Going backwards

I'm still not quite sure why I started to compile another event database at the weekend. I guess it was the frustration and interest generated by finding that the website listing the winners of the Isle of Man Marathon had an error in the very first year. It was the uncertainty of past data that first motivated me to start compiling such list and it was a case of "here we go again".

The most recent years were a lot easier to put together as they were available on the www.manxtimingsolutions.com site and with some of the skills I have learned I was able to manipulate the data to the format I required. After all these years though I am still far from an expert with pivot tables in Excel.

I'm going to work my way backwards through the year. I have gone back to 1995 and have the 1993 and 1994 results from newspaper cuttings on my desk.

I went back ever further on Saturday night. We went to watch the Douglas Choral Union's production of Tommy. We enjoyed it so much that we went back the following evening.

It was 1969 that the "Rock Opera" Tommy was released and 2011 when the Who's lead vocalist Roger Daltrey performed the music at the Villa Marina. I managed to get a photo with Simon Townshend, brother of Pete who wrote Tommy, who was in Roger's band, in the Villa gardens.

But I've also gone backwards in other ways by ignoring the signs of a cold this weekend and carrying on running. There is no way I can run today and not looking forward to going away on a business trip tomorrow - just going back.