The Drill Sergeant is Waiting For You....

As mentioned in a previous post Nick was taken out of running for just over a year after an injury.  Prior to that he had been training for his first full marathon.  This weekend is the Bournemouth Air Festival which means figther jet displays amongst all kinds of other military displays, and LOTS of tourists for the final weekend of the summer. This reminded us of his last training run before his injury and the Facebook post that he wrote afterwards. Unfortunately he never did make that marathon.  Here's hoping he can finally do it this year!

(Originally posted on Facebook 18th August 2011)

I ran 12 miles this morning along the sea front, 6 miles there, 6 back. Unfortunately I was cold when I started and didn't realise the wind was behind me to the degree it was, so ran the first half way too fast. I got to about 8 miles and figured I could push it to 9, then it would be sensible to stop. 

Unfortunately it's currently Bournemouth Air Show, and the sea front has been turned into a carnival/stall/shopping centre. And who is waiting for me at 9 miles, just when I'm about to give up and stop? The Army, that's who. Plus the Navy stall, the Marine Commando stall, The RAF helicopter stall, the Help for Heroes stall, the Navy Cadets stall, the Royal Artillery stall, the Territorial Army stall, all in all about a 100 people, in uniform, who've served our country and risked their lives, and there's the fat bloke giving up after only nine miles.  I could cope with running past the cake stall, the doughnut stall, the candy floss stall, the baked potato stall [the smell of which stalked me for at least half a mile] the candy shop, the fish and chip stall and the freshly baked bread stall, but I am not stopping and giving up in front of an Afghan Heroes charity sign of a guy in uniform, in a wheelchair, who's a bilateral amputee. So I did what any man would do, I ran past them, confident and strong, intending to stop as soon as I was round the corner and out of view.

10 and a half miles, the corner beckons and I am safely out of sight-line and out of the embarrassment zone. I am now, unfortunately, in the beach volleyball training area. And to give the girls some credit, they were training in the rain, in uniform.

So, 12 miles completed on schedule.  If I could just put my request in now for the New Forest Marathon this September, I would like some people in uniform, preferably with a charity sign, around the 17 mile mark, and some girls playing beach volleyball at around 22 miles. Then I'll finish it no problem.

Nick

Very Long & Unfathomably Whingey Irrational Rant Of The Day

I just spent an hour in my local supermarket being photoblocked. 

I had 80 pictures on a USB key of our "Staff barbecue and sports day" from a couple of weekends ago. It took me about 3hrs at home on the computer to wean them down from the original 240 photos taken on the day, and then to crop, size and do some tasteful editing.  I'm going to be creating a photo montage on the main wall at work to try and give everyone a few smiles over the next month.  How difficult could it be to just pop into my local Tesco [a big sell everything Walmarty type of supermarket], stick the key in the machine and hit the "order all" button?

Well I arrived to find 6 people already waiting in the queue in front of me, but for all the difference it would have made it could have been 25.  The wall of animosity directed at the 2 photo order machines in use in front of them was palpable.  It was also audible.  My first clue to this was when one of the ladies, using some very unladylike [albeit very accurate] language announced that this was a complete joke - with sexual connotations. Bear in mind she said this out loud, about the two people standing about a foot and a half in front of her. The man on the left wasn't ordering prints of his holiday snaps, oh no. He was creating a photo book, probably a present. But more than that, he was creating a work of art. And it wasn't right, it... just... wasn't... right!  He was on page 21 ["he's been at this for 40 minutes" - with sexual connotations - announced one of the other ladies], and every page had 2, or 3, or 4 photos, in different orders, in different shapes, he could move them, flip them, rotate them, no, still not right, rotate them back.  Some he wanted to expand, some he wanted to crop. And every time he put one in, he'd look back at the 500 photos on his card to see if he'd picked the right one. He hadn't.  Every single - with sexual connotations - time he'd picked the wrong one and had to change it back. And then he'd put one back in again. But it... still... wasn't... right. 

