Thanks for your interest

In the first 2 months of 2013 an average of 293 people per day were visiting the site. Numbers are plateauing a bit (277 last year; 282 in 2011) but back in 2007 there were 171. I remember being excited at about this time in 2001 when I noticed that 7 people had visited one Saturday!

90% saving on holiday

I had a voucher from my favourite hotel booking site offering me a 10% discount off any booking. It expires in less than 30 minutes so I think I have saved the other 90% as well!

Of course, if you applied that logic to everything you try and do you would save a lot of money. Or a lot of time in the case of some of the things I do. I've had the worst of both worlds tonight. Marie has a nice new laptop and some of the things I was trying to get working on that kept me glued to various computer screens but without the end results.

I haven't made any progress with the archives but on the other hand the work I have done over previous years made a feature I have done in the last hour relatively easy. I have all the stats for what is now the Ascot Hotel meeting. Steve Partington has more sub 90 minute marks than anyone and I had 548 photos of him face tagged. Here is another:

He has saved himself 25 laps of the NSC on Saturday by not entering.

Endure and indulge

I'm still working my way backwards regenerating most of the old pages in from the website. I'm back to September 2009. Its going to be an endurance challenge of a non sporting type.

I get my kicks by helping people to enjoy the sport but it is my hobby so, as I have said many times, I can't attempt to cover all of the achievements of all Manx athletes. There is an outlet for everyone with the radio, newspapers and many websites.

I don't  get the chance to feature the top Manx athletes on a regular basis but instead give them special  coverage on an occasional basis - such as Keith Gerrard. I really feel, I as much as people visiting the site, should just indulge on his great National Cross Country performance - even if it is at the expense of all the other fine performances my Manx athletes. Their turn will come.

2011 relived

2011	Trail running	SCS Relay
2011	General	Santa Dash
2011	Obituary	Kenyon Crowe obituary
2011	Race walking	Winter Walk League Round 3
2011	Race walking	1983 English Schools Walk	With Martin Rush and Tim Berrett (and modern photos)
2011	Fell running	Winter Hill League Round 3	With links to Ian Callister's history of the hill league
2011	Nostalgia	Various old newspaper cuttings	!974 track, inter club football 1986 & 2007 Island Games
2011	Cross Country	Cross Country League Round 3
2011	General	manxathletics.com website moves to new host
2011	Road running	Syd Quirk Half Marathon
2011	Nostalgia	Boundary Harriers formed 50 years ago	First minutes and other events 1960 to 1991
2011	General	Robbie Callister featured	Just after winning Big Walk in Cape Town
2011	Cross Country	Cross Country League Round 2
2011	Fell running	Winter Hill League Round 2
2011	Race walking	Winter Walk League Round 1
2011	Nostalgia	Turning back the clocks	Coinciding with clocks going back, a nostalgia special
2011	Trial running	Peel to Douglas Run	First race held on trail instead of road
2011	Road running	Peterborough Half Marathon	Jess Petersson inside Manx record
2011	Cross Country	Cross Country League Round 1
2011	Fell running	Winter Hill League Round 1
2011	Race walking	24 hour Commonwealth Championship	Featuring Ben Scott
2011	Race walking	One Hour Walk
2011	Road running	Ramsey Firemans Runs round 1
2011	Road running	M2M Endurance Run	Bethany de Legh-Runciman completes 345 mile run
2011	Fell running	Commonwealth Mountain Running Championships	Manx team featured
2011	Race walking	End to End Walk
2011	Track & Field	Commonwealth Youth Games	Held on the Isle of Man - and there was a Manx medal
2011	Race walking	Postman's Walk	Manx postmen compete in UK
2011	Race walking	Peel to Douglas Walk ends
2011	Race walking	Berlin Marathon	Ed Gumbley leads large Manx entry
2011	Race walking	Great North Run	Keith Gerrard is top British runner in biggest UK race
2011	General	End to End Mountain Bike Challenge
2011	General	Bullock Manxsport	Keith Gerrard & Harriet Pryke to be sponsored
2011	Race walking	Guernsey Church to Church Walk	Manx walkers in the medals
2011	General	No Rest for the Wicked
2011	Road running	Saving the Easter Festival
2011	Road running	Dublin Marathon	Hospice Isle of Man raise team
2011	Track & Field	UK Trials
2011	Obituary	Neil Shimmin obituary
2011	Fell running	North Barrule Fell Race
2011	General	Old features published in 2011	Too many things to describe
2011	General	No Rest for the Wicked Publicity
2011	Track & Field	English AA Championships	Manx records set at Bedford
2011	Road running	Dave Phillips Road Races Round 2
2011	Track & Field	Steve Jacobs Memorial Mile
2011	Fell running	Bradda Fell Race
2011	General	TT 2011	One of the better years for TT photos
2011	Race walking	Parish Walk Ranked Walkers
2011	Road running	TT 40 Mile Road Race	Remembering when runners used to lap the TT course
2011	Fell running	Bradda Fell Race old photos
2011	Road running	Ramsey Park Run Round 2
2011	Obituary	Albert Johnson
2011	Road running	Northern 10 Miles
2011	Fell running	Carraghan Fell Race
2011	Road running	Easter Festival Relays & Women's 5km
2011	Fell running	Easter Festival Peel Hill Race
2011	Road running	Easter Festival 10km Road Race
2011	Fell running	Manx Mountain Marathon
2011	Track & Field	Island Games Team Announcement
2011	Race walking	Sarah Killey Memorial 50km Walk
2011	Road running	London Marathon
2011	General	Steve Kelly lifetime achievement award
2011	Road running	Marathon Year
2011	Road running	Dave Phillips Road Races Round 1
2011	General	Roger Black Walk Talk	Roger Black promotes Scottish Widows - videos
2011	Race walking	Manx Harriers walks before Parish Walk
2011	Road running	Autumn Road Races	Syd Quirk date change and Peel to Douglas ends
2011	General	Sporting Life Exhibition launched
2011	Fell running	Snaefell Fell Race
2011	General	New photo website launched	Murray's new site isleofman.in photos
2011	Road running	Dave Phillips Road Races
2011	General	Michael George stands for House of Keys	Watch the date
2011	General	Congratulations	Bethany weds and Rob passes 60
2011	Road running	Easter Festival publicity	Threat to future of Easter Festival but 50th close
2011	Track & Field	Track celebrates 20 years	Photos from NSC over 20 years
2011	Fell running	Fell race preview 2011
2011	Road running	20 Miles Road Race
2011	Road running	Veterans Spring Handicap
2011	Fell running	Ellan Vannin Fell Race
2011	General	Simon Capelen
2011	General	Steve Brennan
2011	General	Manx Harriers open
2011	Road running	Manx Harriers 10km fastest ever
2011	General	Graham Young
2011	Race walking	Manx Harriers 20km fastest ever
2011	Race walking	Lauren Whelan
2011	Fell running	Baldwin Fell Race
2011	Cross Country	Cross Country Round 5
2011	General	Club Chairmen
2011	Race walking	Winter League February
2011	Fell running	Greeba Fell Race
2011	General	Kevin Deakes
2011	General	Veterans big 3 event
2011	Cross Country	Cross Country Championships
2011	General	Athletics Weekly 1986
2011	Race walking	Winter League January
2011	General	Western AC 30 years
2011	Road running	Road Races 2011
2011	General	Santa Dash
2011	Fell running	St Johns Fell Race

