Hot

On Saturday morning I caught sight of a group of race walkers passing our cottage and I went out to give them "a shout". To my surprise, four times Parish Walk winner Jock Waddington, joint record holders Richard Gerrard and Vinny Lynch, and Dave Walker turned around and stopped to chat.

With the exception of Dave, who will be on a family holiday at the time, they are all racing on the Tower Insurance 100 miles four weeks later and with the Manx Telecom Parish Walk only two weeks earlier, they could not achieve much on their training walk other than ticking over.

I published a photo of John Cannell on the home page this morning. He is one of the walkers I am sure could have gone a lot faster in the Parish Walk had he placed as much emphasis on it as he did on his 100 mile and 50km events in the UK. I raise the question, how good are the the current stars compared to JC's 17 hours 10 minutes? But its almost a case of role reversal as it will be very hard for the fastest of the PW entrants, Richard Gerrard, to reproduce his form six weeks later.

One way or another, it will be a hot pace at the NSC and the guys I spoke to did not seem worried about the multi lap course.

Hot is a very short description of my day. We're chilling out in York and not even moved the car from the basement car park yet. The sixth floor flat where we are staying went on the market last week and its a hot price of £649k!

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/homes/property_news/10512277.Penthouse_at_Westgate_Apartments_in_York_city_centre/

View as I write - time to fill that glass!