Let's go round again...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (well, Oxfordshire, actually) I ran a half marathon.

I say “run”. I walked a bit. Oh, OK a lot. Nearly all of it, yes. It was hideous. Within the last 2 miles you had to pass a pub, where all the people who were actually quite good at running, and had therefore already finished, had assembled to drink to their extreme nippiness, and cheer on the slow-coaches. Smashing.

Advancing years, and a pathological fear of exercise, mean my running days are limited to a dash for a train. Even then I need oxygen and a muscle rub. The ticket inspectors say that isn’t their job, but they need to consider their customer’s needs, before calling the police.

I am therefore flabbergasted that anyone can run a whole marathon, especially since they got renamed to “Snickers”. (Actually, now I come to think of it, that may have something to do with those athletes that had already completed the half-marathon back in the mists of time, watching me wheeze my way past.)

At 9.30 this morning, 18 people set off to do a marathon, looping around Windermere, which happens to handily be exactly the right distance. Plus it has the advantage of making it hard to take a short-cut, unless you happen to have a wetsuit on under your running gear, which is apparently not a very good idea – the squeaking upsets nesting wildfowl. They won’t be setting record-breaking times, and there’s a very good reason for that. You see, they’ll be doing another marathon tomorrow. And the day after that. AND the day after that too. In fact, they’ll be doing 10 marathons in 10 days.

That’s nuts, right? They’ll complete their final ‘lap of honour’ on the 20^th, with all the “lightweights” taking part in the Brathay Windermere Marathon, who are doing just the one. I struggle to get out of bed some mornings – I can’t quite comprehend what it must feel like to wake up knowing you’re doing yet another marathon.

They’re doing this to raise funds for Brathay Trust, the Ambleside-based charity that inspires young people to become successful, confident and responsible citizens. I work for Brathay (when I say work, I’m pretty sure most of my colleagues think I’m the photocopier repair man), so I know the funds raised will go to good use.

But surely there are easier ways to raise money? Why the hell would you put yourself through the pain and mental torture of 10 marathons in a row? Anything else would surely be better – a parachute jump, bungee-jumping, sitting in a bath-full of baked beans for an afternoon. Anything!

I don’t have an answer, and I’m not sure they do either. What I do have is the utmost respect for these men and women. They are mad – but in a good way. Visit www.brathaywindermeremarathon.org.uk if you want to know more.

Have a good weekend.

If you can.

(This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on - oddly enough - Friday 11th May 2012. This is the unedited version - you can view the printed/online version here: http://www.nwemail.co.uk/home/columns where it was retitled 'Respect for runners' by their wise sub-editors.)

(Soothing musical accompaniment tonight from "Looking Back - The Best Of Daryl Hall & John Oates.)

The Schaf Shuffle

The weather – source of endless fascination, conversation, irritation and (just recently) excess irrigation. And a fidgety weather presenter on the BBC... I’m endlessly fascinated with the weather, and will confess to making sure I catch the BBC’s updates whenever possible. Not the local ones, where half the presenters look like they got dressed in the dark, or ITV, where they seem to know very little about actual weather, but the national forecasts. Delivered by actual Met Office personnel, their job entails a tricky mix of waving your hands about a bit, explaining about warm fronts without smirking, and trying not to look too pleased whilst mentioning gales force winds and torrential rain. Or stand in front of Cornwall. Each has their own presenting style, but there is one who intrigues me above all the others. Step forward, Tomasz Schafernaker, the 37 year old man from the Met who breezed onto our screens in 2001, as the youngest male ever to point out that it was going to r...

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

RIP Jenwis Hamilbutton

We are gathered here in this... (looks round a bit) um... blog, to mourn the passing of Jenwis Hamilbutton. His life may have been short and largely irrelevant, but he touched the lives of so many people that... sorry? Oh. Apparently that was someone else... Jenwis Hamilbutton rose briefly to fame on twitter during 2010, when he was retweeted by BBC F1 presenter Jake Humphrey, having criticised his shirt. A similarly unspectacular claim to fame occurred when a tweet he crafted at 1am on a windy night appeared in F1 Racing magazine. An amalgam of bits of Formula 1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button (mostly the hopeless bits), he came into existence via 3 pints of cider, a Creme Egg and the Electric Light Orchestra’s mournful 1986 farewell album “Balance Of Power”, played loudly over headphones. In his short existence, he was followed on twitter by Paul Hardcastle of “19” fame, and a bunch of slightly odd but jolly nice people, whom he was never entirely sure actually exist...

grumpyf1

Search This Blog