2 more days and August is over. That's what I'm telling myself. Then I can go back to normality: working, training and generally being a little more sensible. Not that I'm going wild over the next 2 days. Oh no. No chance of that. My head (and I suspect liver) is frazzled as I near the end of a 3 day hangover and it feels like I'm entering a period of deep sleep.
As Westlife said, "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun." Now I'm looking forward (strangely) to an Autumn of getting back into training for next year and finishing off (probably makes it sound nearer than it is) my PhD and making plans for what to do after that (exciting!).
So the "weekend":
ThursdayI rocked up in Sheffield having decided against doing the fell-race we agreed to. The plan was to have a curry with Oli and chums (just like the good old days) before heading to the pub. Oli called round with some Russian friends of his. These Russians, or more accurately, their bringing of vodka, would prove to be my nemesises for the next 2 nights...
Friday - the WeddingAnd so it came to pass that Oli's big day started with me very hungover. But it was a gorgeous day and a merry band of us, including the man himself, headed out into the Peak District for a most enjoyable saunter. I ended up hammering it up Stanage Pole cos I thought it'd be rude not to. The ceremony and photos were all very nice and all that and all the brides and bridesmaids looked suitably attractive in their get up. Looking round it truly was a who's-who of British Orienteering - with a few Russians (tssk) and Swedes thrown in for good measure. Anyhoo, we then went off for the reception. My attempt, with Middleditch, to fix the length of the best man speech failed, but apart from that I had a brilliant time. On the way to the toilet once, I was collared by the evil Russians, who eventually let me go to the toilet, but not after having 5 (?) shots of vodka. I came out of the toilet and lo and behold Whigfield's finest, Saturday Night, is blaring out and, what's more, there are 20 girls (and no boys) on the dance floor dancing to it. It's not often a chance to make a hero out of yourself comes along and I most definitely pulled it off. At least it felt like I had at the time.
Saturday - White RoseHere are the results from the White Rose. Now you may notice that I'm not on them. That's because I didn't run. There's no way that I could've. Middleditch and myself rocked up to the event campsite at around 6pm and promptly cracked open a beer. That was the first time I'd been outside on Saturday other than getting from the house to the car. From there the evening took off and I proceeded to make a repeat of the night before. I got so carried away that I even agreed to do the KIMM with Neil. Dammit.
Sunday - White Rose cont.So I finally got out of the tent at 1pm when my sister arrived down from Newcastle. Now I haven't seen her all that much recently, and she'd just made a 2 hour drive to come and see me, but unfortunately it wasn't the exciting afternoon it should have been. I was unable to do much for obvious reasons. After much phaffing, we spent a lovely afternoon in Scarborough. Unsurprisingly, Neil got far too excited about his sprint map for next years British Champs, and I needed to have a kip in a coffee shop (upstairs, behind a sofa) but other than that we managed to have some fun. Sunday night wasn't fun: it rained, my head hurt and I didn't drink anything.
Monday - White Rose - Relay Gold!I thought I'd better do some orienteering by this point. Actually, that's not true. Jenny Johnson put me in a relay team with Rob Baker and Nick Barrable and entered us. We were against Oli, Neil and Mat Dickinson. There was no backing out. But it wasn't going to be a normal relay. It was a Harris relay which is far too confusing to explain but basically involves the 3 of you doing a score event at the same time. You had 1 hour. Me, Neil and Mat had no watches. So Mat bought us some classy ones for £3 (total, not each!) in Scarborough. An accuracy of nearest minute was going to have to be enough. Apparently getting all of the controls would be "very unlikely". Anyway, 48 minutes later, my team had got them all and we'd won. At first I thought that I'd sort of enjoyed it, but wasn't sure, but I decided that I definitely
did enjoy it when Oli's team finished and Oli was in a big boo. He had reasons to be upset though, and as his close friends, we did our best to remind him of them and rub them in. I won a mug.
Last week was my first 'structured' training week of the winter. I actually ended up doing less training than in recent weeks, but established a lovely pattern for me to get used to...
