Luxembuggered!!

Well it’s taken me nearly a bally week to recover from my International appearance in Luxembourg last weekend and, frankly Ronettes, I don't know where to start!

I was making an eagerly awaited appearance at the Night Run in Luxembourg - an event that I have graced with honour and achievement each year since the event was launched five years ago. And, you know, it does give make me kind of humble glow - knowing that the people in this little country live for this one weekend a year and an opportunity to see me. And before you get all dewy-eyed with emotion, just think that if it wasn't for my appearance all they'd have to do with their small lives would be to carry on counting their money, putting up more EU buildings and pretending they're not German.

Anyway, I'm pencilled in on the Nice Work trip once again. Little did I know though that Ernie had done a deal with them. In exchange for their sponsorship of my international appearances, he'd agreed that I'd do a bit of work for them over the weekend. (OK I'll fess up - there was a small to medium sized bar tab that was hanging around like a French smell).

Well I thought they'd want me to sink a few tubes in the hospitality tent so imagine my bemusement when I bowled up on Saturday morning to find that I was only driving the bally Transit!! We set off from Ashford at some unearthly hour with the motley-est of motley crew - the stench of stale alcohol and last night's kebabs very much filling the van. Upon arriving at the tunnel entrance ... guess what? They had only shut the flippin' thing down because ... oh I don't know there was a mouse in the tunnel or something.

Of course there being French stuff involved in the process it took three hours to get the tunnel opened and when our train did finally creak away from the platform it refused to go above half speed. The bottom line was that we arrived in France four hours late, with a four and a half journey ahead of us - and a race start time five hours ahead of us. That meant a hairy journey with no stops, a quick change into our Dunlop Green Flashes whilst driving and, dear Ronnettes, without a word of a lie we arrived on the start line with just THREE minutes to spare.

Of course we would have had a full five minutes to spare but for a minor flaw in my pre-race preparations. I'd only gone and left my bally pumps at home!! Now, as you can appreciate, us international athletes spend a great deal of time preparing ourselves for these kind of events - and we can't just go out and get another pair just like that. As luck would have it though we had a bloke from Sheffield on board - a carpet fitter he was. Well as they lined up to start, this chap was told he was being disqualified - apparently he'd been seen with anabolic stair rods. So that left a bloke with no race - and needing no shoes.

So, I forced him to let me use them ... and that makes my stunning 2 hrs 33.34 time (a full 4 minutes quicker than last year) all the more remarkable! There is, though, something of a confession I need to make.


The shoes were from Yorkshire.

Now just because I'm from Lancashire doesn’t mean I have nothing against stuff from Yorkshire, though I do admit that I prefer to have my chip in a sandwich than on my shoulder. But wearing Yorkshire shoes did make feel slightly uncomfortable. Apart from anything else, being from Yorkshire they were very tight, seemed desperate for it to rain and whinged and moaned the whole way round the course.

Anyway after my stunning run I then set about sticking a few tubes and a sausage down my neck before hitting this very small country. After getting back to the place that masqueraded as the group's hotel - when will these people realise that international athletes deserve a little comfort? - and hitting the sack for a few hours I was rudely awakened by the greasy foreign breakfast chef in his vest and clogs that a copper was sniffing round the Transit. Sure enough I scuttled downstairs to find some bloke who was the spit of the U Boat Commander in The Cruel Sea sniffing round the truck.

Apparently it wasn’t quite parked correctly and he was threatening to slap a 150 euro ticket on my windscreen. Well this is where my infamy really came to the fore. I explained who I was and in calm measured tones told him that I was an Olympic Athlete in town for their little marathon race and that I was on some kind of mission to spread love and happiness around the little country of Luxembourg. It was all going quite well until I asked him did Luxembourg have any athletes and he started barking some malarkey in a very strong (and I'm afraid it was back to The Cruel Sea again) and strangely reminiscent accent.

Obviously I then reacted in the correct way - talking very loud in pigeon Queen's English, demanded to know what his lot did in the war, reminded him of the result in 1966 etc etc And to be honest it seemed to do the trick and he strutted off muttering into his jackboots.

