Mo and Roger

'Mo and Roger' I wish, can you just imagine doing a few training miles with Mo when you are this size and this slow? It would be my dream, but would probably be his worst nightmare! 

The 6th May will be the 60th Anniversary of the first recorded sub 4 minute mile, achieved by Roger Bannister when he crossed the line in 3:59.04 at the Iffley Road Sports Ground in Oxford back in 1954. 

That's quite a few years ago, but it's right and proper that we still remember the achievement. In part because of the current trend of poorer performances by English runners compared to historical data; but also to gather inspiration as we try to push ourselves harder at all levels of the sport, be it short or long distances. I managed 10:33 minute miles yesterday in training.  My fastest mile time over 5K is exactly 10 minutes. Roger Bannister must have been going like a rocket when he set that blistering standard 60 years ago.

It's not the only achievement in running that has been in the news of late. But somehow this next bit was not so widely published.  Mo Farah was mistakenly thought of as having somehow 'failed' at London recently. How his success can be regarded as failure I simply do not know.  Charlie Spedding had held the English Record for the Marathon with a time of 2:08:33 since 1985 and then Mo Farah came along and eclipsed it.  To put this Marathon Athleticism into context: not a single Briton has recorded a sub 2:10 Marathon time since 2005, that is until Mo Farah came along at his debut marathon.

Mo and Roger, I doff my hat to both of you, well done.

Locke 2014 Tom Hardy Review

Locke: One newspaper review commented that the 2014 film "... Locke is played by Tom Hardy, who effects a rich Welsh delivery that I could listen to all day" Yeah, if you want your ears to bleed. 

We thought that the accent was poor, so poor in fact, that after 10 minutes, my eldest daughter turned to me and enquired "is he supposed to be Welsh", which left me quite perplexed as I thought he was Norwegian.  The Christian name done it for me, the confusion that is.

Locke is probably a great film if you haven't spent a few hours driving earlier that day. Mind you, if you have been driving, then at least you can have a kip while the film is playing.  This folks is the first time in my life that I have ever walked out of a film. And trust me, I have suffered some dreadful cellulose, with dreadful acting, and dreadful directing, but never ever has a film previously had the same effect as sleeping tablets.  If Locke was a pharmaceutical company, then it would make a mint.

Ring, ring

"Ifan here, Ifan from Tonypandy in Scandanavia, but if you can't pronounce my Welsh name properly, then you can call me Ivan.  I know it's confusing, some people think that I'm Ivan the Terrible from the cold countries, instead of Ifan from wet Wales. You see butty, it's all in the pronunciation.  It's Ifan as in bee-van without the 'b' you see.  

"Hi Ivan, it's Gareth: how's the the game going, do you know the result?"

"It's a cool game this concreting business, almost as cool as movie making. But I'm not in a cool movie at the moment, instead I'm stuck on huge blinking motorway with all these paying patrons" 

"Well, I just want to tell you, you're sacked"

"From the film Locke, or as a Welsh impersonator? Oh sorry, I have another 432 telephone calls coming through and I have to shout at Dad"

Ring, ring, yet again

"Ifan here, Ifan Locke, oops, I meant to say Ivan Locke"

"Hi Ivan, it's your one night stand, can you help me?"

"My name's Ifan not Ivan, but seeing that we only met once so maybe you didn't quite get my name.  But don't worry, it's a YES, I'll fix it! I made my decision"

"Good, when will you get here?"

"Well almost everyone in this auditorium hopes that I get there pretty blinking quick"

All in all, that was 18 minutes of my life wasted, let along the ticket cost.  I can recuperate the money, but those 18 minutes are lost forever.