Give Peas a Chance

Should we be worried about education standards or should we just admire the wit of this bizarre piece of graffiti spotted adorned on a railway bridge above the M25 last weekend? I prefer to think it's the latter: having wrapped many frozen packets of the little green orbs around various parts of my broken body over the years, I've clearly not given the poor mites a chance to give pleasure on the dinner table where they belong, preferably pressed and mixed in with mashed potato alongside a nice piece of (batterless) fish.

It was on my way to a grand occasion that took me under the graffiti laden bridge. Of the four other clubs Ranelagh race every year in mob matches, Orion Harriers is much the youngest (Thames Hare & Hounds being the oldest, having been founded around 1867). Orion was founded in 1911, so are celebrating their centenary this year. Rather than the usual two teams competing, all five members of this elite club were invited to a mass mob match, with the extra celebration of sampling Orion's new clubhouse for the first time (some of us remember outside washing facilities from many years ago). Epping Forest was looking a true picture on a beautiful sunny autumnal day. More importantly, following an unseasonally warm and dry spell the usual quagmire conditions were nowhere to be seen. You cannot believe what a difference that made to an old crock like me!

As regular readers (surely there can't be any ...) will know, my training has been dire for two years now and the cumulative effect of this is really digging in, irrespective of what aches & pains are flavour of the month (for what it's worth, currently both Achilles, one shoulder and my left big toe, don't even ask, I've no idea). Having dropped Claudie off at East Midlands airport to visit her stricken mother, I took the opportunity to meet up with old friend, Andy Bradley, who lives nearby. This was just two days before the mob match so I suggested to Andy that we had a run before the far more pleasurable aspects of Derbyshire life, namely an old fashioned pub and a pint or two of Marstons Pedigree. After walking up the nearest hill from Chevin Road, we started our run on a lovely high level track looking across the Peak District, then ran down through some meadows and back alongside the River Derwent. It was a pleasant 45 minutes and gave me confidence that maybe another 'mob' was viable.

Winner and runner-up of the Chevin '5'

To the race itself: after a few team photos, speeches and traditional club cries, around 200 took to the one lap circuit through the forest. As anticipated I was able to run at a reasonable pace on the flat stretches but really struggled on the many hills. A finishing position of 73rd had very little merit other than being one of the few I've not previously managed over my 144 mobs (every position between 1 and 35 has been encountered at least once). Orion, of course, won the team race comfortably, which is at it should be. A commemorative mug and fine free tea spread was very welcome as was the beer at a local hostelry before the journey home.

Thanks to Orion's centenary I have to get my aching body through five rather than the usual four mobs this winter. Hopefully the rain will stay away all winter ...

Ed Whitlock

This man just becomes ever more amazing. Yesterday in Toronto Ed ran a 3.15.54 marathon ... he is 80 years old and broke his own world V80 record by 10 minutes, which in itself was another 15 minutes better than the previous best. Ed - seen here with me and Dutch friend Alex in Rotterdam five years ago - is a lovely self effacing character who just loves running.

I was pretty impressed to note last night that just a few hours after his great performance it had been updated to Wikipedia. Who does these things ...?

In the World Masters Championships in Sacramento, California this year Ed won the V80 1,500 by 90 seconds in 5.48; the 5,000 by 4 minutes in 21.32 and the 10,000 by 11 minutes in 42.39, all three times were world records of course.

He invariably wears his Ranelagh vest when racing even though his link with our club is relatively tenuous: he ran once or twice in the 60's before emigrating to Canada. He's come down to the club a couple of times in recent years and been royally treated. What a man!

Eat more cake

In one of the weekend supplements recently I read an interview with the universally popular Michael Johnson - why can't all sports tv commentators say what they really think rather than what they feel viewers want to hear? - about his daily routine. In a move that may lose him a few admirers, he stated that both when he was an elite athlete and now that he's a relative couch potato, he eats a lot of burgers. Shock, horror! Today's 'new' runners will be amazed that an elite athlete did such a thing. Steve Cram was the same, loved his burgers. One of the great US marathoners of the 70's (either Frank Shorter or Bill Rodgers) came out with the great phrase when interviewed that he was on a seafood diet: no, he wasn't a Rick Stein fanatic, but such was his hunger that when he could see food he would eat it! The point being that to sustain big mileage and hard training he had to put fuel back into the engine, thus lots of protein, carbohydrates and calories, nothing scientific. You cannot be an Olympic marathon champion on carrot sticks alone.

I was in the local garden centre recently on a midweek day off and stopped off with Claudie for a coffee. On the counter were cakes and pastries perfect for a runner (so not for me!), but I couldn't resist and got stuck in to both mine and half of Claudie's. Brought back memories of lunchtime training runs in London followed by a couple of pints and a big salt beef sandwich in the pub, before dropping in to the deli on way back to the office for a couple of buns. Happy days.

My 'running' went back on hold in early August when my left 'good' Achilles popped and I had to abort a three mile run halfway through and walk back. Six weeks off completely and I'm now back with some gentle jogging. For the first time I tried Kinesio taping, as seen on a lot of athletes these days (Lisa Dobriskey was covered in the stuff at the World Champs), and although a bit of a cynic I have to state that the pain eased a lot quicker than I expected and certainly quicker than ever before. Time will tell if there's real improvement.

Finally, I read a very sad story in the paper this weekend and one that all we runners should take note of. Bill Smith, a 75 year old veteran member of Clayton-le-Moors Harriers (Ron Hill's club) and a well known figure in fell running circles (he'd written a book on the subject), was found dead in a peat bog on Saddle Fell in the Trough of Bowland. The area was so remote that his body wasn't discovered for three weeks - he'd apparently fallen whilst on a training run. Two things: when going out running alone, particularly if off road, tell someone your planned route (the fell may have been particularly remote but I can think of plenty of places within five miles of my home where I've run and never seen a soul); secondly have some form of identification on you. You just never know ...