So, you see, if you just show these foreigners a little respect and resist the temptation to fall into the trap of stereotyping them, you'll usually come up smelling of dandelions.

Well I was up now wasn't I? So I decided to pop into town and sniff out a full English and that's when my day headed south ... because the next thing I know, its midnight and I'm staggering out of a bar at just a snifter before midnight with a few Luxembugger Best Mates that I'd found. They put me in a taxi for the ten minute cab ride back to the digs (a snip I thought at 80 quid) - and that was Luxembourg over for another year. I'm not sure exactly what happened during the day but I do recall seeing sausages and some sheep shearing - no I don't know either.



We stopped off for a sherb in a small town in France called Belgium and then it was back to the Channel Tunnel for the quick ride home and back to Blighty. Oh - I forgot to say. My passport had run out. In fact I'd forgotten to tell the other people in the Transit as well. You should have heard them whinge!! But, you know what? That's the difference between us Brits and those Johnny Foreigner Do-Gooders. All it took was a quick two minute chat with the chap on the desk and he would have let me through. OK, so I got it wrong by then tipping him with some folded stuff in a somewhat flamboyant manner. But even then it took just one set of rubber gloves and I was able to walk gingerly back to the Transit and I then stood all the way home.

I sometimes wonder why I bother.

Keep on tapering.

Ron

Time to settle down now

I apologise for a couple of weeks silence but, for obvious reasons it was only fair that I kept my head down whilst there was an election in progress.

Us celebrities are not just roly models you know, we have a responsibility not to influence unduly the voting intentions of those who, perhaps (and I say this with a heavy heart) probably are not really in a position to know how to vote sensibly. It might be controversial to say it, but there is a school of thought that still casts doubt on our decision to give the vote to people like prisoners, those with mental disorders, women and students. But whatever the rights and wrongs of what my friend Nick Clogg says is a flawed voting system, we have to abide by the rules. So, that's why I decided to keep my head down and that's why you haven’t seen or heard from me for a couple of weeks. And likewise, you'll have noticed neither sight nor sound of the Krankies, Val Doonican, Moira Stewart or that bloke off the news.

As for the results of the election it all seems to have gone pear-shaped for Graham Brown and the fact that we now have a Bung Parliament is probably down to all those silly votes by those people referred to above - well I reckon they deserve what they got. Brown, to be honest, was never my cup of tea. He never once wrote to me with any form of congratulations or encouragement in my quest for Olympic immortality. And the only time I wrote to him to ask if I could buy some kind of gong for my services to the public he couldn’t even be bothered to reply.

So now we have a government that is full of public schoolboys - which should please our local MP Greg Barker who is himself well reared - though what he and his painter and decorator boyfriend get up to in their spare time is no business of ours. But I just hope that the present lot get their act together, grasp the moment, consider the opportunities - and get behind me (except that Barker chap, I don’t want him behind me.) The Half Share in the House did ask me whether the joining together of the Conservatory Party and the Glib Dems means they should now be called the Condem coalition - which I was pleased to hear because that's her first attempt at humour since 1998.

So what have I been doing apart from oiling the wheels of government?

Well the weekend before last Ernie and I and the Half Share met up with the eldest Cash Drainer and did a kind of Exhibition race in Burkeshire. The Shinfield 10K was a pleasant enough experience and I posted an impressive time of 1 hr 5 mins. Just slightly outside my preferred Olympic pace but I had been out on the lash the night before so it wasn’t a bad time on a hangover. On Sunday just gone I made the mistake of doing the Sevenoaks Seven. I had forgotten what an unpleasant place it was. Rough tracks, dog poo and deer poo all over the place, people in various states of undress and an overwhelming stench of sweat. And that was on the bally High Street!! The race is a bit of a dog’s dinner of a race for me - too many hills. But, when faced with adversity I always think to myself "Now, what would Bobby Davro do?"

Well that was an inspired piece of psychology - because I only went and got another BP - my best time over the distance of 1 hr 21 minutes 14 seconds - about a minute and a half better than last year.

This weekend I'm off on my foreign travels when I visit Luxembourg again for the Night Run. Those Luxembuggers certainly know how to put on a show and I was looking forward to running my second marathon in three weeks. However, Ernie reckons that with the time spent in the Nice Work van I'll not be in a fit state to do the full 26.2 - so I'll be looking to win the Half Marathon instead.

