Fastest Northern AC athlete and one of the people who helped him

We have friends arriving for the TT on Sunday evening and they've watched all of the TT TV programmes and I had not watched any. So I started with the Conor Cummins special. Boy has he shown determination to get back where he is.

I read that he had been circuit training with Northern AC and I have some photos of him (as above) in their club colours in the 2006 Millennium Way Relay.

I've only spoken with him once and that was at my uncle's funeral.

Kenyon Crowe was one of those people who liked to help without making a big fuss but I know that Conor appreciated every penny of support. On one occasion when he called into see Kenyon he stayed the whole morning chatting.

Quite how many sports people Kenyon supported over the years we'll never know but I was one, although I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. The photo above is from the Millennium Baton Relay when Kenyon ran a short leg through his birth place of Kirk Michael, and handed the message from the Queen to meet to take as fas as Bishopscourt.

Weather forecast spot on

Whilst chatting to one of our visitors on Saturday, he said that Manx weather forecasts had not improve much over the years.

I could not agree less. I find it amazing that we could plan our long weekend so well because of the weather. Rather than go for our traditional bank holiday walk we opted for a day out yesterday and a day in today when the weather was known to be bad.

We headed for Ballaglass yesterday and then went down the path to Cornaa and back the long way on the road to the Ballaglass car park. We even visited somewhere he had not been before - Cashtal Yn Ard burial site.

Some selected photos before and the whole set are at http://isleofman.in/maughold2013

Just remember that I uplifted the whole set including a couple with Marie in, which I am not allowed to do, so I shall remove them now.

Martin home

I'm pleased to say that Martin is back from Broadgreen and is well given the circumstances of a mild heart attack earlier in the week.

Beautiful day

I was out for run at around 7 am this morning. Little more than a jog, a went down along the prom and round Onchan Head. And it was beautiful, The tide was out; the Mannanan was departing and there was another ship in the harbour.

There was evidence of the arrival of TT fans with bikes parked and fans chatting in the sunshine. My only grumpy old man complaint was the camper vans that park at the far end of the promenade, and on Onchan Head.

Out to the cottage until 4 then back into the sun with Robbie for a walk.

First time in more than 20 years

I didn't attend a single event in the Dave Phillips Memorial Road Races this year, the first time in more than 20 years. I intended to go to St Johns to take photos this evening but I was a little later coming home work and the phone was ringing and the question came into my head - why? Its been an eventful week outside of sport and why was I worrying about attending?

I can't pretend that I thought it was a good idea to organise five handicap races in less than two months when there are so many other events on at the same time the year but after attending the series for the past couple of decades, first through the streets of Peel, then on the Poortown Road and latterly at St Johns, I felt obliged to go at least once but I'm still not sure why.

I've long championed handicap races where novices are given a warm welcome and serious runners can take a break from their training and chase after them. Is this still what we are doing?

Robbie Lambie, Paul Trees and Mike Garrett start outside Peel Camp Site in June 2002

Nobles Car Park this morning

Three out of four

We timed our short walk to the House of Keys election to perfection this evening arriving just a few minutes before the result was announced. Just time for a bit of banter with photographer Mike Wade and we were in. Here is the video:



I spoke to three of the candidates afterwards and I felt bad as I obviously only voted for one - in fact for all they knew I might have voted for the fourth person.

Clive Dawson was at school with me and possibly had the longest journey in the Island when his father took on the Jurby Hotel and he travelled to school in Douglas before switching to Ramsey Grammar School.

The successful candidate, Chris Thomas, ran in the Easter Festival (above) and has plans to complete a triathlon. His wife, Tania, is a more frequent competitor in the fell and trail races as well as the Easter Festival.

Quintin Gill has walked as far as Rushen in the Parish Walk on three occasions. I felt sorry for him on his walk home tonight.

Martin delayed

Martin was due to be transferred by air ambulance to Liverpool today but the flight was cancelled due to the windy conditions. He hopes to make it tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.

Pussy footing around

Milky, the cat belonging to David and Gail Griffiths, has been found.

Get well soon Martin

My elder brother Martin is currently in the Coronary Care Unit at Nobles Hospital after suffering a suspected minor heart attack.

Martin was Chairman of Boundary Harriers when they merged with Manx Athletic Club and became the first Chairman of Manx Harriers. He has been on the organising committee of the Parish Walk ever since.

He won the Parish Walk in 1988 and competed in walking and running events for several years in his late 30s. He is proud to have beaten Steve Kelly, who became a running legend on the Isle of Man, during their final school cross country race together only to be out sprinted by Steve Higgins on Somerset Road.