At one point he put in a picture of a sheep on a mountainside, and I looked at one of my fellow volcanic grumblers, all of us about to go pyroclastic on his backside, as if to say "hasn't he already used that one earlier?".  Bear in mind, we're standing in the middle of a busy shopping aisle, being rammed by trolleys and prams and shopping bags.  There is nothing else to do but stare at this man's photos.  One of the ladies looked at her friend.  "He used that one earlier didn't he?"  The man heard her.  He checked back to page six.  He had!  He HAD used the picture of a sheep on a mountainside before.  How could he have missed it when he flicked from page 6 back to page 19, and compared it to page 8, then swapped for the photo on page 14, before rotating then unrotating the 4 photos on page 15?  What sort of a dumb idiot was he?  He then proceeded to delete 6 pages of photos, all the way back from page 22 to page 16! We stared.  We just stared, immobile with rage.  He shook his head, stiffened his shoulders to provide himself the courage that all artists need when creating a masterpiece, and put 4 photos onto his new page 17.  Rotated them, rotated them again, then changed them all.

The woman to his right on the other machine glanced nervously back, obviously knowing she'd be next in the firing line when someone finally blew.  She had a card from her camera in the machine, and had spent the past half hour choosing from every fourth or fifth family and friend beach photo. I knew this because it was clear she'd set the burst function on her camera - every 3 or 4 photos were identical.  All posed portraits, of the same 10 people, beach, sea, sky, shot repeatedly over milliseconds, all 500 of them.  She still couldn't choose between them though. She glanced back again, sorrowfully, apologetically, before adding with perfect comedic timing "and I've still got 2 more cards to go sorry".  She wasn't sure if she'd driven  the woman directly behind her mad enough, so she pulled the 2 cards out of her pocket and showed them to her, just to make sure.

I gave up. I had to shop for lunch then get back to work, you know, sick people and all that. 20 minutes later, an hour after I entered the store, I exited the checkouts, food in hand, and walked past the photo aisle.  No one had moved.  Not the photoblockers, not the queue.  Especially not the man on the left machine.  Stiff backed, sweat on his brow, immune to the fury of the intemperate critics behind him, he continued on in his quest for artistic perfection.  He glanced at the Page 23 he'd just created, he stopped and stared, and paused, and waited, because he knew that he had finally created something worthy of the image in his head...

And then he deleted it.

Nick

SNART!

No it’s not a metaphor for a naughty word, though I'm sure many could use it that way if they're fed up enough with it. Those of you with dogs should understand. And your tolerance of it will vary depending on many factors (OCD, laziness, appreciation of your dogs' efforts), but if you’re like me you give up trying to keep on top of it and eventually it just takes over. So what is SNART you ask? It’s the lovely doggie nose art (or unbecomingly called ‘snot art’ or SNART for short) that decorates the windows of most dog lovers’ homes.

Dogs love to watch out the window. Unfortunately, with my dogs, the window watching comes with barking and shouting at the kitties sitting across the street, the children running in the street, birds flying above the street, leaves blowing down the street, basically at anything that moves. Well they are sighthounds, and anything that moves must be shouted at and/or chased. Then there’s the excessive display when we arrive home from a human only outing and don’t get in the house fast enough. The screaming and swearing and language that comes from those normally sweet little faces is a bit startling. And in the midst of all this being nosey and watching, shouting and swearing comes the inevitable nose prints.

When we just had 2 or 3 dogs we had this pretty much under control. We had wooden slatted blinds. They pretty much respected the blinds. Occasionally a nose would peek through when we got home to check it was us, but they would wait (still shouting at us to hurry up) inside the door instead of banging at the window. The few prints that got on the window could be easily wiped away.

As the number of dogs grew (we are NOT collectors, we are just addicted to whippets), a couple of them (*cough* Drama & Teya *cough*) got clever and started sticking whole heads through the slats. Then Drama got even more clever and would stand up and put the whole front of her body through! 

And that was the end of using the blinds alone to cover the windows for fear of her bringing them and the plasterboard crashing down on her. 

We thought we’d outsmart them and put up some muslin curtains between the window and the blinds so that when they looked through they couldn't see out and would give up. But nope – Drama was having none of it. She taught her children and her mother (sweet Queen Savannah would never be part of that hooliganism) to push aside the blinds and curtains, or to push the blinds up from the bottom. Kendra helped by adding her teeth to the mix and chewing out a section of the blinds. 

