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The t-shirt retirements continue, with the race shirts joining the exodus started by the hashing shirts…the up-to-date map of the hashing shirt gravesites is here.

8 February: The run was Calne to Chippenham, the shirt visited 3 pubs (it should have felt comfortable with that), and got dumped ignominiously behind the loo…at least it was face-up, unlike its former wearer (well, it has happened).

13 February: Although neither a race shirt nor a hashing shirt, my Southern Arizona Road Runners shirt qualifies as both.  A large organisation, I went entirely unnoticed my first year as a member despite taking 3rd in the Grand Prix for my age group; I re-joined under my hashing name and Slow Ride (Slow being short for Winslow) took 1st in the Grand Prix.  Dry-rotting off my body, I left this one on the banks of the flooded Cherwell at the Mesopotamia Causeway in Oxford:

14 February: The Brakspear shirt is nearly new and I only wear it as an undergarment due to it being a smallish medium and fairly inelastic.  I’m counting it amongst the Racing shirts, though, because it was ‘won’ by completing the Brakspear ale trail of 10 pints in ten places on a map they provided…two days (hmmm, so it sort of qualifies as a hashing shirt, too).  On an old chair in the alleyway archipelago.

17 February: This would have to rate as another double-dipper (both a race shirt and honourary hashing shirt)–I ran the Snowdonia Marathon, hilly and shiggy rich and muddy and rainy and cold, whilst stopping at every open pub on the route for a pint (write up here includes links to pub reviews along the way).  Left on a traffic sign at a bridge on the rail trail path during part of the Every Trail in Old Town project, the elastic was completely shot in it and it hung more like a rag than a garment–just the way I like but leaving it to fend for itself in the wilds will attenuate the tutting from the woman:

19 February: As this project continues I am seeing that many of the race shirts also technically qualify as hashing shirts.  Yet another was drawn from the big drawer of tees this morning–the Swindon Half Marathon which included, for me, an extra mile as I detoured off course for one pub before hitting another on the course–and as I was running part of the Every Trail In Old Town project in the afternoon it got ‘retired’ on a Christmas tree dumped near the Devizes Road bridge on the rail trail:

Now, here’s a legitimate hashing shirt and completely personalized: the Full Moon Monsoon 69th Anal-versary Hash-A-Thong was the brainchild of Company Cock at the Huachuca HHH (Sierra Vista, AZ).  Thirteen hashes in twelve days was the ultimate goal but living 70 miles away from the sponsoring hash put me at a slight disadvantage.  For example, although I got absolutely shitfaced at the 28 July  Huachuca HHH before haring that afternoon’s jHavelina HHH in Tucson, regular readers of this blog will recognize that this is not typical of my running and drinking behaviour.  The shirt was customized to reflect my substitute trails and I was pretty happy to have hit 11 in that time.

 

 

I was in Eynsham to visit Siemens the day an Oxford HHH trail was scheduled from the White Hart, so I did a course around the perimeter of twon and found a tree to thread it onto.  Hope someone finds it:

  

 

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The hashing shirts are dwindling but I will continue my efforts to eradicate them.  On a somewhat related note, I have accumulated an undue number of shirts for participating in foot races.  Racism of any sort is an ugly thing, but middle-aged dudes in race t-shirts are an especially horrendous sight (almost as bad as middle-aged dudes that use the word, “dude”).  With luck, I will have decorated the countryside with the last of these abominations by the end of summer.

I can’t promise they will all go…some are actually very comfy.  And, like some of the hashing-related-but-not-hashing shirts (like the borderline ‘classic’ form of racism shirt above, used at the First 30-Pack Marathon) I simply find too funny to relinquish, I’ll still have some of my age-inappropriate togs until they dry rot or are cut away by emergency medical technicians.  Now that the move is finished it is time to start building up running mileage again, and with that comes shirt disposal but first:

…said the Irishman, or Scotsman, Pikey, Pole or Russian (and I hear Sikhs and Abo’s soak it up, too)

 

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So, four years now (or, rather, next week it will be…here’s the annual reports for years Three, Two, and One for historical perspective).

We just received our new visas valid until 2016 but plan to take the next step toward citizenship in a year, Indefinite Leave to Remain…sort of the British Green Card.  There is an exam, first, but in general it is all downhill from here.

