These days people go abroad a few times a year, take a year out to travel and even live and work in far flung places. Hell, we even marry foreigners (guilty as charged, m'lud)! My sister, who is married to a German, has recently moved to Ireland even though she works in London. A friend, Geoff, lives in Australia but regularly commutes to London on business. Whilst we were in Paris a couple of weeks ago we met up with Rob, who works for a Norweigan company, en route to French Guiana for a two day trip (see previous blog) and I swapped a number of texts with my good friend Gavin, an economics journalist for Reuters who lives in Rome. He was in Frankfurt to run a marathon. Confused? Gavin's experience in Frankfurt is definitely worth recounting.(He's pictured here racing in Rome and is also in the Ranelagh 100/125 year celebration pictures at the foot on this blog, he's the one with lots of hair in 1981 and none in 2006.)Over the last couple of years Gavin, who is a mere 47ish, and I have both got back into semi-serious running after a long break. Our best marathons are similar (low 2.20's) but are ancient history. It was as a consequence of my trip to Rome for the marathon, when Natalie was living out there, that triggered Gavin's renaissance. As it turned out I had flu so didn't run and he had a bit of a 'mare, finishing in 3:10 (he was so slow that I'd stopped looking out for him!). We have since traded times over the half and full distances, each shaving small amounts off the other's best time. We were both going to run Amsterdam this autumn but obviously I was out and he decided he needed another week or two to be ready.
The text on Saturday wasn't promising: he'd made it to Frankfurt but was almost certainly not going to run because he had a temperature (he'd only travelled because everything was booked, I know the feeling). Of course he ran, spending most of the first 8km trying to work out where best to drop out as his chest was tight, he was coughing and he felt dreadful. But there was no obvious place to stop and before he knew it he was swinging along and his legs were fine. He ended up overtaking runners throughout the race and posted a fantastic time of 2.38.37, well under his original 2.40 target. He's also given me a hell of a target to aim for, but that's what I'll try to do ... eventually.
His text after the race was priceless: "Now have [temperature of] 37.5 and burning throat/chest, and am, needless to say, ecstatically happy! As a great man once said 'beware the wounded runner!' " What a man! He is alluding to my blog of 27 February this year with his final comment - it's great to know that someone reads this nonsense.
This story reminds me a bit of Stephen Instone, my friend who sadly died earlier this year. He and I once ran the Sutton ½ Marathon and the local Mayor, in all his regalia, greeted all finishers with a hand shake. He was somewhat shaken however when Stephen said "thanks very much, I was pretty pleased with my run, especially as I've got chicken pox!".
Update on my injury: no change, weight still increasing, trousers no longer fit, main source of exercise is now therapeutic leaf clearance.
