No Oktoberfest this year

If you don't like large glasses of beer, lots of food (particularly pork) and loud repetitive music then there is not much point in going to the Oktoberfest. Oh, and you have to stand on the tables to drink/eat/listen. I even came off the wagon after five months last year to enjoy a day there as a treat from my employers for the second year.

I was originally scheduled to go there tomorrow but that was long called off as times became harder. Today has felt like being part of a crew that sailed a ship through rough waters but even the captain was ill before reaching dry land.

I'm hoping that tomorrow will be a better day. Instead of sobering up (as with the last couple of "last Thursdays in September") I am planning to spend an hour or two on the website tomorrow evening.

Don't get out much

Since starting work for a small family office in Ballasalla just over a couple of years ago I don't very often get invited to functions so it was nice to be a guest at the West Corporation 40th birthday celebration at the Claremont tonight.

The events of the day were quite eventful and one when I needed to conclude with a drink or three. I've just spent an hour on the computer but it was for my day job and so I am passing on the website tonight.

I could delve in my archives and publish yet another picture from my catologue. But so could many of you on the forum if you add one of your own oldies. Get searching!

Island at its best again

What an incredible three weeks or so of fine weather we have had. What strikes me, and I am sure that Adrian will soon tell me if the facts do not back my observation, is not the mild weather for the time of the year but the lack of wind on most days.

I was really pleased that I made the effort to reschedule things and get to the fell race yesterday. The scenery was breathtaking again and I think I captured some of the best bits, although I did make a couple of mistakes with the video camera. I also had to do quite a bit of running around to get as many people into my shots as I did because I would typically move to one position only for the next runner to appear on a completely different line, I would move to that one and then the next runner would revert to route 1.

I'm sorry that I missed Sarah Curphey, who won the women's race, from the photos but I must have left before she reached me. In an effort to tell the story of the race before the results were published I had assumed that Rose Hooton (pictured above) was the winner. Whilst I understand the idea of allowing some of the slower runners the chance to start early and not to become too isolated, I think that the opposite must have happened on Saturday as Sarah appears to have run on her own throughout the race even though she was only two and five minutes faster than the second and third runners who started early.

I was rather pleased with the snap of Simon Skillicorn, who won the race, which is featured on the front page. I hope that you also like it as it will stay there a bit longer!

I was already completely knackered when I went out yesterday afternoon and my tiredness made it difficult for me to deal with further computer problems when I was trying to edit the video especially I was listening to news that my football team were loosing (after a 24 match unbeaten run it is hard to cope with that!).

I tinkered with the fell race coverage throughout the evening and I was very late getting to bed after having to collect Robbie from a big night out. I wanted to get out to enjoy this weather this afternoon and we ended up walking over parts of the new years day fell running course. Not that I have any plans to run in any fell races - as I observed this afternoon, I can't run up long hills very well these days and I was always rubbish at running down!

But the point is I am too tired to set about any major rehash of the site tonight. I only have a finite amount of energy and work and training tomorrow morning are going to consume the next batch.

Don't forget to click down through the links to other club websites for the news as well as sharing your skeet on the forum.

The memories all came back by the Quarter Bridge

Laxey Fell Race 30 years ago: Murray Lambden (runner up), winner Steve Kelly and third placed Martin Hudson.

I left work at Ballasalla this evening after a hectic couple of days and starting thinking about the weekend. As I drove through the village I thought that if I went running even earlier than normal tomorrow morning, and I started cleaning at the cottage immediately thereafter (the outgoing guests are leaving on a morning plane) then perhaps (with a bit of reorganising) I could make it to the fell race tomorrow afternoon to take some film and some video.

As I reached the Blackboards (I was about to turn off for the Old Castletown Road to call to see our guests before they left) I realised that it was 30 years ago in the Laxey Fell Race that I had what was probably my best ever fell race.

Earlier in 1979 I had made my commitment as a race walker and had got my due rewards with a big PB the previous week in the TT Walk (about 6.04 I think). After recovering from that I decided to run in Laxey and on Thursday night I did my only training - but it was up one of the sharpest climbs in the Isle of Man. I ran through Ballalona and up to the summit of Slieau Freoaghane.