Martin was in good form when I saw him at lunchtime today and is awaiting transfer to Liverpool probably to have a stent inserted. Although he ignored the initial warning signs, thinking he had indigestion, he was "persuaded" by his wife Gill to visit the GP yesterday where he was immediately sent to A&E.

He let me take a photo in hospital but asked me not to publish it on any websites. So I have to revert to one from Easter.

Get well soon Martin. I'm going to Bar George to drink to that.

Rollercoaster

We all have plenty of ups and downs as parents and last night we intended just to "chill out" on one of those highs with the news that Ben had successfully completed six years of study (his five year medical training was broken with a separate one year course in Denmark).

But we were soon tumbling down the other side of the rollercoaster again with news of a family illness on which I'll report later.

There were two things of note when I was out running earlier. Its another windy day on the Isle of Man and  more and more of the infrastructure for the TT is being put in place. The TT signage is in competition with election adverts around here - its only 24 hours (and a few minutes) until the polls open for the Douglas West bye-election.

Proud day today

Marie and I are very proud to announce that Ben is now Doctor Lambden. He can't escape without a few photos!

Top: being pushed by Robbie in the Lake District.

Second: Martin & Gill's wedding, Kirk Michael 1994.

Third: London 2004

Bottom: Christmas 2012, the last time we saw him.

Wow its speeded up

Took a break to watch the Job Lot and the internet has speeded up........

Catching up

Newspapers, emails and scanning. Catching up with that lot has used up most of my spare time in the past couple of days.

Except for a lovely few hours yesterday afternoon catching up, mainly with old school friends, at a house warming party just up the way at Tennis Road.

I wish the internet would catch up with its advertised speed. I am currently suffering one of those annoying dips when I am achieving just over 1% of the "up to" rate.

Imagine if you bought a car that was supposed to reach 100 mph and sometimes it only went at 1%. I guess the argument is that is what happens when you hit too much traffic

Eurovision

I voted for Lithuania, Romania would have been worth a vote too.

Did you hear that David Beckham was going to take part but found out he couldn't vote for himself?

I saw Bonnie Tyler play in Peel, I mean sing not play football.

Best park

I've just spent an hour doing some tidying up of camera cards where I had miscellaneous photos scattered all over the place. I hadn't realised that I had taken Robbie to the Mooragh Park to run quite as many times as I had but it seems that we have been there five times since March.

I didn't expect to take him last night but he was determined to go despite his illness this week. I couldn't quite catch him in the handicap race. He looked around and saw me coming. We finished 25th and 27th with Kevin Deakes between us.

I had enough to think about last night without a camera but I wish I had taken one as the scene was fantastic looking down on the park as we did a warm up whilst the youngsters were lining up for their race. The park was in great shape and there were over 140 people taking part in the runs last night.

I commented yesterday on the differences between Douglas and Ramsey's park. Here is one of the other photos I retrieved from my camera card.

Not had breakfast yet and getting late to start my weekend job in half an hour.

Not much Bloom in Nobles

That great benefactor, Henry Bloom Noble, left many things to the people of Douglas including a wonderful park where once visitors would spend a day playing tennis, bowls, pitch & putt, bowls and putting. School children would play rugby and football. There was a cricket pitch.

Gradually the facilities have been eroded. After all who needs a car park if you can use that for something else and then park on the grass fields? This morning, as I ran through,  I discovered that half of the main field has been taken over by Snooze Boxes - where the TT fans will stay if they can't find other accommodation.

The Mooragh Park in Ramsey, by contrast, has retained much more of its Victorian charm and that is where I shall be tonight for the second round of the Park Runs. I intended to take Robbie, but he is ill, so I might have my third race in nine days.

If I was a modern day Mr Noble, I would buy up Kirby Park near the Quarter Bridge and open that up to the people.

I saw some of it last night from the TT access road whilst I was taking photos of the 5km walk.

I thought it was nine years since I stepped out in that race but it was only seven. I'm feeling a bit sheepish that I can't remember my own statistics.

Results driven marketing

For the past couple of years, if we switch the radio on and tune in for the morning news, we are told about "results driven marketing". Can the turnover of the advertiser's  clients really have improved by the same amount last year as they were telling us last year they had increased the year before?

But perhaps there is a message there very close to home. We should be marketing our sport by results. It doesn't matter how many photos or videos that I publish, the most important thing for people to see are the results. We don't seem to be particularly good at marketing by results at the moment..

I've been in the other room

You know what its like when there's a party in the house. The badly behaved kids have got together and you just want to escape and have a bit of peace.

