What a Clown!

(Picture thanks to Murray Lambden)

Sorry about the latest 'Blog Break' I we had a little bit of a hectic time ahead of the Scottish Widows Parish Walk , which to the uninitiated amongst you is the small matter of a friendly walking race around the seventeen parishes of the Island. A total of 1756 hardy souls entered the 85 mile stroll this year (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parish_Walk.)

So the lack of words in this particular internet address afterwards was in some way due to my disappointment of once again falling short of my ambition of winning it, this time by an even bigger distance than usual.

However, Irene did particularly well to soldier on for 75 miles despite not having trained since before the birth of our grandson, over two months earlier and I did eventually finish the race in 125th place. Therefore, I think that along with Jane Foster who was second placed lady and Niamh Goddard, our team, Scbubies raised a decent total in aid of the Neo Natal Unit at Nobles Hospital but I'll confirm all that after we've totted everything up.

Also staying at the Hotel were Dave Fereday, who broke the over 70s record and Ollie Browne who was using the event for a warm up for the 100 miles race which he competed in last weekend. Unfortunately, he didn't quite manage to complete that one but hopefully, he'll be back next year for another crack here.

Quite a lot of people have been wondering what happened to me and why was I not up there contesting the higher placings. To be truthful, I am not quite sure. Despite my training and preparation all proceeding to plan and feeling hugely confident that I could break my Parish duck, I started to fade at Colby only about 16 or 17 miles in. Although I'd been flying up the hills in training, I had no strength in my legs on the ascent up Ballakillowey and struggled there on in.

At the bottom of Glen Rushen, a sniper shot me in both hamstrings. I felt that was a little unfair of them if my competitors were reduced to taking such actions.

However, close inspection revealed no blood and I realised for the first time in a race, my muscles had just cramped. Luckily, the spirit of the Parish shone through and Richard Spencely's back-up and a lady whose identity I'm not sure of produced some diorhalyte and after a little effing and jeffing (thanks and apologies to those who were present) I was back on the road, albeit in an ever increasingly distant 5th place.

With the encouragement of my dentist and one man support team, Nigel Armstrong, I carried on through Peel but increasingly found it difficult to maintain my technique and it wasn't long before I was also passed by Robbie Callister and by the time I'd reached Kirk Michael, I'd really had enough.

The crew in fancy dress at the Mitre Hotel gave me a huge amount of stick when I stopped to make a phone call to Irene to ask whether she wanted me to wait for her but they were having loads of fun. My instinct was to join them but Nigel persuaded me to carry on to Ballaugh. The legs were certainly not performing well but the brain was still intact and I realised that the pub in the aforementioned village wasn't on the course and I insisted that Nigel drove me back to Michael.

So there I stopped and had a pint with the appropriately dressed clowns. I felt that I was in the right company, having dropped out of the sharp end of the race. Then I had a sleep in the back of the car until Irene caught me up.

Well done for their amazing performances to Jock Waddington, Vinny Lynch, Richard Gerrard and Richard Spencely and also to all the other finishers.

I'll finish the rest of the lap in a later post.