This man has got the beard I’m not allowed to have! Clearly a hipster but possibly he’s gone too far.

Having recovered from spectating at the London Marathon (it took 4 days) I did  5 days of hard running in a six day period – a 5k club race, 5k parkrun followed by a 7k race, a 10k race, a five miler on the Bank Holiday Monday  and then a club night. Rested for 3 days and parkrun today. Tomorrow I’ll go to Eye in Cambridgeshire for a 10k race. Unbelievedly, It’s called the Eye !0k.

I find that when I’m running consistently, I feel better all round, the quality of the tiredness is higher (leading to higher quality sleep) and my times are a bit faster. My last 3 Cambridge parkruns have all been within 9 seconds of each other and under 24 minutes. Overall I’m happy with this and no longer grinding my teeth over my two arch rivals who are older than me and running over 2 minutes faster. Here’s me, looking like a banana, at the 7k, with rivals and chums.

Controversy has developed at Wimpole Estate parkrun, a lovely National Trust course over extensive parkland. Unlike Cambridge which is run through narrow woodland paths, Wimpole is over wide grass land and has just over half the number of runners. As a result, this parkrun attracts around 20 runners with dogs and this has now become an issue. The run director has now ruled that runners with dogs should start 5 minutes after the official start time and deduct 5 minutes from their individual results. Today was the first delayed start for the dog runners and was deemed to have been a success overall but clearly some are not happy with this new arrangement. A lively discussion has ensued on Facebook revealing sensible and less sensible comments on both sides. I think the run director  has shown great responsibility and fairness as have a number of dog runners.

The UK General Election! What can I say? The Tories mimicked Labour values and Labour failed to spell out how nasty and self serving the Nasty Party are. A substantial percentage of the British electorate swallowed the Tories’ toxic promises of fairness and warnings of the dire consequences of Socialist government. It still surprises, and disappoints, how credulous people can be.

This will be the last blog for several months (probably). I may rise again, like the Phoenix, in the summer.