The view from Western Street near the new house…also all downhill

Additionally, we are in the process of moving house (which is why I rushed the annual report a week forward) from just north of the Oasis over to Old Town to a house situated close walks to either the Beehive or the Castle or the Globe (recently reopened!)—three locals instead of one and all three of high quality—and dozens of others a short walk. The new house has three bedrooms each larger than its counterpart in the old house, the two receptions are larger and made into more of an open-plan configuration, the bath is larger and has a tub (not just a shower), and there is a finished basement; on the down side, the kitchen is a little narrower and more primitive as is the small garden but everything we do and everywhere we normally go in Swindon (save for the butcher) is so close.

The only races I did this past year were the London Marathon (5 pubs plus a can of Carling on the last mile) and the Beerathon (5 miles with a pint and a hefty food item between each) and the mileage run for the year suffered from this lack of focus—1950 give or take about 25 (most estimates pretty good using gmap-pedometer), while the last several years (except for the year of the wreck) were in the 2200-2500 range.

On the runs, I visited  255 new pubs with a stunning 67 new ones (steep part of the graph) in September when I took two weeks off work and ran at least 10 miles per day in new territory each day. The 1000th wasn’t as big a thrill as I thought it would be, but I saw some really nice places and met some really fine folk. The September holiday found me visiting Gloucester, South Wales, Slough (exotic, I know) and Exeter along with some nearer-to-Swindon trips. The 100 Yellow Beer Challenge was responsible for a lot of second visits to pubs I might not otherwise have gone to after an initial stop and many of these seemed better the second time around. Oh, and my Workingman’s Club appears to have failed or at least hasn’t been open the last several times I’ve popped by (I have a grand one scoped out for the new neighbourhood, though).

Best pubs in Year Four (reverse order by First Visit write-up):
The Southgate Inn, Devizes
Byron’s, Swindon
The Hop Inn, Swindon
Dicey Reilly’s, Teignmouth
The Brass Monkey, Teignmouth
One Eyed Jack’s, Gloucester
Ye Olde Red Lion, Tredegar
The Rose of Denmark, Woolwich
The Volunteer Rifleman’s Arms
The Green Dragon, Marlborough
The British Lion, Devizes
The Blue Boar, Alsbourne (for the Dr. Who connections)

Favourite write-ups:
Postboxes
British Citizenship Exam Prep
Risk Assessment-Bins
Oxford Tourists
Assize Court, Bristol

Cock Flavour
Paul Simon in Hyde Park
Edie’s Lawn
The hunt
The Bremen Musicians (German children’s story)
Sex Tourism in Wiltshire
Modern Algebra for Omid
Burns’ Day Lunch

There are others search for ‘made me laugh.’  The blog may or may not have made some of the over 100,000 visitors laugh, but the damn fools keep checking in (that’s you, that is).

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The previous post was better, but I wanted to showcase the screensavers pieced together by Squeezin’ (with my gratitude for these).  The pics, in order, are