I'll let you know how I get on. In the meantime I've got a sad duty to do today. I'm at the funeral of an old mate who died recently. He died of dyslexia - choked on his own Vimto.

Keep on tapering.

Ron

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

The perils of being an elite athlete

Its all right for you ordinary people - and you women!!

The last six weeks have been an utter tale of woe, woe and woe again - and its at times like this that you begin to understand what it must have been like when Paul Radcliffe bottled out of the Olympic Marathon in Grease.

Six weeks ago I had it all mapped out - a few weeks back in training and the old Olympic dream was back on track again. Right? Wrong!!

Sure I managed to get my first two weeks of training in - but my attempt at putting that training to competitive use was washed out - literally - by the torrential rain we had last month. “Oh right - fair weather runner”, I hear you saying. Well yah boo sucks as Andrew Marr would say - does Haille Gabriellwotsit train in Manchester? Does Paul Radcliffe spend his winter months in Brentwood? Of course they don't - they beggar off to sunnier climes! Well what's good for the goose is good for the seagull as far as I'm concerned. So there was no way I was venturing out in sub-zero temperatures and hissing rain.

Yeah, OK then - fair weather running.

Things looked up a bit at the beginning of the month though when I accompanied the Nice Work mob on their annual junket to Bruges for the Ostend to Bruges 10 Mile Race. Its normally a gin-fuelled weekend and this year was no exception. Meeting the rest of the party at some God unearthly hour In Ashford and the scene resembled a fire drill outside my local Lidl. However after a weekend diet of God's Own Brew, chocolate, chips and some kind of salad cream stuff and I was ready to rumble on race day.



The race was full of Belgiumites and French people but the rest of the field was OK and they looked on in obvious awe as I went through my new Credit Crunch and Pelvic Thrust Warm Up routine - a routine made all the more memorable with my new tangerine Lycra all-in-one running suit. Unfortunately I'd overdone it a bit on the old Leffe and chocolate bit the night before and the ripping noise on my third anal crunch confirmed my worst fear - there was a tad more of this kiddie showing than I would have wished.

However a tear in the backside of my shorts was not going to stop me and as I crouched at the line ready for my first competitive race of 2009 I felt a surge of confidence run through my body – and down my leg. Although I hoped it was sweat my worst fears were soon confirmed and I had to nip to the loo rather sharpish – and I had beggared up my start.

Nevertheless I soon ramped up and enjoyed the run out – I finished in an impressive 1 hour 48 minutes – and let me tell you, if that hasn't put the fear of God up the Kenyans I don't know what will!!

So, with my season under way I returned to training with the Paris Marathon firmly in my sights – and my are those Parasites in for a treat.

Or so I thought.

First of all I collected a foot injury and that put me out of training for ten days. Just got over that in time to turn up for our local shindig down in Hastings where the Half Marathon is an opportunity for many thousands of locals to catch a glimpse of me. I'm a kind of local hero in this part of Sussex and I always try and put on a show for them – its a kind of reward for all those ordinary people who do so much to support me through the year. Well this year they had rather more time to catch that glimpse than in previous years – still recovering from my foot injury meant I had to take the event rather more easier than I would have wished – and I ended up taking a little under 3 hours to completer the course!

One of the reasons for my 'touch off world record pace' time became apparent the day after when the foot injury that had plagued me in the week leading up to Hastings returned with a vengeance – wiping out another flippin' week of training.

Never mind, I thought, I'd soon be back.

Wrong!! A snuffly nose, a a sore throat, aching limbs. Yep – my annual dose of lurgy arrived bang on cue. Actually I started having an urge to have an illogical argument, wanted to go shopping and couldn't parallel park – so I reckon I've got Bird Flu.

But whatever it is I have got, it means another week without training and my Doctor now tells me that my planned assault on the Paris Marathon is now in Jeopardy, which I can't understand because I was certain it was in Paris.

But the next few weeks do look to be crucial weeks – not only do I have Paris, but three weeks later I feature as a guest celebrity in this year's London Marathon and then shortly afterwards I travel down to Luxembourg for the Night Marathon. All sounds good – but if the body ain't working .......

