Never run with children or animals

To Barkland yesterday. Eldest Cash Drainer Haille Minogue has decided that the Olympic Running miracle that simmers within my highly toned athletic frame is, somehow, a genetic phenonemon. So, not content with basking in my glory she decides that she's going to take up the sport although, obviously, being a) a kid and b) a female one, she's never going to scale the dizzy heights experienced by your man here.

However, I don't like to let the thing down, so the Half Share and I, with The Sod in tow made the long journey to a place called Reading in Barkland for a spot of missionary work.

Reading is the kind of place the newspapers write about when they want to talk about the Credit Crunch. Riding on the crest of an economic slump it is famous for having a suicide pact with Baghdad. Its poor residents shuffle aimlessly along streets lined with Chicken Shops, Kebab Take-Aways, Pubs and Curry Shops. In short, being a person from the north, its the kind of place I could quite happily settle in.

And if you'd like to know what Reading was like in the 1960's - why not pop along and visit it?

So, to the race and the locals in Barkland had their first opportunity to see at close hand the phenomenon that is me. My, how they enjoyed my famous warm-up prugramme of anal crunches and pelvic aquirts - although the Half Share did comment again that I ought to mend the rip in my orange lycra all-in-one.

Haille and her Student friend spent the pre-race period putting on make-up and generally behaving like a couple of 18 year olds - sticking their tongues out at old men, giggling at my lycra and stealing sweets from the kids etc etc. Though they did see some things they havent seen for some time - soap, morning and a smoke free environment spring to mind. But getting them to prepare themselves properly became a bit of a nightmare and after taking the fourth bottle of WKD off them I decided to lay the law down and slapped round the head with a current issue of the NME.

The race began in typical fashion for your man here. A crowded start with dozens of Ronettes all trying to get a glimpse of me made for something of a sluggish start and although I soon picked up the pace it took some scything through the field to make my mark on the leaderboard.

I eventually finished the race in just over the hour - a time considerably quicker than that Kenyan managed in the London Marathon last week or so - and hung around waiting for Half Share and Haille. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered them hanging around at the water table waiting, so they claimed, for me! Both reckoned to have finished before me!! Imagine that!

As if.

So I clocked Haille round the lug once more for telling lies and made my way to one of three pubs adjacent to the finish line - which made me muse what a way that would be to liven up the Olympic Marathon! Cross the line - me leading a couple of Kenyans and Tangerenians - and there you have it! A couple of bars, a barbecue and a kebab wagon - hey, how cool is that? Much better than having to wait for some bloke with a blazer, a stretched-faced blonde bimbo and a couple of orphans to give you your medal. And as for that effeminate bunch of flowers - no thank you!

Anyway the Olympics remain my goal - kebab wagon or not - and my training is going well. I just did a kind of homecoming 2 mile cool down along the sea front this evening. Next up on the competetion front is a little trip to one of my favourite places - Montreuil-sur-Mer in Northern France for an international race against a bunch of foreigners.

Cant wait!

Keep on tapering.

Ron