Venue	Where	beer #
The Princess Hotel (done around 5 am New Year’s Day)	Swindon	1
The Bank House	Cheltenham	2
At the New Year’s Races in Cheltenham (watching my nag drag in)	Cheltenham	3
Midlands Hotel	Cheltenham	4
The Queen’s Tap	Swindon	5
The Four Candles	Oxford	6
The Turf Tavern (at the sign commemorating Clinton failing to inhale there)	Oxford	7
The White Horse	Oxford	8
O’Neill’s	Oxford	9
Ellington’s	Swindon	10
The Red Lion	Oxford	11
The Gloucester Arms	Oxford	12
Eurobar	Oxford	13
The Volunteer	Faringdon	14
The Red Lion	Faringdon	15
The Bell	Faringdon	16
The Lamb and Flag	Oxford	17
The Bird and Baby	Oxford	18
Far  The Madding Crowd	Oxford	19
Southbrook Inn	Swindon	20
The White Hart	Wolvercote, Oxfordshire	21
The Red Lion	Wolvercote, Oxfordshire	22
The Plough	Oxford	23
The Gardener’s Arms	Oxford	24
The Rose and Crown	Oxford	25
TP’s	Swindon	26
The De’s Cut	Oxford	27
The King and Queen	Longcot, Oxfordshire	28
The Woodman Inn	Fernham, Oxfordshire	29
The Eagle	Little Cocks Swell, Oxfordshire	30
The Wheatsheaf	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	31
Faringdon Folly	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	32
Salisbury Cathedral	Salisbury	33
The King’s Arms	Salisbury	34
The Old Castle Pub	Salisbury	35
The keep at Old Sarum	Salisbury	36
Wheatsheaf	Lower Woodford, Wiltshire	37
Bridge Inn	Upper Woodford, Wiltshire	38
Black Horse	Great Durnford, Wiltshire	39
Wilsford Cum Lake sign (heh, heh)	Wiltshire	40
Stonehenge (really a great disappointment)	Wiltshire	41
King’s Arms	Amesbury, Wiltshire	42
George Hotel	Amesbury, Wiltshire	43
New Inn	Amesbury, Wiltshire	44
The Greyhound	Amesbury, Wiltshire	45
Royal Oak	Oxford	46
The Red Lion	Marston, Oxfordshire	47
The Angel and Greyhound	Oxford	48
The University Club	Oxford	49
The GW Hotel	Swindon	50
Jude the Obscure	Oxford	51
The Victoria	Oxford	52
The Rickety Press	Oxford	53
Wahoo Sport Bar	Oxford	54
The Oxford Retreat	Oxford	55
The Grapes	Oxford	56
The Rolleston	Swindon	57
The Baker’s Arms	Swindon	58
The Dolphin	Swindon	59
Marsh Farm Hotel	Royal Wootton Bassett	60
The Cross Keys	Royal Wootton Bassett	61
The Old School	Oxford	62
The King’s Arms	Oxford	63
The Swan and Castle	Oxford	64
The Victoria Arms	Marston, Oxfordshire	65
The Black Swan	Abingdon, Oxfordshire	66
The Blue Boar	Abingdon, Oxfordshire	67
The Bowyer Arms	Radley, Oxfordshire	68
Zen Bar	Swindon	69
Sir Daniel Arms	Swindon	70
White Hart	Lyneham, Wiltshire	71
Sodom	Wiltshire	72
The Angel	Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire	73
Cape of Good Hope	Oxford	74
Rudi’s	Swindon	75
Burn’s Day Lunch (Haggis, Neeps, Tatties, Whisky, and 2 beers)	Oxford	76
Swindon Wildcats 3, Sheffield Steeldogs 4 (SO)	Swindon	77
The Longwall	Oxford	78
The Royal George	Purton, Wiltshire	79
Riff’s Bar	Greatfield, Wiltshire	80
Magic Roundabout	Swindon	81
The Three Tuns	Wroughton	82
The Havana	Swindon	83
The Lydiard	Swindon	84
The Savoy	Swindon	85
The Brewer’s Arms	Cirencester	86
The White Horse	Woolstone	87
The College Farm	Watchfield	88
The Horse and Jockey	Ashton Keynes, Gloucestershire	89
The Vale Hotel	Cricklade	90
Goldfinger Tavern	Highworth, Wiltshire	91
The Red Lion	Northmoor, Oxfordshire	92
The Bell Inn	Standlake, Oxfordshire	93
The Maybush	Newbridge, Oxfordshire	94
The Beehive (this is about 100 yards from the house we are moving to)	Swindon	95
Baker Street	Swindon	96
Steam Railway Company Pub	Swindon	97
The Pig on the Hill	Swindon	98
Long’s Bar	Swindon	99
near Parliament, with a Cuban cigar and a bunch of dirty looks (and after 5 pub stops)	London Marathon	100
The Bear	Oxford	101
The Old Tom	Oxford	102
The Crown	Oxford	103
The Beehive	Carterton, Oxfordshire	104
The Crown Inn	Faringdon, Oxfordshire	105
Romany Inn	Bampton, Oxfordshire	106
Talbot Hotel	Bampton, Oxfordshire	107
The George Inn	Sandy Lane, Wiltshire	108
The White Hart	Calne, Wiltshire	109
The now defunct King George	Calne, Wiltshire	110
Barrington Arms	Shrivenham, Oxfordshire	111
Groves Company Inn	Swindon	112
Revolution	Swindon	113
The Plough	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	114
The George and Dragon	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	115
The Fish	Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire	116
Great Western Railway Staff Association	Didcot, Oxfordshire	117
The Prince of Wales	Didcot, Oxfordshire	118
Tap and Barrel (good read goes along with this pic)	Swindon	119
Old Town Festival	Swindon Town Gardens	120
Cock Inn	Combe, Oxfordshire	121
Three Horseshoes	Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire	122
Swindon Pride 2012	Swindon (duh)	123
Wernham Hogg’s	Slough, Berkshire	124
The Myrtle Grove	Risca, Gwent, Wales	125
The Sirhowy	Blackwood, Gwent, Wales	126
Railway Tavern	Sirhowy, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	127
The Castle	Bryn Serth, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	128
The Coach and Horses	Ashvale, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	129
Ye Olde Red Lion Hotel	Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent, Wales	130
The Tumble Inn	Pontypridd, Wales	131
The Maltster’s Arms	Pontypridd, Wales	132
Wyvern Theatre	Swindon	133
Byron’s Bar	Swindon	134
The Bear Hotel	Wantage, Oxfordshire	135
Source ot the River Thames	Kemble, Gloucestershire	136
Carpenter’s Arms	Lacock, Wiltshire	137
Mill House	Chippenham, Wiltshire	138
Sunny’s Pool Bar	Swindon	139
The Royal Oak	Marlborough, Wiltshire	140
The Lamb Inn	Marlborough, Wiltshire	141
The Crown	Marlborough, Wiltshire	142
IMS/TOF Mass Spectrometer	Oxford University	143
New Year’s Eve on Ferndale Road	Swindon	144

