Dover bottles out!!

Just when I had primed myself, what happens? Dover only goes and wimps out of the challenge!

That's right the pesky blighters have cancelled tomorrow morning's Half Marathon because of the snow. I'd really set myself and psyched myself up for my first stab at the distance for some considerable time - but it's not to be. So, in the words of that bloke who reads the news on the telly - "You'll just have to find something else matey".

Instead of running the half marathon I'm having a Leffe beer instead and just contemplating what might have happened if it hadn't been for the weather. In fact it got me thinking about weather and the kind of weather I like.

Although this kiddie does appreciate the sun on his back - I do sometimes find the sun to be a bit like a nosey neighbour. It bursts into your day - whether you like it or not. I mean you can't decline the sun if you don't want it can you? It's just there! It gets in your eyes, it gets on your skin. In fact it just gets everywhere.

Not like drizzle.

If the sun is the Home Counties of the weather world - the soft southern meteorological softie, if you like, then drizzle is your northern equivalent. Drizzle isn't intrusive. It doesnt ask for permission to drizzle. It doesnt announce itself with a geat fanfare like thunder or lightning does. It just gets on with what it wants to do - and does so without fuss or theatre.

Drizzle - for northern blokes who cant be fashed with worrying about weather.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I did do a little 4 miler this morning - and talking of weather it was perishing cold, I can tell you. Tomorrow me and the Half Share are walking round Britain. A little 14 mile walk/run from Dungeness to Hythe will do me the world of good in my Olympic preparation programme.

Talking of which, us Olympians are not at all impressed with those blokes going down a hill on sledges and tea trays and calling it an Olympic Games. As my mate Ernie often says "If God had meant us to ski he'd have made our feet a yard long".

I mean if they just want to jump on the bandwagon and have something called a Winter Olympics - what next? A Spring Olympics with bulb planting, lawn mowing and frisbee chucking?

Do me a favour.

Anyway, I've a Leffe to get on with here.

Keep on tapering.

Ron

Out of sight, out of mind? No chance.

Just a short note to tell you that I'm still here - and let me tell you, this kiddie is smoking!!

I've had a head-down attitude over the last four weeks putting in some miles. I bumped into some old people in Hastings and they've kindly let me use them as pace-laggers for my training runs. They're a kindly bunch, if you excuse the smell of stale beer and woodbines, but if I've helped them just half as much as they've helped me ... then they will have helped me twice as much as I've helped them.

Which I think is fair.

I've not done any racing since the start of the year - it doesn't do an Olympian much good to over-race, although I did make a couple of personal cameo-like appearances at a couple of races in Caravan County. I popped over to the Dartford 10 to see what was occurring and then on Sunday I signed a few autographs at the Ashford & District 10K where my old muckers Nice Work were trying to make a fist out of organising the race.

But my weekly sessions with the old people in Hastings has helped - none of that sea-front-shuffling-for-jessies stuff - I've been running up and down hills. As Amanda Holden would say "Yeah - hills".

I've been trying to build up my stamina and my mileage to get ready for that London Marathon thing in April. At the moment I'm a touch above my fighting weight - well more than a touch entre noo - but class is permanent and I'm confident I'll be in the top three come podium time. Can't wait to lock noses with my old mucker Paul Radcliffe again - that's if he can keep his iffy toilet habits in check that is!

Big day for me this Sunday though with my first half marathon for almost a year. I'm down Caravan County again doing a bit of tarmac dodging in the Dover Half Marathon. The Half Share is threatening to come along too - but if there's a breath of wind she'll no doubt want to stay sat in front of the box with her curlers, knitting and a box of Newberry Fruits if I know her. The step up in distance is a big one for me - I'm not expecting graet things either and if I finish in the top ten I'll be happy.

A week later and I'm the celebrity starter at another CC event - the Isle of Oxney Hot Soup 5 Mile Hot Soup Dash - well at least I'll get a bowl of soup out of it!! Then its up to London for a first time race in the capital since that fiend Livingstone got bounced out of the Great Unfinished City. If I can dodge the needles and dog pooh I'll be hoping I can win the Roding Valley Half Marathon - and then a week later its over to my spiritual home - Belgiumland.

We're there for the Ostend to Bruges 10 Mile Race - again with that bunch of gin-soaked has-beens from Nice Work (Christ, they're getting some mentions today!!). Its an event that I get invited to every year - its always flippin' parky, but there's always a nice beer awaiting!

As it happens I paid a flying vsisit to Belgiumland last week to see the fine burghers of Veurne. A sprightly place with more varieties of beer than there are people. Had such a good time I can't remmber a flippin' thing about it - apart from, that is, some beer called Guillotine.

Give me strength I muttered to the barman - and he did.

12% worth!!

Keep on tapering.

Ron