And then that WAS the end of using the blinds for the bottom half of the window at all. I love my dogs but sometimes their cleverness is their undoing (or should that read MY undoing?) 

So we gave up on trying to stop them seeing out, and relied on the muslin curtains to provide some kind of privacy from the outside. But let's be honest, when you’ve got 4 dogs pulling them aside at every opportunity there really is no privacy. And where we once had little manageable nose prints, they now had full access to the window whenever they wanted (especially when we were gone and couldn’t tell them to get out of the window) and the nose prints multiplied into full on SNART! It grew, layer upon layer until when you looked at it up close it almost looked like privacy glass.

I tried to photograph it, but apparently SNART has magical properties. It cannot be photographed. It completely disappears in pictures, and the glass looks clean as a whistle. I’ve gone back through our photos for pics of the dogs in the window where I know there was plenty, and the window is clean in every single one. I bet the neighbours wish they’d been looking at photos of our window instead of the real thing! 

I mention above that it was so thick it looked like privacy glass. I truly wish it would have worked like privacy glass because if it had it might have stopped the excess shouting at kitties, leaves, children, birds etc. But perhaps SNART is invisible to the dogs as well as the camera because it never stopped them. So finally we have decided to add a privacy film to the glass in the hope this will curb the naughty whippet chorus. And also because I’m sure the neighbours will look more kindly on it than the SNART. 

In preparation for the privacy film today was the day the SNART was removed. I’m sort of embarrassed at how much elbow grease it took to get it all off. As I said, for some of us it gets to a point where it’s easier to ignore it than keep on top of it. I kind of knew in my head how out of control it had become, but it wasn’t until the stuff actually started fighting back that I realised the enormity of it. But then again it is art, and art doesn’t want to be destroyed. Yeah, that’s what I’ll tell myself, I’m sure someone will buy that explanation. Eventually I won and the front window is now sparkly clean - at least until tomorrow afternoon’s kitty barking brigade. 

Hopefully the privacy film will arrive soon, and the dogs will be disappointed to no longer see clearly through the front window. They'll just have to settle for using the back sliding door as their only canvas.

Wendy

The mini Wall

Before The Drain there was The MINI Wall

(originally posted on Facebook 14th May 2013)

Today I hit The Wall. Not The Real Wall, that's reserved at 18 miles for people who can actually run. This was The MINI Wall, reserved at 6 miles for idiotic people who like object lessons in how not to run. 

• First check the weather and see there's a storm coming, so plan to run in the calm before the storm. 
  
  
• Get the time of your run wrong so instead of the calm before the storm you're running in the storm before the storm. 
  
  
• Forget to hydrate properly.
  
  
• Stretch once instead of twice because you're impatient to get going because of the weather
  
  
• All this on top of not enough sleep. 

Result - at 2 miles slow, at 4 miles sludgy, and at six miles threateningly empty quickly became stalled. The wind against became like treacle, my legs started to get dragged to the floor, my shoes started to make scrapey noises as I wasn't lifting them properly. I was trying to just go left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, and root march my way through it , but the wind and exhaustion were drowning out the drill sergeant in my head, who from I could tell was only capable of mumbling something along the lines of 'der duh der der derduh, floppity flop.'

So I set myself a lowered target, and at least matched my last time of 90 mins, but I only covered 8.8 miles. That works out at 10.2 mins a mile, and a marathon pace [even in dreamland] of 4h 28mins, a full half hour slower than my last time.

Message to self - prat

Nick

Remind Me Again When They Grow Up?

You would think at the age of 21 months (which is so close to 24 months that they really might as well be 2 years old) that the 'puppies' being quiet wouldn't mean they were being naughty.  You could be forgiven for that. However, having raised 5 whippet puppies (3 from birth - not counting their siblings), a Chelsea Bear and numerous family dogs, there is no way that *I* can be forgiven for thinking that (sigh).

I am upstairs watching TV and making Tuggitz!.  The dogs are free to come and go.  Drama and Teya are with me, Savannah and the pups are downstairs.  All is quiet and good except the occasional sound of plastic.  Good puppies playing with an empty plastic bottle (yeah right).