Well I've escaped from that tonight. The invites went out five and half months ago to join the party that is the Parish Walk. Most people are really settling into the party but then the excessive noise started. It only takes a few minutes to say "yes please" to the party (or enter the walk) whilst the organisers spend hours of their time, without being paid, to prepare it all for the kids. But the kids come knocking on the door anyway and a handful make more noise than all the polite guests put together.

So I moved into a quieter  room in the house tonight and got away from the kids and closed down Outlook for a few hours to ensure they could not be heard.  I headed out to the Carraghan Fell Race and four and a half hours later I have just finished the video. The only problem was that by the end of the evening, just when I realised that I had not been fed for nine hours, my computer was fed up with being fed with every bit of data I could throw  at it and said it too needed some space. My hard drive was completely full and the applications were running slower than I did into the wind on the track last week.

I had to resort to a bit of bad practice and moved all of my 2012 videos from my computer to an external drive that is supposed to be used only for backups.

You may have different ideas about peace and quiet when you hear the soundtrack on the video (currently half an hour away).

So make the most of the peace. I'll probably be back in the other room tomorrow night. Or I could listen to some nice local politicians or I could watch some expensive footballers.

There was certainly no hanging around after the fell race this evening. By the time the cameraman got back to the start/finish there was hardly anyway around. I believe that some of them might be close to where I write - at the Woodbourne Hotel. The  Outlook for me isn't so bright.

Evening in Peel; morning in Ramsey

We enjoyed a meal at Harbour Lights in Peel before the walk through the town to the Centenary Centre.

Gareth Gates in not among my favourite artists but he is good performer and a genuine sort of person. Lots of smiling before the grimacing returns at the Northern 10 Miles in the morning.

Just poured a massive cup of tea and read about the destination of that other cup. Wigan just need three points now.

What's your name?

There were only two runners at the Mooragh Park this morning.

One was called Robbie Lambden; the other was Robbie Lambie. And neither have common names. Well not their surnames anyway!

Always worth the effort in the end

I had my grumpy head on last night. I wanted to tackle some of the mound of paperwork that had accumulated at home whilst I have spent too much of the last few weeks working out how many times Joe Bloggs had finished the Parish Walk. Or whether it was the same Joe Bloggs who entered in 1823.

You know the type of letter from the bank. They are improving their service to their customers - by no longer paying interest. I even had a letter from one section of a government department telling me that I should register a business name and when I tried to with another section of the same department they told me that I couldn't because I didn't own the domain name. In this island of high IT skills it wasn't possible to check a domain ownership.

Anyway, 11 pm came and I was glad when I popped out to the letterbox with all pressing matters complete. Its always worth it in the end.

Just like last year when I spent an afternoon at the museum researching the missing results from the Northern 10 miles. I compiled most of the database about 10 years ago and had some of the early results in my scrapbooks but most of the 90s were missing. Northern AC did not have any record of the results.

Its 30 years since the first Northern 10 and I will be publishing some of my statistics at lunchtime.

The grumpy head will probably be back tonight as I will go straight from work to the cottage. Our guests this week were not suited to country life and have left early so I have an opportunity to prepare early again and have more time to do some other things this weekend.

Now was Joe Bloggs who got to Andreas in 1948 the same one who got to Bride last year?

Something is wrong

"Four laps to go" shouted David. And then Judy shouted out my personal best time for 10,000 metres on the road. Four laps later I was the Manx track champion.

Something is wrong. Even running as slowly as I did last night, I still got a kick out of winning but really, a 56 year old wreck wheezing his way to being called Manx Champion.

It was unfortunate that the track 10k could not be held during TT week as normal and a number of potential entrants were holding back for the Northern 10 miles on Sunday. Quite sensible too as in a small community we ought to be able to come up with a fixture list which avoids clashes.

Its not easy to run 25 laps on the track. Its not easy for the enlightened to try and work the fixtures into shape. Its a lot easier just to race over and over again than to leave gaps for meaningful training.

But something is right too. There were three times as many officials as runners last night. They called out every lap time and offered drinks. I even left with a sheet of paper recording every lap time.

We have brilliant officials. Let's spend their time sensibly.

Delighted that I ran over 40 minutes in 2007

I feel obliged to support the 10,000 metre track race tonight as I campaigned to have it re-instated a few years ago and have run most of those on offer in the last 21 years. But I haven't raced for two months and there is nothing in my training to suggest I will even get close to the time I did then on the NSC roadway.