As a drove up and down the hills of the Old Castletown Road I remembered the hugely competitive race I enjoyed with Steve Kelly, who was running 2.27 marathons at the time, and Martin Hudson, a top UK fell runner. We chopped and changed places but Steve got away in the last couple of miles whilst I held Martin off.

As I got out of the car at the cottage I expected to be stiff (as I relived my dream) and barely able to move. Because that was how I was for the rest of the week in 1979. The stiffest I have ever been in any race in my life, I recalled.

But when I got back into the car and drove the final stretch of the Old Castletown Road and up to the Road Island Roundabout I was sure the car started to thud as other memories came back. Surely I was worse with my first Parish Walk in 1976 when I walked on stage with a walking stick.

And as the traffic ground to a halt at the Quarter Bridge I remembered walking to work (in Douglas in those days) the day after running 2.45.01 in Cardiff the day after my 50th birthday three years ago. My usual 10 minute stroll became 25 minutes.

As I took my turn to face the two extremes of Manx drivers at roundabouts (those that sit and have a picnic and those that think giving way to the right gives them licence to put their foot down 30 yards before they even reach the roundabout) I realised that I could call all three of them my worst - for fell running, walking and road running.

I'm going to choose my music for tomorrow now. I can't face my email.

Amuse yourself with the forum

I'm unlikely to do very much with the site tomorrow.

Such as the relative success of my revived early morning running in recent weeks that I have lost the opportunity to do much in the morning (other than during my first 10 minutes of web access whilst building up to by pre-training ritual).

I am going to be out of the office tomorrow lunchtime on a family commitment and I have work commitments that are going to take me right through to late in the evening.

So if you have not previously done so, its a good time to start sharing your thoughts about the sport on the new forum.

I'll check out any new registrations a couple of times during the day. Incidentally, I get a lot more information about user access with the new system and I can see that (after a slow start) people are visiting more and more frequently. More than half of the registered users have logged in today and more than 75% in the past 48 hours. What is more, the number of people logging on three or more times a day is increasing.

But most of you are still quite shy!

3 in one tonight

I wanted to get started early tonight because, although I have had to put off fixing my main computer, I have another written job to do unrelated to sport but actually more important.

I decided to feature the top 10 female finishers in the End to End Walk as quite a few of them have not featured here before. That was the most time consuming bit trawling through the pictures to get them as varied as possible. Although the ones on the coast road have the best scenery, I didn't want them all from the same place.

Top of the bill is the late James Coulson who is missed so much by so many people.

I've also published a photo of Bethany Clague in the 24 hour race to add to the one of Ben Scott at the finish. I have some more from Nigel Armstrong which I will use later in the week.

Didn't feel like communicating

From my side of things, everything went seamlessly for the End to End Walk. Eventually.

Although I just missed the leaders at Bride (my intended first stop) I took more than 800 photos and got more than an hour of video "in the can".

Using Manx Telecom's ADSL2 broadband service I uploaded all the photos in about 40 minutes including changing the file names and creating smaller copies of each one for uploading. If anyone notices that each file name has the superfluous word "church" in it, this relates to my previous use of the camera when I took two sets of photos at a wedding - one at the reception and the other at the church. When I edited the file name by adding a difference prefix to the last use and changing the date, I failed to delete the word church in the file name.

I started editing the video at lunchtime and returned to it the evening. The edited versions raced up the line compared to previous speeds.

That was technology working at its best, although it was a good job that I have a laptop as well as a desktop. The latter (or my network) let me down big time on Saturday and I spent hours virus testing, going back to restore points, forking out on registry clean up software all to no avail. I shall be returning to the task of fixing the network (the wireless works fine) tonight.

The difficulty of working on a laptop when nearly all my files are elsewhere tested (and failed) my patience and it was a contributory factor in not doing any work on the site last night. It was good to have some visitors too, one of them being Nigel Armstrong with photos and stories from Keswick.

Now that I started resumed my communication I shall try to maintain it. I just hope my computer wants to communicate as much as I do.