Sunny Afternoon

The Compton Canter is billed as a 10K Fun Run on some pieces of paper advertising it, a 10K race on others: but despite the highly impressive organisation (Compton Harriers are amazingly adept at putting on races: any club that can manage to stage a 40 miler deserves immense respect), when the 9K sign is accompanied by another saying "300 yards to go" it's not just the mixture of SI and Imperial units that is open to criticism.  (If I misread it and it did say "metres", my apologies.)  Strange, as most of the people involved seemed to be scientists (with Harwell just up the road, and the Institute for Animal Health being a major part of the village - with its own anual run, incidentally, round the boundary of its site).

The race is part of the annual village fete, which no doubt dicates a start time of 2pm - exactly the wrong time to be starting to run in July, but Thame last week was good preparation.  The course climbs out of the village along the track that the Downland Challenge uses to descend to the finish of the first loop, and after following a bit of the Ridgeway drops down along the track that 40 mile candidates use to start their second loop (and which I ran a couple of months ago in the course of my Marathon preparation).  Two water stations (how Thame Runners were criticised for laying on only one last weekend!), although in fairness to Thame there is a difference between their 1000 strong field and the 50 who ran this afternoon at Compton.  Yes, all that hard work and meticulous organisation, the water stations well away from human habitation or metalled roads, and the myriad marshalls, was all to enable fifty of us to have a race.  And I had worried about registering before the 200 limit was reached (particularly after seeing a guy with a number over 200 when I parked the car: but they started with 200, it turned out).

The first water station was at 3K, where the marshal announced to us all that we were nearly at the top.  Round a bend and out of the wood where his water station was set up, it became apparent just how misleading that statement was.  OK, we only had perhaps 400 metres climbing to do, but in that distance we would approximately double the elevation gain from the start.  Several runners who'd passed me - for some reason they seemed reluctant to take up front-row positions at the start, leaving me to line up next to the eventual winner - could be seen walking up the hill.  I put my head down and attacked it, hitting 174 bpm just after the summit, and passing one runner into the bargain.

After that summit, we followed a familar part of the Ridgeway.  I heard someone coming past: it was a guy I hadn't previously overtaken.  "What age group are you?" I demanded.  "40", he said, so I told him he could go.  Later another appeared along side me, and n response to the same question revealed that he too was MV50.  "I've got to race you", I said apologetically, and stepped up my pace.  He suggested that there must surely be another MV50 ahead of us, and I told him I thought there might be but I was not sure.  As it happened there was, but not the competitor I had in mind.

We took a rough path downhill alongside some racehorse gallops, though a field of oats (following an official path, but they are still pretty scratchy) where I closed right up to the 40+ guy again before finding I couldn't quite maintain the pace and letting him go again.  I'd heard someone behind me after the 6.5K water station and wanted to get well clear of them, which I must have managed to do, but there was no way I was going to get ahead of the youngster in front.  As we reached the outskirts of the village another competitor drew level, but I wasn't going to let him through, and when I lengthened my stride to put in a fast last mile or so he fell away.  And of course the last mile or so was rather less anyway - as little as half a mile, I suppose.

I failed to win one of the prizes on offer, being about a minute and a half adrift of the first MV50 who actually looked much, much younger - not a grey hair on his head!  Mr Garmin told me 44:07, not a bad 10K time especially on multi-terrain (but nearly all tracks, some gravel, some grass, some deeply rutted) - but of course it was nearly half a mile short: still, I'm not at all unhappy with the time.  The official time will be a little longer (I can't remember what it was) because I did pause to take water.

There were prizes for the first three men, first three women, first 40, 50 and 60 in each sex (and I think a special for the first 70+ man when they discovered there was one), and also for the first male and female Compton residents.  That is something I have seen at other localised events, and it's a nice touch.  However, when all the runners in the village are out on the course marshalling or officiating at the start and finish, the competition is slightly distorted - the first (and only) local man was about 40th, and the first local woman was last.  From what I heard her saying she hadn't been running long, and I hope this modest incentive will help her to even greater achievements!  The unfortunate 50+ rival who had thought he'd passed me was kind enough at the finish to compliment me on my competitiveness, though I fear I spoilt his race a bit, and it's not as if there was much at stake - even if I hadn't been wrong about the guys ahead of us, a bottle of red wine isn't really worth fighting about.