No return to Sunderland for cross country

I don't suppose I added anything new when I prepared the feature on Keith Gerrard's national cross country title defence in Sunderland last night. It was a case of recycling previous photos and videos but not everyone had seen them before.

Its 20 years since my one and only appearance in the National Cross Country, at Parliament Hill in London, and I was tempted to go back this year when it is held in Sunderland.

I have run in Sunderland before. It was back in 2008 along the coast that you can see from the photo above on a glorious June morning. We had two trips there that year when we had hoped to get Robbie into a specialist college, but it was not to be. Nor was my return trip to Sunderland this year.

As it is, Robbie is on the agenda today as we have a meeting to review his progress at lunchtime and even without any local athletics this weekend I have plenty to do.

I didn't make any progress at all on the archives last night after attending a budget seminar, wasting time watching football on TV whilst also listening to local politics on the local radio. A heard a few own goals but they weren't on the TV.

Looking forward to hearing that Keith has achieved his own goal tomorrow and brings the trophy back to the Isle of Man.

on the 9th day of archiving....

I'm nearly back two years.

Listing all of the archive pages on the front page seemed a bit too much now and I decided to move them to the new archive page but also to embed that page in a window through which you can scroll on the front page. Once I had this working I replicated it for the fixtures page.

Hope tat you like the changes. I am discovering all sorts of content I had forgotten I had published although it worries me that I cannot possibly continue to publish as many different things for ever and a day.

For now, I look forward to day 10. Sort of!

"my aim is not to finish otherwise it's pointless"

Mo Farah is a role model. But a role model shouldn't be saying things like the above.

I didn't see the athletics from Birmingham yesterday, I've just picked the quote up from the BBCIplayer as I sit down to watch the coverage now.

For about thirty seconds this morning I thought the London Marathon was going to have an extra treat for me when I saw the headline in the papers.

I'm going to be watching the London Marathon for the first time since (I think) 2004 and the lineup up of world class marathon runners trying to win the most competitive marathon in the world is something to make the mouth water. For someone to be paid more than any of them to drop out at half way is just wrong and is the sort of celebrity coverage that I despise.

If he wants to run and wave to the crowds ahead of the race - fine. But he shouldn't hijack the real race coverage.

It was a nice day here today and I got out and about - I certainly didn't go and sit on the fence!

I  felt the same a couple of weeks ago. I have bought the Independent newspaper since it launched in 1986 - I have probably bought more than 90% of all editions. When I picked up the paper on 1 February and looked at the back page first (as all sports enthusiasts surely do!) I was astounded to find a lack of meaningful sports coverage but instead there were three pages about a "has been" footballer who has signed for a French club so that he can earn millions of pounds promoting the owner's country afterwards. And he was on page one and page three as well. A letter was hastily despatched to the editor concluding with: "the switch to tabloid size printing was welcome; the switch to "tabloid" journalism is not."