Kendra brings up the plastic crinkly toy and I ask her to show me.  She obligingly brings it up on the bed and drops it in my hand.  The outside packaging from a 5 pack of BRIGHT NEON GEL PENS!

My mind instantly envisions my living room carpet, rugs and furniture splashed with a psychedelic blend of neon pink, orange, yellow, green and blue.  Those of you who knew me in my early 20's are probably thinking 'yeah, that sounds like something she'd like', and you're right - it was (at least based on my wardrobe accessory choices at the time), but not in my current day living room.

In my panic I try and rush off the bed and downstairs (while telling KK she's a good girl for bringing me the 'toy') and am mobbed by 5 excited whippets wondering what game we're going to play (AARGH).  'Mummy's moving fast - it must be something AWESOME!'  Hmmph, mummy can't move fast with you're all jumping on her and bashing her in the head and knees.

I finally make it past the sea of bouncing whippets, down the stairs through the school of running whippets and discover....

Phew!!  Plastic shards, chewed up caps and ends, but NO INK!!  Gel ink is awesome - it stays put in the tubes, and doesn't leak out the back end or the writing end.  The puppies chewed the caps off (the caps had interesting bits on them) and then chewed the other ends, and then got bored before they reached the ink.

Dogs are locked outside while I clean up the shards (don't want any cut paw pads), say a sad goodbye to my pens and all is good.

And now that it's all over I'm a little disappointed.  While I'm glad my carpet and furniture were saved, I'm thinking that it might have been kind of cool to have a couple of neon coloured pups for a few days.

Wendy

'A Simple Whippet' & 'Mommy's Rules'

A couple of whippety poems Nick wrote several years ago.  

He wrote the first one when we just had Chelsea (whippet mix) and were waiting for Savannah (our first purebred whippet).  At the time we only planned on 2 dogs at a time - we never dreamed we'd have a houseful of whippets. The line about 5 or 6 whippet friends must have been a bit of foreshadowing because before she left us Chelsea had 5 whippet housemates.

The second poem was written after Savannah taught Chelsea how to steal food off the kitchen counter.  Naughty Savvy!  You'd never believe that if you know her now, but she was very naughty as a young'un.

            

A Simple Whippet

I am a simple Whippet
and my needs are far and few
We’ll start with a big, soft, warm bed
that you thought belonged to you.

A backyard with tall fences
where I can chase some things
like squirrels, chipmunks, bags and twigs
or anything with limbs.

A big long beach with miles of sand
that I can fly on through
so long as it’s away from cars
(’cause I would chase them too!)

Then onward to my favourite chair
- the comfiest I’ll pick -
and whippet friends to share it with
(not many, five or six!)

I’ll deign to curl up round your knees
to show that I approve
but if I am not comfortable
then you’ll just have to move.

As long as I am not disturbed
I’ll sleep for King and Country
but one step near the kitchen door
and you’ll soon know who’s hungry

The first and last bites must be mine,
I get to lick all dishes
and leave just one crumb on your lips
for lots of doggie kisses.

And as the hour, it turns to late
and sleep-time’s where we’re heading
be sure that I will snuggle close
if I get all the bedding.

Just know whenever you’re with me
this message clear I’ll send:
You’re truly someone special
when a Whippet is your friend.