The organisers issued a plea for those of us who had turned out to brin some others along next year.  It's a mystery why there should have been so few, although Reading Roadrunners were quite well represented and there also seemed to be a few White Horse Harriers and Newbury AC people.  Well, maybe someone will read this and feel inclined to turn up next year.  At just £5, including on-the-day penalty, with the fete thrown in for free (some nice classic cars, and a good secondhand book stall where I managed to spend the single pound coin in my pocket, on Roy Jenkins's biography of Churchill - worth a quid of anyone's money), and a very scenic if slightly demanding course, it makes a great summer afternooon out.

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Memory of a Free Festival

Not content (it seems) with my exertions the day before, today I ran both ways between Paddington and the office in blistering heat. Indeed, I even diverted on the morning run to Run and Become to invest in a White Rock headband, which proved invaluable on the return run in the evening.
The morning trip was further complicated by three phone calls in Hyde Park with a client who has conections with a participant in various musical events that took place there many years ago. Nothing like the event they are prepared for in Hyde Park today, for which a fence has been erected of which the Israeli government would be proud. It's almost a paradigm case of how intellectual property (in the broad sense of the expression) represents the triumph of private over public rights - only almost, because Hyde Park is a Royal Park, not public property, but if the Queen keeps on allowing private interests to interfere with her subjects' enjoyment of it I might be turning republican before long.
No fence keeps the music in, anyway, as Beniamino and I proved a couple of years ago, sitting in the park listening to Robyn Hitchcock (but not seeing him). A huge sign indicates that an aperture in the fence is for those enjoying corporate hospitality: various big businesses channeling money they don't really have into big music businesses, no doubt. Corporate hospitality is much better when it takes the form of a pizza followed by an evening in the 100 Club - at least, that's worked well for me. And in Hyde Park, you'd have to put up eith the noise coming from all the people who didn't really want to hear the music anyway: not to mention extremes of hot and cold, possible downpours and all the other delights of an English sumnmer evening.
So, I have done a couple of 10Ks today on top of yesterday's, and I must say a rest tommorrow (until I have to do five miles in the evening) will be welcome. It was too hot, really, to run today, and then too hot to work comfortably in the office. Out to buy elderflower cordial and coffee (from different suppliers) in the afternoon heat, I walked through Bunhill Fields, a very old burial ground in the City, about 100 yards from mthe office: and there, side by side, were Daniel Defoe and William Blake.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen: the Thame 10K

A young guy in an Argentine football shirt drew level with me at about 8K before leaving me for dead, and we chatted for a little while. He referred to this event as a fun run, but I can't believe it was ever billed that way. "A fun run is 20 yards, at the most" I told him. And I might have added (had he remained longer within earshot) that it does not take place on a blisteringly hot June morning.

I arrived a little early to enter on the day, slightly anxious about the race perhaps being full, but I need not have worried. However, the entry form gave me pause for thought: it invited me to state in which category I fell, and the option for a man over 50 was described as "Super Vet". The adjective I rather liked, but in conjunction with the noun I was at least a little ambivelant. This novel classification is the work of the governing body - thanks for making me feel good about myself.

By 0930 as we lined up at ths start - around a thousand runners - the sun was already beating down. I joked to the guy mext to me that we would have heatstroke before the start, as we had several minutes to wait. Last time I ran this race - fifteen years ago! - it was equally hot, but I was a novice: it was one of my earliest races, and I knew little of what I was letting myself in for. I do recall the pleasure of running through the spray provided by a spectator standing outside their house with a hosepipe, though. No such luck today.

Like I so often do, I ran a good 80 per cent of the distance. I have too many of these in my record: a good 11 miles in a half-marathon, a good half-marathon in a 15-miler, a decent 25 miles in a 40-miler ... By 8K (the course had km markers but no mile markers, the first time I have seen that in England) we were running along an old railway track - what Cinephile was referring to in this weekend's FT crossword: they hadn't reckoned with Beeching when they named it permanent way - with little relief from the sun. A short stretch of shade was very welcome, but short it certainly was. And, like another footpath-cum-cycle route that I have run, in last year's Shakespeare marathon, it seemed pretty well endless. My willpower evaporated and my legs went on strike: I stopped for a short rest, I stopped for water, I stopped for another short rest, then set off at a jog to get the final couple of kilometres out of the way. Compression socks meaent that my calves were fine, but even the green shoes (an experiment, running 10K in them) were almost too heavy for the above-the-knee muscles to lift.