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The venue for the Great British Beerathon was the Hoop and Grapes, a small house on Farringdon Street at the edge of The City.  Before the race was over, I would be well acquainted with this fine pub…small bar at ground level, and nice rooms on at least the first and second floors (the one on the 2nd floor served as my changing room when I arrived but I don’t reckon any of the race participants would’ve been shocked by nudity).

The name is one I’ve seen around (the Hoop and Grapes nearby at Aldgate East tube stop has been on my short list of London pubs for years, now, as it was a survivor of the Great Fire while the next one nearer-to-the-City was destroyed), but only found out today that it is an old way of saying “Hops and Grapes” indicating a tavern that does both beer and wine.  Something new everyday….

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One of the Tacticals…click picture for link to race report where I stole this photo

The Great British Beerathon is one of the best events of its sort (and I say this with the authority that comes from inventing the 30 Pack Marathonand with participating in numerous stupid and ill-advised running/drinking combo-races).  It is as if I have been training all my life for this.  As I understood it, the race would be 5x  one mile loops with stops at the pub between each to consume a bite and a beverage, specifically, a pint of cider and a pork pie, a pint of ale and a pasty, a pint of lager and a Scotch egg, and a pint of Guinness and a crumble.  The record time for this course was about 46 minutes, but I was just shooting for an hour (to leave time to stop at a pub mid-race, optimistically).

The racers and their support teams assembled at the Hoop and Grapes on Farringdon Street at the edge of the City of London (although my support team, Jackie, pissed off to the East End to do some market shopping and do a bit of sight seeing).  We got to the start line and the organiser read out a greeting from Mo Farah, the Olympic gold medalist in the 10,000 m and 5000 m; I didn’t catch all of it but I DO remember the words, “you make me ashamed to be British, good luck.”

The race route, five laps, with food and drink between each

I felt especially slow on the first lap and the heat, though not staggeringly high, was the first any of us had experienced since LAST summer; I decided to take it easy and once the mile was done, trudged upstairs and took my pasty and ale then headed out to the garden.

Two sides of the same fucking candidate…my masque for the fancy dress portion of the festivities

The food was the worst of the race but it was made even more egregious by the order…after mile 2, we were presented the dessert and Guinness then the pork pie and cider after 3 and the lager/Scotch egg combo after 4.  I was certain I was going to do a tactical on the 5th mile but got to chatting with another runner who was dressed as a monkey and soon forgot my problems.  Just before we passed an Asian wedding party we noticed the large spot on Fetter Street where another of our group had purged since our last pass, so I wouldn’t even have been the first in THAT race.

With the course nearly over and mostly down hill, I picked up the pace and actually sprinted the last 100 meters or so.  Time: 47 minutes 17 seconds, but a new record was set ahead of me so what would have been the third fastes last year was 5th or 6th this year (someone did it in 37 minutes, I understand…while I was still choking on the Scotch egg).  Oh well, that’s racing in the big leagues, I guess.

Jackie was hungry and quite a few behind, as I found her nursing a vodka tonic inside.  I wasn’t really ready for food yet, but felt that a drink would be lovely.  We left toward the East End to see if we could find the Blind Beggar which has been on my short list of London pubs for years…leaving behind my mask for my bit of the fancy dress effort (Obama on one side, Romney on the other), and missing the awards ceremony.  Following that, we worked our way over to Brick Lane for a bit of Indian as I was getting a bit peckish:

Maybe I can improve on these results next year; maybe I’ll see you there. (I’ll post links to more photos and write-ups as they appear…these aren’t the most reliable folks as you might imagine.)

These final photos were all stolen from Adrian Lim’s facebook page a few weeks after the original post…go there for hundreds more:

Runners still eager as the first Slobstacle is reached (Ale and Pasty)

Third Slobstacle was pork pie (washed down with a cider retrieved outdoors)

Finally, the Scotch eggs were reached but the crowd was so spread out (I had lapped several twice) that they pulled the lager almost to order

City pigeons in spew, nom-nom-nom!

