983 London Marathon to make a comeback but he didn't answer the phone at 11.15 pm!

When we moved into our house in 1993 we fitted an intruder alarm which we have rarely used. It was fitted by a friend who is an electrician and for several years ran the Isle of Man operation for a major alarm supplier. No problem with the workmanship but when you don't have it serviced for 19 years you are asking for problems.

And when an electrical fault caused the alarm to go off late on Sunday evening we could not switch it off. Marie and I took turns to carry the torch whilst we turned the power on and off in the hope that the alarm could be stopped. Chris Richard, the man mentioned in the two previous paragraphs, could not be raised and after a phone call to a 24 hour electrician was relayed to an alarm engineer in Port Erin he was able to come and save us from the neighbours wrath.

This torch relay certainly did not inspire me but nevertheless I am about to sell the two torches used to great effect  (pictured above) on eBay.

Maybe Chris thought that he was being invited to another late night relay like this one in my old house in Victoria Avenue in 1984. He is pictured right with wife Sylvia (who has entered the Parish Walk this year) and Olympic walker Phil Vesty who they hosted at their house. Just out of picture (next to Phil) was long distance record holder Don Ritchie who didn't last the distance on this occasion - the 40 mile run in the afternoon and a large glass of whisky equals sleep, something that we missed on Sunday night.

Ascot Hotel name spread around the world

Having a "dig deep" email session tonight going through some of the emails that I didn't reply to at the time.

Almost three months ago, Michael George sent me a copy of Tim Erickson's renowned Australian newsletter which included, not only a report of the Ascot Hotel sponsored Manx Harriers open meeting but, some flattering comments about the Isle of Man.

Now that I have finally got around to sharing the information I thought I would search for a published version of the file rather than having to reproduce it.

I found one - on an Italian site.

http://www.marciaitaliana.com/marcia_mondo/heelandtoe-2012-num24.pdf

Grandstand seats

There were several delays to the TT yesterday, because of the weather, and perhaps it would not be too much fun sitting on one of the new grandstands all day long.

Just after the racing had finished, I took to the track with ten others for the Manx Track 10,000 metres and had my own grandstand view of some good racing. I'm pictured above (by Marie Jackson) just behind Gail Griffiths who has done many laps of the TT course as a competitor in the Manx Grand Prix.

I had a chat with Gail when warming up and she (I think) jokingly asked me if I was going to pace her. When we started I thought that was exactly what was going to happen as she settled in behind me for the first few laps. I thought that pacing her to a decent time might be a worthwhile role for me as I was off the pace of the midfield men, never mind 18 year old Ollie Lockley who was to put three laps on me.

There was an odd moment when a bit of daylight came between Gail and myself as I tried to run slightly faster than 90 seconds a lap. I think it was at about a third distance that she went ahead of me and I thought she had gone too soon. But with several men to chase ahead of me she ran a perfectly judged race. I started to slow and she ended up more than half a minute ahead of me.

I always use 10% as a rule of thumb measure between men and women's performances. So I would suggest that her 37.19 was equivalent to a sub 34 for a man. Factor in that she is 47 years old and it was a performance worth watching from the stands. A pity that a few more of the people who turn up to watch an Olympic flame were not in the stands to watch an inspiring performance.

FW: Endurance Life Real Relay: Isle of Man 09/06/12

Dear all

This Saturday (9^th June) I will be running in the Endurance Life Real Relay, an exciting attempt to follow the entire route of the official Olympic Torch around Britain in one continuous non-stop journey, running every step of the way (apart from the sections over water!)  

The relay started from Land's End at midnight on Monday 28^th May, ten days behind the official Olympic Torch, and will involve hundreds of runners from across the British Isles running through the day and night on an 8,000 mile mission to reach London in time for the Olympic Games opening ceremony.  More details can be found at http://www.endurancelife.com/realrelay/.

My leg starts at Ronaldsway airport at 11.45am on Saturday where I will pick up the baton.  I will be running to Douglas where I hand over to the next runner, who will be running to Laxey.  There are four legs on the island, finishing back at Ronaldsway on Saturday afternoon before flying to Belfast.

I am planning to run as Banana Man and the 2^nd leg runner, Nigel Maddox, has a Captain America costume to keep the superhero theme going!  Last time I checked there were still 2 legs that hadn't been taken and, if you're interested in taking part, you can sign up on the website.

Thanks

Ed

Edward Gumbley MSc ACIS 

Head of Corporate Services

t   +44 (0) 1624 682142m +44 (0) 7624 484209f  +44 (0) 1624 682101

skype edward.gumbley-mannmadegroup

Its no holiday

As explained last week, it is not a public holiday here today (nor yesterday) but we do have one on Friday.

Last night was taken out of the equation as we indulged in front of the TV for more than 3 hours watching the big concert at Buckingham Palace.

I hoped to catch up with some emails this lunchtime but by the time I have cleared the trash my time had gone. I'll try again tonight. If you are still waiting - sorry.

I'm trying to link to Manx Radio's report of Keith Gerrard's race but I have just lost the connection.

Sunstroke to frostbite in 24 hours

I've exaggerated a fair bit to make a point of demonstrating how changeable our weather has been recently. After applying the sun cream in the heatwave last weekend I was caught out yesterday by the sunshine when I watched the Superbike TT from the front of Braddan Church. I didn't have the right lens (or any clear space) to take any decent photos as I made the decision to watch there after the Olympic flame event was slightly later than I expected (I had been going to return home and then move to the bottom of Bray Hill).

I crossed Bray Hill twice this morning whilst on a 12 mile run and didn't see a single bike and only a very few cars. The weather was absolutely horrible, with wind and rain at 7 am. The weather, the time and choice of route (via Baldwin) had something to do with it but even so it was surprising to avoid any bikes as I crossed at the TT Course at the bottom of Bray Hill on the way out and at the top on the way back.

I struggled to get my wet shoes and clothes off because I had no feeling my hands but by forehead didn't lack feeling when I applied a towel - the sunburn hurt!

The weather is about as varied as the fixture list in the next couple of months. I have just updated the links on my site after I picked up the announcement about a new sponsor for the Isle of Man Track and Field Championships. I'm pleased to say that there is a greater emphasis on the track on the site with a couple of interviews with Kevin Loundes and Harriet Pryke and three track and field events on the fixture list in the next 10 days.

If only track and field was on my Olympic agenda. After months of indecision I have finally decided to go to London for the final weekend of the Olympics but without any tickets for the stadium.

Never say never...but

Having finished the Northern 10 miles database tonight I don't think I will be rushing to do another. It has brought back too many memories.

All of my collections have been built up laboriously by typing in the oldest results from newspaper cuttings. Thank goodness that once they are done they are generally easy to add to as race organisers publish results electronically. Actually, one thing that is overlooked is that the quality of the data in the newspapers is better these days because of this - in the old days they were often setting up the results from hand written notes.

I've been trying to remember how many I have done:

Parish Walk

End to End Walk

Peel to Douglas Run

Peel to Douglas Walk

Syd Quirk Half Marathon

20 miles

Manx Harriers Open (Manx Airlines meetings etc)

TT 40

There may be others.

I've just discovered that I have the Park Run results from 2001 and 2003 (have sent them to Kevin Deakes) and that has already started bugging me. Can I find the other missing ones!

Your number is up

2008 Parish Walk finisher and Ascot Hotel boss, Dave Mackey, is rumoured to have made an offer for Ben Lambden's car registration plate.