I know where I went wrong, of course. I always do after a race. I imagine that all runners do. I did not hydrate enough before the start, and I needed a bowl - a big bowl - of porridge before leaving home, not just crunchy oat cereal. Nevertheless, after I got myself jogging again in the last couple of km, I arrived in sight of the finish with enough energy to outsprint four guys, none of them Super Vets as far as I could tell, and although my Garmin device had enough juice left to obey my instruction to stop and reset I had to get home and plug it in before I could find out that my time was 47:39:15. The chip time will be a bit more than that, but I didn't feel unhappy about that - although I thought ruefully about chasing 40 minutes just three years ago.

Annother tee shirt for my collection, and a goody bag containing a very welcome bottle of isotonic drink, two Mars Bars (almost liquid by the time I got them home in the hot car) and, bizarrely, a couple of wristbands and one of those things for hanging a pass round one's neck, all from the Euro 2008 football tournament. A novel way to dispose of out-of-date junk!

One of these Days

On Wednesday, I had to drag myself away from the office to come home. Not because I was enjoying myself so much, but because I dreaded the journey - as I have for years. But I donned my shorts and tee shirt, pulled on my running shoes and enjoyed the first leg of the journey as much as I have enjoyed any run. I didn't time it, just took it at a comfortable trot and caught the train with ease. I felt bon dans ma peau, as they say, almost as bon as when I was running daily a few weeks ago.

On Thursday, yesterday, I had a meeting with a client at 10 in London to thrash out a contract, so I took an early coach to London. By the time I arrived in town I had nearly two hours work under my belt. Then a two-hour meeting, after which I set up my office temporarily at table 1 in that client's restaurant where I had a pleasant lunch with an old friend whom I see too rarely and worked at the other things on my "to do" list. Then it was back on the coach to Oxford and more contract drafting. Well over five hours chargeable time: although I did arrive home feeling exhausted it was the sort of tiredness that comes at the end of a satisfying race.

So, what have these two days got in common? How can I consistently get from my work what I get from my running? If only I knew ... I am working on it, and my first step has been to start re-reading Murakami.

Dress to depress

As a semi-professional presenter, I am always interested to observe how others do the job. This week I spent an afternoon in a very interesting session, and the main facilitator was an object lesson, to my mind, in how not to present oneself.
His message was clear and well-expressed, but his appearance was so unpreposessing that it detracted from the value of what he had to say. It was hard, at first, to take him seriously.
He had chosen a pair of pinstriped trousers which might well have been half a suit, though in line with modern thinking there was sign of a jacket. I take my suit jacket off to present, but I would not dream of starting without one.
Nor was there any sign of a tie, though it is hard to conceive of one which would have harmonised with the shirt. This looked well-cut from a good material, which had been printed with a ghastly collection of stripes in various shades of grey with a little pink. It completely drained away what little colour there was in his complexion. He probably works 12 or more hours a day for the corporate behemoth that pays his salary and passes his leisure time in front of a computer or TV screen, or in some hellish club being assailed by incomprehensible and deafening music.
Stripes and stripes are bad enough, but navy pinstriped trousers with brown belt and shoes is another sartorial disaster which compounds the overall impression. Worse, the belt is not up to supporting the incipient beer belly that rides over the front of the trousers, and the shoes - a modern style that provides several inches of redundant toe-space, which must make stairs very tricky - are badly scuffed, battered in the elongated toe area and obviously unacquainted with polish.
The overall impression is reinforced at the other vertical extremity, where gelled hair that appears to have been styled with the assistance of a hedge (traversed backwards) or a couple of fingers in an electrical socket is complemented by what might politely be called designer stubble (when on a good-looking singer or model) but which actually looks more like laziness, or perhaps a broken shaver, until you notice that he has troubled to shave parts around his adam's apple. At least the growth serves to obscure, though obviously not to hide, some spots which nevertheless manage to shine through.
His colleagues, and other participants, mostly belong to similarly eccentric schools of fashion thought. One stands in front of us wearing neatly-pressed suit trousers and a high quality white cotton shirt which has not recently been in the presence of an iron. Closer up, the cuffs and collar display a long term lack of attention at laundry time. The open neck and white tee-shirt visible there fail to provide the colour his pallid face needs.
Does this matter? Quite by chance, between finishing the previois paragraph and starting this one I found myself in a tube carriage with the friend who invited me to that session, and he is interested in feedback. We agree that the subject of my criticism was very good at his job, and the corporate behemoth must be assumed to know what it is doing. I regret the fact that his personal presentation detracted from what he had to say, until I had overcome initial unfavourable impressions and focussed on what he was doing very well.
I think I am right to ensure I am smartly turned-out when I stand in front of an audience. And I perform better when I feel comfortable.
Sent using Bunberry from Orange

The Polite Force

Emerging from the pedestrian tunnel onto the Victoria Line platform at King's Cross, I find it fill of British Transport Police officers and Lodon Underground employees. One the police officers shouts peremptorily for the ordinary people who pay his wages to move over. The compelling word is not please, but police. He leads out three groups of officers each with a captive in handcuffs.

