Parasites!!

Back to my globetrotting again last weekend and a visit to France. I was due to take part in the Paris Marathon and grabbed a freebie trip with the gin-soaked bozos that masquerade as Nice Work.

Not taking part in the Marathon was a bit of a disappointment for me but it's just another of those things that us elite athletes have to put up with. And at times like this when the old spirit starts to lag I think about how those other top runners must feel when their races go pear-shaped. Paul Radcliffe has had to put up with some major disappointments but still keeps going - bottling and surrendering in the Grease Marathon, stopping for a poo in the London Marathon - just part and parcel of life as an Olympian.

So, I just decided to crack on with life and go to Paris anyway. Well at least I thought we were going to Paris but we ended up in a place called Paree - but it was still full of French people and so I didn't make a fuss. Popping into the Expo I thought it only right to help contribute towards the intent cordial and nipped into the VIP area to offer my personal apology for the race losing one of its leading celebs.

It was here that the day started to head south down the strasse. No sooner had I got in the room and made my way towards the bar than a French bloke grabbed me, said he was the Mayor - and welcomed me to Gay Paree! And it didnt stop there - he then tried to plant a couple of smackers on my cheeks!! Well, celebrity Olympian or not, there's no way I'm suffering that badly for my art. So I decked the bloke and continued my journey to the bar thinking no more about it.

Unfortunately I didnt make it. I'd not gone 20 feet before I was manhandled back out to the exit and chucked unceremoniously into the throngs of ordinary people queuing for a free energy bar in the Expo Hall. Ernie being the good mate he is did what all good friends would do in the circumstances - continued fighting his way to the buffet and I spied him out of the corner of my eye as I was being hoyed out doing something rather uncivilised into a potted fern.



I decided to wait for Ernie in a local bar but after a couple of hours and a few tubes of the local wallop I'd convinced myself that I could restore civilised relations with the local bigwigs. I thought it would be worth trying to disguise myself as one of the leading athletes so I stripped down to my new all-in-one orange lycra running suit and managed to just get inside the tented VIP area. I'd just started my warm-up routine of anal crunches and pelvic squirts when the same bally goons spotted me. I couldnt even utter a "Buenos Aires Fraulein" before they grabbed me and after a little local difficulty with the revolving door - they were chucking me too hard and I kept ending up back at their feet - I found myself in the Glasgow position (face down in the gutter). One of the goons had managed to damage my new lycra kit and the old jacksie was hanging out the bottom of the bally thing so I had no choice but to wait bum-down in a plant pot until Ernie returned.

By now the old chap had had his fill of the freebie food and drink and he was as oiled as a Yorkshire Chip Shopkeeper by the time he collapsed at my feet. Unfortunately not for the first time I had to have a word with the bloke about his drinking. He alwsys denies he has a problem with drink - "I cant be an alcoholic" he usually claims "Because I don't do meetings" - and to be fair you cant argue with that can you?



We decided to take it easy and sat eating some of the buffet that Ernie had managed to stuff down his trousers and started to muse about the French. We do seem to end up having 'issues' with them whenever our paths cross - but then, we thought, it aint all bad news being French. True, the whole world hates you but consider these good reasons for being French:

1. If their economy is bad, they just blame the Brits. If a war is started anywhere, they just blame the Brits. If their farmers are upset, they just blame the Brits. If they lose their car keys, they just blame the Brits.
2. You dont have to learn French as a foreign language.
3. When speaking fast you can make yourself sound gay.
4. You get to eat insect food like snails and frog's legs.
5. If there's a war you finish really early.
6. You don't have to read the subtitles on those late night black and white films.
7. You can test your own nuclear weapons in other people's countries.
8. You can be ugly and still pull the birds.
9. You don't have to bother with toilets, just wee in the street.
10. Your mates dont laugh at you because your nan has a moustache.

Anyway after wrapping his pac-a-mac around my backside to hide the rips we wendled our way back to the hotel to catch up with our fellow athletes. Not finding anybody around we knocked on a couple of doors - why are people so grumpy at 2 o'clock in the morning? I went to bed convinced that their only problem was simply that they were a few drinks behind us.

Sunday morning and we made our way to what the Fench call the Marathon Start area - and what any sane person with half a brain would call a chaotic shambles masquerading as an international sporting event. I made my way down to the Elite Start to pass on my best wishes to the Kenyans but they couldnt speak much English and didnt really understand what I was saying - and I'm afraid there was another unpleasant altercation between Ernie and I, a couple of Kenyans, a Belgian with a big nose and a few of those goons we'd encountered the prevous evening.

In the end we'd had our fill of French and French authority and decided to keep a low profile for the rest of the day. We found ourselves tucked away in a small bar on the marathon route. From there we watched the 40,000 or so runners making their way towards somewhere called the Chompseleesay. Bizarrely most of the runners were Indian or Pakistani - the locals greeting them all by shouting "Ali". Such fun - an afternoon sampling the local plonk, a couple of omelettes and we were settled.

So, all in all a pleasant enough weekend and we arrived back in Blighty with a few bruises to show but convinced that we had once again very firmly put your man here back in the public domain.

On my return to Blighty I've been working hard at thinking about how to get my Olympic training schedule back into gear. My short term targets have been modified and I'm putting my London Marathon place on the back burner whilst I get myself back into some kind of fighting state.

Instead of doing the London Marathon, I'm hoping to take up an offer of a celebrity place at the Night Run in Luxembourg next month - with the possibility of a marathon run in Iceland in August. Before then I do have a return to the land of snails and garlic with my annual pilgrimage to Montreuil for the Ramparts 10K - will there by fireworks again?

Well lets see what the next couple of weeks bring first!

Keep on tapering.

Ron