Like this:

Before I say anything about the London Marathon, let just take a second to say that the Angerstein Hotel can go fuck itself.  Thanks, that’s a load off my mind.

The booklet the London Marathon authorities sent included a map of the route with a little pint glass marker at every pub along the way (which was a logistical godsend for me)–you’ve really gotta love the British…they even put a can of London Pride in the starters’ goodie bag.  However, it occurred to me that the route was fenced almost the entire way to keep the riffraff away from us elite athletes; I wrote to a number of these pubs asking if I could call in an order from about a mile out to be brought to the kerb and I’d put together correct change and gave them my bib number.  The Lord Nelson (Isle of Dogs, about 16.7 miles  from the start) was the first to respond closely followed by the Porter’s Lodge (Monument at about 23.5 miles) both offering to comp me the beverages; then the  Angerstein Hotel came through soon after (another free offer, as bogus as the one at the Porter’s Lodge, at 5.3 miles) and I stepped up the search for someplace in the range of 8-14 miles.  Sweet: this was shaping up to be the best marathon ever…or second best after this one.

Similar to the runner info magazine, the online interactive map shows the pubs nearby (the pint mugs are drawn on the little orange markers)

My original plan was to take the World Record for fastest marathon dressed as a nurse, then this jackoff did it much faster than I possibly could (whilst flaunting the “dressed as a nurse” bit).  Then, fastest marathon playing a ukulele was rejected by the Guinness people as “too specific,” whatever that means.  A friend in Georgia then asked, “if you want to do something absolutely ridiculous and somewhat memorable, why don’t you just go as yourself?”  Brilliant in its simplicity, as indeed so am I, that is exactly what did.

Me, one day before and a few minutes after the race

Preparation for this event–I don’t think it appropriate to call a 50,000 person clusterfuck like this a “race”–involved all the normal endurance practice: slowly ramping my weekly long runs to around 20 miles, doing some of these with 4-6 beer stops, and carrying a bit of training weight in the form of a cold can of Carling throughout (although some of this was sacrificed en route in the name of the 100/100 Challenge).

Approaching Tower Bridge and the halfway point it was still wall-to-wall people

Since a lot of the training runs came at the end of the workday in the lousy winter weather so that I was forced to carry a towel and dry clothing and a heavy coat on most trots, I was already prepared to carry a light backpack with a couple of dry t-shirts and some extra Vaseline for my nipples; I also packed the 100th Carling, a cuban cigar and lighter, a bunch of oat cookies, and my mobile (to phone the pubs).  One thing that might have helped would have been to include a few runs directly into crowds trying to exit busy subway stations which would have prepared me for the first two or three miles of the crowd.

After the hike from Blackheath Station, the Blue Start looms over the hill (roughly at the Greenwich Meridian)

Okay, enough whingeing about the big race logistics.  Once you decide to just enjoy the day as a day out, the London Marathon can be fantastic.  It is, more than anything, a fundraising machine but there are some compelling and even heartbreaking stories enacted before your very eyes (these are covered in great extent by better writers in less smart-arsed venues, but try to find the one about the paralyzed woman in the mechanical suit or any of the ones where a loved one ran in memory of the recently departed).

My own run was interrupted to make calls to the ostensibly free beers and, of course, to make stops in pubs for pints.  These have been covered on this blog already (links to the names):

Inside The Rose of Denmark at 5.1 miles
In front of The Angerstein (gfyourself) at 5.3
Inside The Farrier’s Arms at 8.5
At the fence near the Lord Nelson at 16.6
Inside the Porter’s Lodge at 23.5

Then, at the 25 mile marker I lit up a Cuban, pulled out Carling #100 of the 100/100 Challenge, and ambled along to the finish.

The weather was perfect, sunny and lightly breezy despite the dire warnings from the Met Office of 30 mile headwinds and torrential downpours.  Most folks were pretty civilised and I don’t feel at all bad about my splits (a bit embarrassed, but such is my day-to-day existence).  Keep in mind that these include the beer stops (a couple of which were inordinately long) and that there were 37,000 folks in the narrow roadways (I could touch at least two people without stretching out my arms full length nearly every step of the way):

 

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I was able to get a beer, eventually, in the Porter’s Lodge, unlike having to supply my own in front of the Angerstein Hotel (did I mention before that they can go fuck themselves?).  Rob at the Porter’s originally offered a free beer after I asked if I could buy one and have it brought out to the London Marathon route, 50 feet away, and gave me his cell number.  I checked back and got a corrected number as he originally gave me one with an extra digit, but he still seemed keen on it then (I can post the emails like I did for the Angerstein if necessary).  On the day, I first got his voicemail, then a message from O2 that the service had been disconnected during my call…if you didn’t want to do it, why offer?

