I first started running on the common when at school so it has a particular resonance for me and the course is all you'd want from a xc race: woodland tracks, hills, fallen trees to climb over, streams to jump across, some good fast flat stretches and a bit of mud thrown in near the end. Yesterday was made particularly special because we beat our hosts, the oldest running club in the UK, Thames Hare & Hounds. With mob matches being all about numbers, home advantage usually counts, but Ranelagh managed to get 59 hardy souls across from their Richmond HQ - with a little help from the Cirencester branch of the club (see, from left in picture, me, Paul Barlow, Chris Illman & Adrian Williams) - and ran out relatively easy winners, the first away mob win for Ranelagh since 1989.Chris (4th) and Adrian (7th) were Ranelagh's first finishers and Paul (19th) had a great battle with Ciren second claimer Andy Bickerstaff (yes, it works both ways). Once again I shouldn't have run but as I've now no longer got any running targets to aim for, having lost all semblance of fitness, I've got nothing more to lose so may as well continue to haul my ample frame around these mobs, at least whilst I still make the scoring team! With another few weeks fitness lost since the last outing I found the 7½ miles hard work but was able to just about keep going all the way. As Baron Hansen said: "Life is short ... running makes it seem longer."
My real endurance test of the week was also up in London. I was invited by our investment bankers, Schroders, to a 'tasting evening' at Fortnum & Mason, the famous store in London. I dragged Claudie along kicking & screaming but with the carrot that she could do the London shops and museums the next morning when I was at a seminar that was part of the Schroders deal (that was good too, as the keynote speaker was Sir Ranulph Fiennes). We expected a glass of champagne, as had been promised, and maybe a vol au vont before escaping back to our hotel via a meal somewhere. The reality was very different.
All four floors of the store had been hired by Schroders for the evening and all the F&M staff retained in their full morning dress regalia. There was indeed champagne and canapes, wherever you turned another waiter was proferring one or other the whole evening. All the food counters were open and we were encouraged to try everything ... so we did. Oysters, smoked salmon, caviar washed down with Polish vodka, truffles, foie gras, suckling pig, fresh pasta cooked in front of us, Jamaican ice cream sundaes, afternoon tea cakes, delicate mince pies, Christmas pud & cake, chocolates to die for, cheeses and fine wines. Wow, what an evening. We decided not to stop off and eat on the way back to the hotel.
Finally, reverting to running as I should, I can't let Cirencester's performance in the first Oxford league race of the winter season go by without comment. Adrian managed to get 21 senior men turning out on a foul day at Ascott, that's three full teams, and the first team performed really well. There's a real feeling that under new chairman Dave Edelsten - who took on the world's hardest job since Tony Blair's search for WMD - together with Adrian's captaincy, the club might at last be emerging from the doldrums. I'm only sorry that I'm not part of the team although in many ways I'm pleased that they no longer need to rely on an ailing old bar steward like me. I think I can safely migrate to the bar on a permanent basis.