So I was resigned to running a personal worst. I may still do but at least I have a chance of avoiding it. I had an awful race in 2007 at the time I (later realised) was suffering from exercise induce asthma. It was only two years earlier that I won the event and a year later, six weeks into my morning training regime, I got back under 36 minutes. Seems a long time ago now.

Here are my times since 2005:

2005 - 35.11
2006 - 37.19.9
2007 - 40.02.8
2008 - 35.51.0
2009 - did not enter
2010 - 36.12.0
2011 - 38.50.7
2012 - 37.53.4

I hope that as many people as possible will come and beat me tonight as I don't want to be trudging around on my own!

Rain stopped play

I was out at a function at the Claremont Hotel after work last night and by the time I caught up with Marie's day there was not much time left for websites.

I have started to upload two video files containing David Griffiths's recording of the Northern League match at the National Sports Centre on Sunday.

Otherwise, a bit of a washout like the weather. There will be a forecast at lunchtime.

Clearing the mist

I started a task this morning that I agreed to take on yesterday but put it aside as soon as Marie was ready to go out for a bank holiday walk. We walked from Port Erin along the cliffs to the Sound, had lunch, then walked back and had "pudding" at the Cosy Nook on Port Erin prom. We met loads of people to talk to and didn't worry about the things we might do when we got back home.

The mist cleared nicely between our departure from and return to Port Erin today. Now I need to get my head equally clear to finish writing an article for the Manx Telecom Parish Walk programme.

An unusual running injury

You know how some idiots park their four wheel drives partially blocking the pavements? I went through the small gap that remained on my run this morning in one such case and caught my hand on the wing mirror. I've often been tempted to knock someone's mirror off in such cases; it wasn't planned today.

With a few more hours to spare than normal this weekend I've just used a couple by catching up on some of my sleep. Planning to spend another couple of the NSC watching and taking photos of the Northern League. Looking forward to it.

TV without the pictures

I left the cottage nice and clean at 2 pm today without using the TV.  I wish I had turned it on as I was unaware that the final matches of the Football Championships had kicked off at 12.45. I followed the last 30 minutes or so on Sky's Soccer Saturday at home and even without any shots of the actual football it was incredibly exciting.

I, like many other people, feel that athletics has lost out to the general public too often in recent years as football has dominated the media. But for the second Saturday in a row it was hard to find sport that was more exciting. I'll turn the TV on sooner next week.

Timetable

Can anyone help me find the timetable for the Northern League tomorrow? I'm told its on this site but I can'[t find it.

http://www.noeaa-athletics.org.uk/Pages/Article.aspx?id=266

Off road

I'm still continuing what just about passes as road running in the mornings but tonight I went slightly off road.

For me, this weekend is the  first of six weekends cleaning the cottage. As things stand, we are empty the week before the Parish Walk so I can prepare for the arrivals that day in advance. We've been empty for the past couple of weeks too which I one of the reasons I made such efforts in the past week to get the parishwalk.com site up to date as it will get harder to find the time now. We only have two weeks free between now and the middle of September.

I had a headache when I left work but with some extra jobs at the cottage this weekend I had to make a start tonight. So I spent most of the time in the garden and I'd like to think we have some of the cleanest pavements on the Isle of Man.

Most people like the Isle of Man when they get here and whilst travelling to Port Soderick I heard the preview of the Manx Hockey Festival - still a lot of people travel here for that. Not quite the funniest moment in an old episode of Mrs Brown when we were watching off Sky+ later when the Isle of Man was mentioned as an extremely modest place to get a holiday away from grandad.

Visitors to the Isle of Man certainly had plenty of chances to get off the road and on to the track. Amazingly, there were seven return trains from Douglas to Port Erin. And the visitors will be back on track on Sunday for the first Northern League match on the Isle of Man for eight years.

Photos highs and lows

There is obviously no higher point in the Isle of Man than the top of Snaefell and its usually the high of my photography year too - provided the clouds are not down. There are so many different backdrops to choose and sometimes I end up running ahead of the competitors to get more than one of them.

A few runners go around the west side of the building near the summit while most go east. I had a notion that Lloyd Taggart was someone who went on the west and so after I had deposited a video camera on a tripod right on the summit on Saturday I walked around the west side to take up a camera shot looking down towards the Black Hut direction. In the meantime Lloyd went east and so I missed him.

And when I look back on my photos I see that he went that way last year and the year before anyway. Oh well here is one of second paced man Tom Cringle with Ramsey in the distance.

Such a shame that I missed an opportunity to snap Lloyd in his prime with a prime background. One of my photo low points from a photo high point.