Then, I decided to jump off the course and go over to the dystopian hellscape bunker that is this bar and found my way to the serving area where three tenders were slowly dealing out easy orders to two customers. Okay, Rob didn’t turn off the phone because they were swamped…. Five minutes later, I finally offered to buy the Fosters that took Guinness-time to pour off the customer ahead of me, pointing out that I was under something of a time constraint.

Finding a place to down this was easy but there were so few customers (what a surprise) that I had to get one bleary eyed old alcoholic (I know, I know…pot-kettle) to try multiple times to take this photo for posterity.

Thanks, Rob.  I hope this is the write-up you were shooting for (it could be worse).

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Like the Angerstein Hotel (which can go fuck itself), I asked the fantastic Lord Nelson if I could buy a beer and have it brought to the fence during the London Marathon and like the Angerstein Hotel (which can go fuck itself), the marvelous Lord Nelson offered to comp me that beer. Unlike the Angerstein Hotel (may if go fuck itself for all eternity), The Lord Nelson not only honoured their freely given offer but tracked my slow arse down through spectators four-deep at the rails.  Bless them and all who polish their bar with elbows.

I spotted the pub down the road and realised I was on the wrong side of the pack, so threaded my way to the right and found an eddy of no runners at all.  Spotting the pub door, I got as close as I could and told the fans there that someone was supposed to have a beer there for me.  Easily 6 were thrust my way, but I smiled and said, “no, Gemma said she would have me a beer, inside, maybe she’s at the bar.”  The nearest guy, probably the only one that could make out my horrendous American accent, said, “at the bar? Right, then,” and dashed in when seconds later a ripe young thing appeared through the crowds smiling with a pint of Spitfire.  I am living the dream.

It is a fantastic building and these quayside pubs have remarkable histories.  Stop by and say you heard about them here.  I owe them some custom, myself.

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Approaching the Farrier’s Arms, I almost forgot about how much the Angerstein Hotel can go fuck itself.  I received even more of the appropriate psychologically palliative care within this wonderful, if small, boozer.

Once more, I threaded my way through the crowds and approached the bar.  The older of the two women told me where to find the toilet. “Not yet, love, I would like a pint, first.”  I ordered a Fosters and the landlord, I believe, showed up with a tray of gummy bears saying, you deserve these more than the others do.”  Damn straight.

We had a nice visit, the four of us and some of the punters. This is the kind of place you really like to stumble upon (or into) and it really cheered me on the long haul to my next scheduled stop.  Thanks, guys!

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Before I say anything about the wonderful Rose of Denmark, allow me to point out that the Angerstein Hotel can go fuck itself.

Left high-and-dry by the proprietors of the aforementioned shithole, I veered off the London Marathon course when I spotted the delightful façade of the Rose.  Excusing myself through the crowds of well wishers with, “pardon me, runner needs a beer, excuse me please,” I quickly arrived at the busy bar.

“I’m sorry to interrupt but I’m on the clock.  Can I possibly jump the queue and get a pint of…?”
“London Pride?” the landlord asked while changing his trajectory from the pint’s rightful owner to me.
“Excellent.  Just what I wanted,” I lied.  “Can I get this man one as well?” I asked but the fellow refused and even took my photo:

We had the briefest of chats and I accepted my change and the well wishes of the assembled.

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At about mile 9 of the Swindon Half Marathon, you climb into Liddington and there is a little break in the barricades at the Village Inn, which was nice since I was in no shape to climb over.  I headed into the bar hastily and some of the spectators commented about the loos, but were more than amused when I emerged with a pint of Wiltshire Gold and joined their support line adding taunts of ‘Losers!’ and ‘Booooo!’ as my fellow racers meandered by.

At Village Inn, review to follow

It was a good crowd at the Inn and one guy volunteered to shoot my photo without my asking.  He even bussed my glass for me when I finished and another mentioned the Wanborough pub crawl race in May that the kids at the New Calley had mentioned not 10 minutes earlier.  What a nice place!

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I was 2/3 through a 13.1 mile run when I realised I was going to miss a pub stop I had planned because the course I was on was veering away.  I asked some bystanders (this was in the midst of the Swindon 1/2 Marathon, by the way) and found that indeed the nearest pub was up a side street I had just passed so I turned and fought against the flow of other runners and past some race marshalls onto the road that eventually dumped me off at the New Calley Arms, a pub that was on my list but not the one I suspected I was passing…shit.  Oh, well, having come all this way it would be rude not to imbibe so I went in to find just the barkeep and a punter blathering on about some Chinese takeaway that thought he was the new driver.  Implausibly blathering away, I should add, because that is the best kind of blather.