Read this:

http://www.virginlondonmarathon.com/news-and-media/news-and-media/press-release-25-01-13-best-ever-field-assembled-2/

These guys have the aim of finishing otherwise it will pointless.

As mad as it gets

The other week when I was stuck up a mountain trying to take photos users fingers without any feeling I thought it was as mad as it got.

Then I started reorganising the manxathletics.com website. I have spent another 2 hours on it working flat out tonight and only managed another 31 pages - I don't want to do my sums.

But I am looking to climbing mountains on Saturday again. See you there.

I didn't plan that

My main aim, after I finished scanning all of my Race Walking Record collection, was to organise the archive files. More of the behind the scenes thing than anything.

But in for a penny, in for a pound - I started to redesign the whole site tonight. And its up and running.

Unorthodox warm down

Using the word "warm" in any report of today's final round of the Microgaming Isle of Man Cross Country today is a bit incongruous. It was bitterly cold running through the muddiest and wettest cross country ever to be held at the Crossags Farm course.

But convention says that you should do some light exercise after the hard version to gradually ease down. I decided to skip mine, well not literally, but ended up doing something equally unusual.

Gianni Epifani's car had broken down and a group of runners, including winner Andy Barron, ended up pushing G's car to try and bump start it before admitting defeat.

In my case, it actually helped me warm up, not warm down. I had my usual problem with circulation in my hands and feet and is was some time after getting showered at home before the full feeling returned to my toes.

In the interim, I was hoping that my car didn't let me down as I feared I had made a mistake driving over the mountain road. There was a heavy covering of snow for a couple of miles before reaching the Black Hut. The roads were then clear for a mile or so before the snow returned on the road between the Bungalow and Hailwood's Heights.

Thanks as always to the organising club, in this case Northern AC, and the team who coordinate the entries and results.

I didn't take any cameras with me today but I'm looking forward to seeing those photos that were taken. If anyone has a couple that I could publish, please email murray@manxathletics.com

Remember the Lido and other related stories

I was standing on the dance floor at the Palace Lido talking to friends last night. My word it was cold.

Isle of Man residents will know, of course, that the floor of the Palace Lido has long been the car park for the Palace cinema but it used to be almost as cold inside as out in the winter at the Lido in any event.

I was pointing out where the stage had been and how I had seen bands such as ELO, Hawkwind, Status Quo, Queen, Mungo Jerry, Thin Lizzy and many more.

A further reality check would be to recall that even in those days the venue was a shadow of the days when it had seen the Rolling Stones and the Who perform. That was in 60s when I was too young to attend such concerts but I was buying a shed load of records - at least there was where they ended up until I digitalised them all a few years ago.

One of the the bands I used to follow was the Troggs. Not just because I liked the band but because they came from Andover where my father had grown up.

It was nearly 30 years later that I  saw the Troggs as part of the Solid Gold 60s Tour at the Villa Marina. Reg Presley's song, Love is All Around, had not long been at number 1 for a record 15 weeks when recorded by Wet Wet Wet.

When Reg introduced it on stage he asked had anyone seen the story in one of the tabloid newspapers that he had earned something like half a million quid in royalties. There was a muted reaction as people expected him to complain that he had not seen a penny. Instead he punched the air and said: "its f***ing true. I'm rich."

He died yesterday. Not that it was unexpected by all accounts but still sad for those of us with memories of the 60s pop scene. Heard a nice collection of the Trogg's hits on Manx Radio as we returned from Ramsey this evening - more physio for the dog.

The Palace Lido used to be behind the Palace Hotel. Photo 2006 from Douglas Head

Lincoln sitty

I was reminded tonight about why I retired from marathon running. Two and half hours in a cinema seat made my knee pretty sore.

It was a good film although the Lincoln sitty didn't bring many laughs - not like the scorers for Hartlepool on Saturday - Hartley & Poole.

Bit of a rush before we went out tonight so there is only going to the briefest of updates tonight to promote the content of one of the other sites.

Walk without a camera

I took the photo of Parish Walk history author Dermot O'Toole at the Up & Running Winter League Walk this morning. Good to see Dermot smiling even though, or perhaps because of, the list of tasks that he assigns to me is getting added to without me ever getting any done!

Unlike the previous round at the NSC, my cameras behaved and I uploaded the photos pretty smartly afterwards (in fact someone has just ordered some now). The problem was that I left the SD card from the camera in my computer.

Marie came up with a good choice of walk for a stroll this afternoon. "Why don't we go up that path by Greeba Castle through the plantation that you say you have never done." We did but I missed the chance to take any photos when I took the camera out of the car to discover the lack of facility to store digital photos.

And as we walked back to the car after a lovely walk I missed the chance to take photos of Barry Moore leading a running group through Greeba.

I'm going back to that walk next weekend. I'll take my camera next time and maybe it is time I kept a small SD card as a spare in the car.

Couldn't be much different to last week

I've been walking around Port St Mary with Robbie this morning and the views from the car on the way back back towards the mountains, where I stood covered in mist almost at this time last week, were stunning.

The scenery in Port St Mary wasn't too bad either.