And you thought the life of a elite athlete was a bed of violets!!

But never let it be said that this kiddie hasn't got bottle.

Like Barrack Osama says “I'll be Back!”.

Keep on tapering.

Ron.

Don't panic - I'm back!!!

Well I hasten to utter the words too loudly .... but ... yup. I'm back.

Yer old mucker has wiped the sleep from his eyes and emerged fresh faced and lily livered to face his legion of fans and Ronnettes. No more hiding under stones. No more dodging the media. No more looking away embarrassed when eye contact is made with an adoring fan.

For too long now this kiddie has been hiding his light under a bushel.

But now its fess time.

Where have I been? What have I been doing? Why have I kept quiet? What am I going to do now? And what of that highly publicised Olympic ambition?

Well I'll tell you.

I began the year on a bit of a low. Training wasn't going well. I only had to look at a menu and another 10 pounds in weight clamped itself, limpet-wise to my midriff. The Half Share in the House was giving me grief that I seemed to love my career as an Olympic Champion-in-Waiting more than I loved her. (Bit of a tricky one to defend that one entre nous). But, to be fair, this kiddie was still pulling in the crowds. Like a kind of modern day equivalent of a road running George Best, I continued attracting huge crowds wherever I went. (Mind you I also seemed to attract more than my fair share of nutters, liberal democrats and people from Yorkshire too, but that just goes with the territory I suppose).

But what really caused me to nip behind the bike shed for a few months was a result of some devastating news I received just around the New Year.

I wasn't going to Peking for the Chinese Olympics.

I know. I can sense that you share my disappointment. My shock. My despair.

Now I acknowledge that my Olympic ambitions might appear lofty to mere mortals but I firmly believe that the road I'm on will lead inexorably to Gold in 2012. As sure as retired 110 metre hurdlers are uphill gardeners. So, whilst I was pretty chilled about the Peking bash, twixt you and I, I did think it would have been good to have a bash at the Marathon. I know that I've probably got another six months training needed to bring me up to Olympic standard. But this glorious sport of ours is not just about winning gongs. Its about fellowship. About supporting your team mates. About flying that flag. So that's why I offered myself to the British team off to Peking as a kind of talisman. Just imagine the impact I would have on the team as a mentor to the likes of Paul Radcliffe and that bloke who jumps.

But it wasn't to be. I got blown out. The team bosses just refused to have me along. I know finances are tight – but come on you blazers!!

Anyway that's in the past now. My rejection though did leave some scars that have taken some time to heal And that's why I've kept myself quiet.

But as Peking got off the ground last weekend, I decided to let bygones be hasbeens.

Its time to pull on my Green Flash Dunlops and get back into the groove.

Ron is back.

Not that I've been entirely idle this year mind you. I've pottered around the fine city of Bruges for the Ostend to Bruges 10 Mile Race; I've been to Paris for the Marathon in April – did it in 5 hours 7 minutes (I think I finished 5th); I've been rfto Luxembourg for the Night Run and to the Arctic Circle for the Midnight Sun events in Tromso, Norway (food was eight and half quid a pint!!).

But the biggest is yet to come.

Because in November I'm off with the Half Share in the House to win the Himalaya 100 Mile Race.

How exciting is that?

And so it was that on Sunday, with around 105 kgs in added weight I took in my first proper training race. I travelled to a place called the North to take part in the Great Warford 10 Mile Race.

Now I don't mind missionary work - but let me tell you that is some distance to travel – but indicative of the sacrifices an elite athlete has to make. It took me some 6 hours to get there – although granted we did stop off in the Midlands to get used to funny accents.

I did OK. Went through my anal crunch routine for the locals then zipped through the race in what I thought was a rather nippy 1.52.33. Now, if you think that Paul Radcliffe is aiming to do the Peking Marathon in 2.20 – well, wow, I'm half an hour ahead of him!!

So that's race 1 under my belt – here's to the next ones.

Anyway I'll keep in touch with you once again. I promise no more sulks and no more unexplained absences.

Himalaya here I come!!

Keep on tapering.

Ron