Body Heat

It’s another cold night in a tent in the Lakeland valleys with temperatures plunging well below zero. Another night of having to share body heat to keep warm and L wonders why I talked her into camping.

Due to its increasing popularity the Langdale 10k now consists of not one but two races of 10k, run on consecutive days. We’ve only entered the Saturday one but we wander down to spectate at the second one.



The weather may be cold but it’s also absolutely glorious. Clear blue sky and actually perfect walking weather, which it always is when we arrive with no intention of doing a killer walk. MD isn’t fit enough and nor, after yesterdays excursions, am I. I seem to have spent most of yesterday’s race putting all my weight on my good leg, protecting my bad one, with the predictable effect that I’ve now overstretched my good leg. It now aches more than my bad one.



All the way up the M6 on Friday and all the way back down again this evening, I’ve been speed reading the audio book of Small Island before tonight’s concluding part of the TV dramatisation. Which although fascinating for its look at the lives of Jamaican soldiers during and after the war, all ends up with a baffling conclusion or un-conclusion, for me anyway. I feel sorry for our Jamaican hero Gilbert who ends up with that annoying Hortense girl, the who coerced him into marrying her in the first place, and a child that isn’t even theirs. Whilst our British heroine Queenie takes her life full circle, ending up back at square one and still married to the hopeless Bernard. What I assumed was the whole point of the whole story, the identity of Queenie’s illegitimate child, remains un-pointed out to the very end. Aghhhh. Loved it. Kind of.

Before that I catch the end of the usual bizarreness that is Sports Personality Of The Year. Yes we all known the show has been dire for years even before they drafted in the X-Factor audience to decide the victor. I suppose in a year with no obvious winners, you can’t blame Joe Public for converting it to effectively a lifetime achievement award and giving it to Ryan Giggs, a player who probably had just cause to win it ten years ago but not now.



The prize should most obviously have gone to Jess Ennis’s dress, now that had personality and she’s not too bad to look at either.

As for the team of the year which went to the England men's cricket... well, they may have won back the Ashes but they were less than impressive in everything else and still show little sign of grasping the principal of either one day or Twenty-20 cricket. This must really have hacked off the women’s side whose achievements put the men’s team totally in the shade. They too hold the Ashes but in 2009 also landed the World Cup and the inaugural Twenty-20 World Championship as well.

I Must Have The Wrong Shoes

L goes out running this morning and I take the boys out. I tell them that we’re going for a walk, no balls, just a walk. They seem bemused by the concept and horrified at the thought that I might be serious.

The grass is now so long on the park that throwing a ball for them is pointless because they just lose it in the long grass. Yesterday I took the football instead, the resulting knee damage reminded me of one of the reasons I gave up doing this. Hence no balls at all today.

In the end they forget all about the lack of spherical objects when we discover a Children’s festival on the park. Something to which they can try and cause some disruption to. Perhaps as a belated form of protest Doggo heads straight for the nearest tree, the one with the picnickers under it, to vent his frustration in the usual three legs down, one leg up fashion. After that I keep them under a very close watch.

Everyone’s been singing the praises of Jessica Ennis who put in a fantastic performance, leading all the way through the Heptathlon at the Athletics World Championships in Berlin, to win the gold medal.



A word also though for Alistair Brownlee who on Saturday won his fourth ITU World Cup Triathlon race in a row, with apparent ease, and live on BBC TV too. In a sport where it is very hard for anyone to show that sort of domination that’s some achievement. What got me though was that he ran the 10k part of the race in 28:43. That’s after a 1500m swim and a 40km bike of course. Wow. I must have the wrong running shoes of something.