Lost on a well-marked trail, I found a gem

A couple of spectators from the race came in and noted the race number stapled to my thigh and the sorry, sweaty state I was in and he told me about a race they have in the village, in May (I believe) around the 6 pubs.  I am SOOOOO there.

At New Calley Arms, review to follow

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My route including the side trip into Wanborough

I descended the hill toward Wanborough  with the 1:40 pacers, secure in the knowledge that I had blown my projected race time but thinking I was approaching Liddington, a half mile further along so, in fact, I had blown my time much worse than I reckoned.  As we made the hard left turn away from the village I realised (or thought wrongly that I realised) the route map would not pass the Village Inn as planned and I veered off to some spectators on the side of the road and asked, rather too loudly, “Is there a pub nearby.”  They laughed and looked away and I was forced to be more emphatic, “no, really, I’m serious…is there a pub in the village.”  Still dumbfounded, one of the ladies came to grips with the situation and pointed mutely off into the village and I thanked them and turned back against the flow of runners, past some concerned looking race marshalls and out of the route and onto the road to what turned out to be the New Calley Arms.  Ahh, bliss.

Not a mile further down the road, after returning from the NCA, the Village Inn appeared and I made my original planned stop.  This was a good venue for watching the folks formerly behind me pass by while struggling up the hill and when I rejoined them, refreshed, one said he wanted a pint. “£2.80 for the Wiltshire Gold.  If you’d have been faster I would have got the drinks in,” and then I left him behind.

At New Calley Arms, review to follow

At Village Inn, review to follow

The race was pleasant and I would do it again, not least because I didn’t have to do anything extreme to get to the start on time (as at Cricklade, Oxford, and Chippenham recently) but also because the hilly route was pretty thus making up for the climbs.  It is also small enough that you don’t really trip over a lot of other runners and the support is phenomenal. Oh, my time was 1:48:59 including the extra 3/4 mile and the two pints; this concludes my efforts to do 4 half marathons in a month’s time…29 days from 1st to 4th.

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From down the street, the King’s Head looked like a pub but I got the feeling it is a private residence having trekked up to it from the Old Bear.  Shit.  I still had about 20 minutes to kill before the bus, so I rushed back down to the White Lion which was dark and naturally cool after the warm Indian Summer noontime had even started to take its toll on me.  A pint of 6X and a bit more conversation with the two couples awaiting the rest of their dining party made up for my earlier detour.

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The Cricklade Half Marathon is my third in four Sundays and the third in a row with absolutely no workable public transport options: the first bus from Swindon is schedule to arrive at 10:28 on Sundays, two minutes before the gun but you have to pick up your credentials BEFORE 10:15 in order to run.  Well done, me: screwed yet another way by race promoters’ insensitivity to the motor-less.  For Chippenham ½ Marathon, I opted to stay out west from whence I COULD travel by a mix of buses and trains to get within a mile of the start; for Oxford ½ Marathon, I spent the evening prior snoozing on the floor of my lab office.  This time I opted to run to the start from my house, a mere 8 miles (which I tackled by running 10 minutes then walking 5 until I got to the race station), so the chance of the Personal Best time was pretty much a wash before the day even arrived.  It seems that if you don’t have a car for the organisers shove adverts onto the windscreen then you don’t really count.

The Race itself was fairly pleasant and truly dead flat.  I think the largest elevation change was about two meters over a mile long section.  The field was right around 260 runners, and there was a relaxed atmosphere to it (there are always a few there at the start a little too into it, and a few others excited and a bit intimidated by their first race, but for the most part it seemed like a bunch of folks just going out for a little trot in the sunshine).  I fell into pace behind some guys that seemed to be doing about a 1:45-1:50 pace and listened to their chat for roughly 10 miles before one of them suddenly fell back and his buddy stayed with him.  This left me without pace ponies for the last little bit and I may have slowed a little on my own (after the initial commute to the start I didn’t have much left for a finishing kick).

My chip time was 1:50 flat, my worst finsih of a half ever but tacked onto the 1:05 initial warm-up this was a good LSD trip of under 3 hours for 21 miles.  Heh…LSD trip.

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Okay, let’s try this again…last year I had to drop out of the London Marathon due to broken vertebrae and ribs, recently collapsed lung, and ligament damage that I am still recovering from 9-½ months later.  So, I got an automatic re-entry.  (Update: it was a pleasant day…write up here → http://1pumplane.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/london-marathon-22-april-2012/ ).