INTA - Wednesday

We cut the run a little short today, and the group was slightly depleted - though I cannot now remember precisely who turned out. Still, I guess we did about 5 miles. By 0900 I was at my first meeting, with Bayo, after which another meeting failed to happen

In the middle of chatting to Faisal, my next appointment, Dave Musker happened past, and we arranged to get together in London rather than waste valuable INTA time on one another: after which the conversation expanded to take in two people from Ella Cheong, one of whom turned out to be a keen runner and Murakami fan.

I had double-booked myself to see Susannah and Marc at the same time, but fortunately also at the same place. I arrived and found Susannah, having the advantage of knowing her already, but Marc is not someone I had met before. A message arrived on my Bunberry: "wearing a light trenchcoat". I swift pass through the lobby found him in no time, and the three of us sat down together to become acquainted - and I derived much satisfaction, as I had done at other points during the meeting, from introducing two of my friends to each other.

We talked at some length about my propsed article for the TMR, floowing on from some intelligence given to me by Julianne at Perkins Coie about the law on "official marks" in Canada. Susannah held forth on s9(1)(n) of their Act, and agreed to collaborate on the article, which was a good result.

I ran from there to the Red Lion Hotel, where I met Ken - although we went to the Elephant and Casle, the mock English pub in the basement there - I'd known of it for many years, but not been there - or had I? I recall an early listserv gathering with Bob and Marty Schwimmer which might have been there, years ago. Ken and I can get together in London, though, where there will be no need to frequent a place named after one of the least desirable neighbourhoods in London.

Next, Debora from Buenos Aires was a no show, but Dedar Singh Gill from Singapore was there and we enjoyed a good talk, about running as much as anything else (another candidate for IPRun). Later I introduced him to Santosh too, trying to work out what is the significance that they both have Singh in their names - is it just like bneing called Smith or is there more to it than that?

A couple of Aussies that I didn't already know also failed to show up, so I took a quick look at exhibits - just as the final whistle blew on the exhibit hall. I was able to say hello to Rudi, and visit the Appleby stand where I saw Huw but failed to get a rum cake - not really surprising at this later hour. Next was Mohiuddin Adeni, another guy from Pakistan, whom I did know already but was pleased to see again. He reminded me of an old English friend - facial mannerisms - though I won't go into that here, but save it to fictionalise one day perhaps!
Dennis, one of my oldest INTA friends, and I went to Starbucks for a coffee, then I was due to meet Jorge at the Paramount Hotel but there was no sign of him. I had seen him earlier, but we hadn't stopped to speak then as we had a date later. Oh, well, the strike rate was still pretty good.

As I was close by, I called into John Kenny's hotel but he had already left, so I headed off to Bill Seiter's bash, encountering a lady from a Canadian firm on the way who turned out to be the co-host. I found myself suddenly, and unexpectedly, in a completely new circle - at the start there was no-one there I knew, although Wing and Taiji reliably showed up later. I got a cappuccino and an elegant Russian lady gestured to me to invite me to sit at the table where she and her young (and very pretty) colleague were sitting. They explained that they have one man in their office, whose job it was basically to run around after them, and he was immediately dispatched to get cappuccinos for them too. An equally elegant Latvian lady joined my new Russian friend (the younger Russian girl had gone to talk to someone else) and somehow, I cannot explain how the words escaped my mouth, I told her that I had already met as many new people as I could cope with for one annual meeting. She rightly decided that a chat with the older Russian lady, an old friend of hers, was a better prospect, and a discussion of shoes, in Russian, ensued. Served me right.

Bob had asked if I might prefer a pub quiz to the grand finale, and even before my incredible faux pas with the Latvian lady I had decided that it was time for some relief from INTA, so - rather like in Atlanta, where Bob, Paul and I went for a drink before the Grand Finale and eventually, after trying all the beers in the microbrewery which was conveniently across the road from one of the main hotels, and eating a few plates of nachos and things, we decided that the Grand Finale would be just about over so we might as well stay put - I had a completely different evening. It was good to meet some of Bob's ex-students, though I think I was a disappointment to them on account of my inability to answer questions on (Association) football.