Nick Jones

January 2001

~~~~~

Mommy's Rules

There is a rule my mommy made
Which I’ve misunderstood
She thinks to do it I am bad
When really I am good

She yells and screams and gets all at
The short end of her tether
She thinks that I’m not listening
When really I’m just clever

She’ll give me all the finger wags
Her voice firm and insistent
Then pushes it back way out of reach
Like that will make a difference

I sneak a look, I leap and jump
My tummy gives applause
And now I have those yummy treats
Between my whippet paws

There’s no way you can stop me
Though you try for all it’s worth
You think I should be curled up tight
But I was born to counter surf

Nick Jones

13th July 2003

The Tale of the Obvious Tree

(Background - Nick has run a couple of half marathons and was working up to a full marathon when an injury kept him from running for just over a year.  He is now back to training and hoping to do a full marathon in September)

Today I met The Drain. Not The Wall, not The mini Wall, The Drain. I'd gotten up early, planning to do a half marathon along the seafront, with the incentive of doing one under two hours after last weeks 15 mile epic [sorry, 15.1 mile epic, the .1 is very important - see note at bottom**] I'd checked the weather, and it was going to be bright but cloudy, and just slightly chilly. Perfect jogging weather. Did the numpty check what the wind was doing? No, the numpty did not. So, arrived at the beach, complete with sideways trees, but happy the wind was against me, so I'd have it on the way back. And that's when I met the The Drain. 

There's a great feeling at the start of any run as your GPS watch goes from the default 60 min/mile to 8 min/mile. It makes you feel you're accelerating like a proper runner, when all you're doing is stopping standing still. Today, with the wind against, it got to 10 and stayed there, then within 5 minutes had drifted back towards 11. That was just the first sign I was in trouble. The second was that my diaphragm, the thing meant to move up and down to suck air into my lungs, didn't want to move. It's supposed to feel bouncy like a beach ball, mine felt like an old car tire. And within ten minutes the oxygen depletion had got to my shoulders, by twenty it had gone to my legs. By thirty the cramp started in my right calf. There was no sudden downturn, no marked point at which my body complained, no ice picks [or blood axe] to the lungs, no moment when some part of my body broke and fell off [it has a habit of doing that]. This was gradual, like a sink full of water in a cheap hotel where the plug doesn't fit. The energy just slowly drained out of me, the stride pattern shrank, the pace slackened, the numbers slunk back down, too embarrassed to show their face in public.

It didn't help that as well as the Beaufort scale shredding force 84 wind, there where these gusts, aimed specifically at me, trying to make me feel even worse. These gusts were not aimed at anyone else, just me. All the other runners, bombing past me at 10 miles an hour, were completely left alone by the wind, glancing down at me with a kind empathetic look on their faces that quite clearly said "Why aren't his legs working?" Worse still were the runners coming the other way, floating along like rose petals on a breeze, 2 of them carrying weights. I, of course, immediately, if quietly, doubted their parentage. Just wait till you turn back, I thought, then you'll be hit with a wall of turbulent sandpaper strong enough to blow your ear buds out of your ears. Except of course, that would be when the wind would stop. The wind, quite clearly, just hated me.

I turned back at 5 miles, so I would at least hit double figures. The wind stopped -  physically, actually, literally, stopped dead the second I turned round, then 5 seconds later went "ha, ha, just kidding" and started up again with it's previous ferocity. And despite the fact the sink was empty, back i went. Not so much a rose petal as an old cone, bashed by the wind and occasionally thrown forward on its journey to somewhere. One foot in front of the other, the body having already lost, the mind too stupid to notice. 

I have a thing I tend to do called the Reverse Ed Moses. Edwin Moses was famous for winning the Olympic 400m hurdles with a stride pattern of 9ft.  I do the Reverse Ed, which is a stride pattern of 9in. So there I was, bumbling along, when who should come back along but one of the runners carrying weights. He was IN PAIN. The wind had defeated him, his shoulders and head wobbling erratically side to side like the jelly monster, his arms draped down like an octopus  And did he hate those weights. His friend was nowhere to be seen, presumably off crying behind one of the beach huts, or burying his weights. The now lone-runner looked up at me, an understanding, self pitying glance that said "Ah, so that's why your legs weren't working". Either that or "please could you shoot me", one of the two. And schadenfraude proving that most wonderful of adrenalin boosts I managed to speed up, and lo and behold as my right calf stretched out to something more than a tippy toe the cramp went, sort of.

5 miles later I had defeated mother nature. Well, insulted her quietly then ran away before she could ask me what I said. And although my finish time was truly horrible, I didn't stop, so it's the straw I'm clutching to -.before the wind blows it into the next county.

Nick

**Note:  The 15.1 mile epic is a reference to the Nick's Facebook post from 6th June
"I ran further than I've ever run today , 15.1 miles [the point 1 is very important]. Pace was good, 2h 23mins, which is 9.47 mins/mile, and a marathon pace of 4hr 8 min. In theory. Cos right now I hurt, man do I hurt, oh my deity {OMD} do I hurt. Unless you're that way inclined, in which case oh my lack of deities {OMLOD} do I hurt"