As fit as me? Don't make me laugh.....

      After the stresses and strains of last week's Track & Field meeting I'd every intention of having an easy week

Thursday: Dawn run on a misty Castle Hill. (Click to enlarge)

to recuperate and unwind. It didn't quite work out that way. On three mornings, as the alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 6:30 in the morning, I was rolling out of bed, dragging on my running gear, having a strong cup of coffee and a Brunch Bar and out the door by 7am. As I jogged through the fields, in the dark, hoping the bull wouldn't suddenly materialize in front of me, my mind was harking back 28½ years, wondering whether I should thank or curse two Vibram Mountaineering Club mates who'd first suggested I join them in a local Fun Run. It was only five miles, a distance that required little or no effort at all for Munro-bagging mountaineers, but it became a bit competitive.

     

....and the view towards Emley Moor 15 minutes later

A certain amount of training was called for, if you could call it that, and knowing the Fun Run had a long steep hill at the three mile mark, where better for me to train than up and down Castle Hill. It worked and on the day I finished way ahead of my two rivals in a quite reasonable 38 minutes. Furthermore, about 80 places behind me was an athlete who ran the very first 4 minute mile. No, not Roger Bannister, he was the first sub 4 minute miler. It was our own Derek Ibbotson, a Longwood Harrier who ran some exceedingly fast times in his era. But his racing days were long past and in the Fun Run he was jogging round stretching his legs and enjoying the camerarderie. Nevertheless, I still regarded it as a feather in my cap having finished ahead of one of Huddersfield's great heros.

      My two mountaineering rivals have long since thrown away their running shoes in favour of more sedate

Same morning - holly berries brightening the lane on the run home

pursuits. But here am I plodding through muddy fields in the dark, before breakfast, in an assortment of weathers, risking life and limb running the gauntlet of lumbering bovine beasties and recalcitrant canine critters, or zig-zagging across moors full of menacing mine shafts in ankle deep bog and knee twisting tussocks - at 82 years old! Never mind that one of my growing list of Consultants that keep me ticking over recently said I might pass as a rough 50 year-old, I suffer the same aches, pains, piles and prostate problems as most other male octogenarians.

Friday:  an enjoyable 9 miles round Grassington Moor

I've a medicine cupboard stacked with pills, potions and pain killers to deal with almost every eventuality, most of them taken on a regular basis and, I must add, all of them legal. I've medications to counter side effects of other medications, pills that bung me up and lactulose to loosen me up again. Most of them are on prescription, some my doctor doesn't know about, and would perhaps groan if he did. But the thing is, they all contribute towards keeping me running, though on some days it might only be as far as the loo. So I've had to smile when numerous people in the past - all of them younger than me - have remarked "I wish I was as fit as you". In truth, most of them have the potential for achieving meaningful things in life, maybe not in running but in some other sport or pastime that necessitates getting off their backsides to exercise and exert a wee bit of energy. And you never know, after 25 years, or so, they might even start to enjoy it....