Happy Fathers Day!
Yesterday was one of our regional league track meetings. The English summer was at its finest, alternating between howling gales and tropical deluges and sending all the officials scurrying for cover at several points. I'm glad I don't throw hammer or discus. There was literally no visible boundary between the water jump and the entire high jump fan-out.
It turned into one of those never-mind-the-times, each-do-five-events-and-we'll-be-ok meetings. I ended up with my worst 1500 in living memory (4:29, blame the wind and two hours getting soaked first), a brief five minute recovery, then a 2000m steeplechase (made a lot easier by already being wet).
The problem with doing lots of miles and being known for it is that people figure you can aways crawl round one more event. Despite being about twice the median age for the team, I somehow got press-ganged into my first 4x400 in a few decades. All our sprinters had of course stayed home and dry (bunch of wimps..), leaving a junior long jumper, a balding old geezer (me), a pole vaulter and finally a half decent decathlete on the anchor leg. Suffice to say I was not the slowest - pleasantly surprised to do a 61 - and we won the match handily.
I think I have had too many beers and barbecues to do anything decent time-wise in the next month before my summer holiday, and the kids made me a big tub of chocolate brownies which I am getting ready to attack now, which could make things even worse. But there are lots of meetings on - two a week - so the plan is just to show up, do everything going and have fun.
The track is my beach.