Cambridge Holi Festival earlier in the month.

The Holi is the  Hindu Festival of Colour and a celebration of the arrival of Spring. Cambridge students assemble on Queen’s backs and throw paint at each other. Great fun and enjoyable to watch. I was a bit worried about them breathing in the clouds of powder paint but this didn’t appear to be an issue. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t up to much but the rain just managed to hold off for most of the time.

Last weekend, I did Cambridge parkrun on Saturday and Cambourne 10k on Sunday. Cambourne is a new town, 9 miles to the west of Cambridge and the race is part organised by Cambridge and Coleridge Athletics Club. And very nicely organised it was, too. The weather was perfect and the course was gently undulating (although some of the inclines did go on a bit). I was roughly 100 seconds slower than last year and I was happy with that.

It occurred to me (again) that I seem to know quite a lot of male runners with serious health problems, mainly in their 60s.Tumours, heart disease (heart attacks, heart block and arrythmias}and a spinal bleed. I’m also in this group and we’ve all got one thing in common. We are all still running! A couple of weeks ago I had a chat with a club runner from Newmarket. He’s currently waiting for a hip replacement and expecting to run again in a year’s time when he’ll be in the 85-89 age category for parkrun. Hip hip hooray!