My plan was to destroy the World Record for Fastest Marathon by a dude in a nurses uniform (by wearing some sort of fetish outfit for my attempt, but at a minimum something traditional and recognisable as a nurse outfit).  Unfortunately, this jackass (below) claimed the prize at a speed I can’t beat whilst wearing a hospital shirt and a hat with a red cross on it…I wonder if I can sponsor a Kenyan to write the word “NURSE” on the back of his bib label to snatch this away from him, since that seems to meet the criterium for a ‘uniform.’  At least I was going to abandon my dignity overtly.

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There seems to be a conspiracy against people who travel to races via public transport.  The Chippenham Half Marathon start was too early for any transport links (bus, coach or rail) from the east so we originally were going to stay the night in Bath but found more (and more interesting) things to occupy our time with a couple of days in Cardiff immediately before; the race was well worth the effort, though.

Spartan but adequate accommodations

I didn’t want to miss the first running of the Oxford Half Marathon after all the controversy and the ruffled feathers from the ‘organised’ community of runners but once again the earliest Sunday train from Swindon would arrive in Oxford at 9:15 with a 25 minute bus (one every 15 minutes) necessary to make the 9:30 start time.  With almost every hotel room for twenty miles booked or outrageously expensive, I opted to sleep on the floor of my office overnight.  For next week’s Cricklade Half Marathon, I plan to just run the 7.5 miles to the start (again, with no transport options other than to rent a car or take a taxi, at least the bus will be running by the time I finish); alternatively, I could cycle but if any of these race directors would like a suggestion, simply pushing back the start a half hour would make a real difference.

The race went especially well although I was even slower than at Chippenham (1:39 and some seconds this time).  This was perplexing as I had not been drinking much the night before and none that morning; I even refrained from stopping for a beer (although, to be fair, no pubs on the route were yet open).  I distinctly remember the description ‘pancake flat’ bandied about in the previous months but this was a bit hillier than many races.  Nothing too difficult, mind you, but long inclines followed by steep downhills do not a planar surface make.  I should have known, though…I have run every foot of the route many times before (save the section in the Mini Cooper Plant) albeit in separate sections.

There were just over 1400 finishers and the start was in a wide road adjacent to the Kassam Stadium so there were no points at which the runners needed to bunch up.  There were a lot of novices out that insisted on weaving in and out of the crowd in spite of the relatively spacious setting but most of them cramped up and dropped out (or at least back) by the 7th or 8th mile.  For the most part, folks were courteous which is unusual for a British fun run (c’mon, we aren’t really racing, most of us).

Besides the beer-free route and the jackasses, the only other downside was my early onset Runner’s Stigmata (aka, runner’s nipple).  It made for a really cool finishing photo, but now I’m walking around with Neosporin caked up on them.  Live and learn.  Or not.

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The race over, all that remained was the long bus ride home.  I was lucky enough to catch the 11:45 but as we topped the hill into Hilmartin I thought I deserved a celebratory pint and hopped off at the Duke, a mid-19th century inn of remarkably thick-walled construction.

The staff are quite friendly to the punters they recognise, at least to their faces.  A family coming in was gossiped about (nothing unkind at all, except that any gossip at all is a bit low when they are coming through your door to hand you your wages).  Once inside, they were glad handed and asked about their week and treated like long lost family members.

I on the other hand was the red-headed stepchild and had waited patiently for my Wiltshire Gold while the bartendress chattered with the chef about the only other customer in the place when I came in, again being a bit gossipy only this time within earshot of the target.

I reckon the food must be good.

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My email contact with the Langley Tap started in jest (as is appropriate for anything coming from my hashing email address or indeed related to this blog).  I really assumed they would just open doors to the public on the occasion of the Chippenham Half Marathon despite their posted hours of “from noon” on Sundays, but Peter was not going to be seen as an ungracious host.

So it was a pleasure to spot the pub sign near the 11 mile mark in the race and an even bigger pleasure to spot my lone pint sitting on a table marked “Reserved for drSR” and with a couple of spectators gaurding it.  “We’ve had some imposters trying to take this,” the one guy told me.  While enjoying it, Peter came out to say hi and refused my offer to pay (a true gentleman, and the second publican this day to buy me a pint).

“You’re making the others jealous,” they pointed out.
“That’s my strategy: mind games.  Then I’ll crush them in this final couple of miles.”  I thanked my fans and headed back into the stream of other runners.  At least I know how to get back to the Tap for another, longer visit.