Between the dentist and the concert

I was at the Parish Walk 50th celebration last night and up early this morning to start editing the video that I took, hence less than five hours sleep last night.

It wasn't easy to force myself out of bed but I'm quite pleased with the first video that I have published. I got that done before going out for my morning run at my usual time. My run went quite well and I have just got to get through one more longish run tomorrow to complete a very tough couple of months training before "resting" in the form of sleep deprevevation on Saturday night! I'm in much better form for than before the London Marathon as I head towards Amsterdam in October.

Marie has been ill since her car crash last Friday and although she got back to work yesterday afternoon she wasn't up to going with my last night but I came back armed with loads of messages for her. Hopefully she will be well enough to go with me tonight to the Jools Holland concert. But I have a return visit to the dentist before that and how much more of my video and photos I sort through will depend mainly on this short interval...but I have to eat too!

20 years later

I've spent the evening on Parish Walk stuff because it is the last evening I have free to let everyone who what I am doing for the site. I'm out for the next two nights.

I thought I would provoke a bit of discussion about the football by seeing if I could find a picture from Slovenia which we had two great holidays in 1988 and 1990 when it was still part of Yugoslavia.

Alas I could not find a photo from those years but I did find a connection. I thought 1988 was the only year that I had missed the Parish Walk (then I remembered 1977) but that was the year that brother Martin won. I remember phoning him from Slovenia (you see there is the link) to find out how he got on (it was rare to make long distance calls like that in those days) and he told me his time. "That would put you well up" I ventured. "What do you mean well up" he retorted as brothers do. "I won". Did he have the look of a Parish Walk winner 20 years earlier? Double click the photo to see what you think!

Today's publication

I've add the course map and a new website for Laa Columb Killey, thanks to Adrian Cowin.

The Parish Walk 50th celebration and the Oompah Night Island Games fundraising night have been moved off the front page but are still linked there.

A number of other recent features have had their links archived to the Features page. That is all for today.

So many good intentions

I starting off this evening by clipping the newspaper articles on athletics for the past three months but I never got as far as scanning them. I have been doing one job after another (non website related) to try and clear the decks but I have failed miserably, even to update the PW site as intended. Although I am frustrated, it is nights like these that allow me to devote other nights to the site.

I'm also receiving time wasting emails - everything from "can i still enter the Parish Walk?" to people who continue to try and add user names to the forum such as ABC123 in contravention of my "real name" policy and moan that they do not get approved as users.

The sun won

Judging by the number of people with red faces, necks and arms it seems that many people were caught out by the sun at the weekend and caught a bit of it.

But in the Isle of Man Children Centre's fund raising event, Race the Sun, the runners well and truly beat the sunlight hours with a record breaking winning performance.

I have just linked to the results page at http://www.manxtimingsolutions.com/Results/2010/2010_ResultsMain.htm

but unfortunately you can't see the individual performances as the team name is listed on all the split times rather than the names of the runners.

It was the daughters rather than the sons that caught the headlines off island. I published photos of two of the successful athletes, Harriet Pryke and Gail Griffiths, and linked to the reports on the forum only to then read about another star performance from Lauren Whelan.

Two cars since 1991

Jonathan Leece was the only person to respond to information about the athletes in the track opening photo from 1991 and I have just published them.

What a beautiful night in Ramsey tonight. Fewer runners than usual but I suspect anyone who stayed at home to watch the football would have wished they hadn't.

I whizzed it through on Sky+ - my only regret was not using a faster fast forward speed. What an appalling match.

I then joined Marie at A&E where she was waiting to get some medication for some whiplash injuries. She was waiting at the end of Albany Street Lane at lunchtime today when someone decided to re-tune the radio in his van in preference to steering it and veered into the side of her. It could be the end of our Toyota Avensis (the first of its type on the Island just over 7 years ago) which was worth more to us than it is to the insurance company. It replaced the car we bought in 1991, a few weeks after the track opening photo when the Mark 3 Vauxhall Astra was new.

Waddington 3, 4 & 5

Its only just over a week until the Scottish Widows Parish Walk and several "in the know" have suggested that Jock Waddington will make it three wins in a row. More about that next week.

The night before last I stayed at the Waddington Arms in the delightful village of Waddington in the Ribble Valley. Its a village that used to be part of the West Riding of Yorkshire but ended up in Lancashire when the county boundaries were changed. My sampling of the Waddington Brewery ended with four pints.

I was being collected at 7 am the next morning and unfortunately had to miss the breakfast on offer. But I still had an early morning delight when I ran five miles to and from Waddington at 5.45 am. The name of the road (Fell Road) should have been a clue and my outward 2.5 miles was entirely uphill! I don't think my miles splits have ever been more varied starting with 7.59 and 7.28, recovering to 7.03 on a half up and half down mile and finishing with 5.22 and 5.14.

I'm used to running undulating courses but that was something else. Hope to see some of the usual crowd in Ramsey tonight - those that trust their TV recorder or don't like football.