Sunday 2 June 2013

When I were a lad & other ramblings


Having woken early, traipsed round a very dewy 10mi, breakfasted twice and mowed the lawn by 10am, I found myself back in the Twitterverse, a place I have possibly been over-frequenting in the past few weeks.

As a source of up-to-the-second results for GUCR last week and the Comrades Marathon this weekend, it's been invaluable. Most of the spectators must have had a 200wpm typing speed, the info was so quick coming through.

The change in technology since I last "properly" ran has been simply phenomenal.

Back in 1989 you had to spend a week at Loughborough to get the kind of info that today any of 100 apps can give you for free:
- Want mile splits? Run a measured circuit or track with a coach/parent/dedicated other clicking a glorified pocket watch each time you passed. Or you could DIY with a top-of-the-range digital Casio if you could afford one.
- Fell running? Get your elevation from an OS map in the pub after the run.
- Need max HR? 3 levels. OK / Knackered / A&E

And results? An A5 magazine called Athletics Weekly was your only true purveyor of stats. Before the interweb this was the primary, and pretty much only source of results back in the days when a Marathon was the ultra, anything over the mile was pretty much ignored and Steve Cram was still in shor.. ah, you get my drift.

On another note, while enjoying a few evening rays, I got to chatting through plans for LeJOG with the Dear Lady Wife, and I've had to make a promise.

To burn my kit before I leave John o'Groats.

Not all of it - just the clothes that will have spent a total of 137 running hours getting properly pungent.

Probably a good idea. Not fair on everyone else to be "that bloke" on the train.

This adds another level to the logistics as the kit list doesn't have room for spares. In fact it doesn't have room for anything really. Trying to keep full pack + water down to 10lbs is proving to be a tough task. As I'm certainly no Nick Kamen (if you remember the 80's Levis advert), the laundrette option will have to be ruled out, so it's off to find an anosmic gentleman's outfitters in Wick.

Ticked another item off the kit list today by treating myself to an Inov8 RacePro 22 after landing a contract after 2 months of "extended daytime training" (unemployed layabout). 

Major gaffe on the interview though. Forgot to ask if they had showers in the building.

(Update 7-Jul.. they do, but as my security pass still doesn't work, I can't use 'em !)



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