The good thing about writing a weekly blog about running is that you can use the search box to find your old race reports.

If you’d asked me when was the last time I’d ran the Alloa Half Marathon I would have guessed 2018 or 19. In fact, it was five years ago, and you can find my report here.

I blame lockdown. After two years of the pandemic, my sense of time is screwy. I discount the two years spent at home and assume everything is two years shorter than it actually is, which is why I’m planning to celebrate my twenty first birthday this year…

I see from my report that I was complaining about the traffic. It’s also the one thing I remembered about the race as I phoned Iain TwinBikeRun to say we should try and get to Alloa for 7:45 (for a 9am start) but he disagreed. The start line had moved from near the town centre to a community campus on the edge of town. He didn’t think the traffic would be as bad as there was a lot more routes to get to the start, including buses from the town centre for those who wanted to park further away.

He was right. It was easy to drive in, find a bus and get to the start. The only queue this year was at the pre-start toilets. But there’s always a queue at the toilets before any race and it’s alway the case that no matter when you join that queue, whether one hour or five minutes before the start, and no matter how many people are in the queue, ten or a hundred, you’ll never reach the front until two mins before the race starts and you’ll come out to find everyone has already left. Alloa was no different.

I also see from my report that I complained about the hills. The change to the start though has improved the route as there’s now a three mile gentle descent and flat before you climb the first hill. The warm up makes the hill feel easier, while there’s another long descent afterwards so you have time to recover before turning west toward Alva.

There’s another long hill around the 11 mile point as you come back to Alloa but while it’s long, it’s not that steep.

Overall, it was a cracking day for a race. Blue skies and no wind and the changes to the route has really improved the whole experience. I was pleased with a time of 1 hour 43 mins, which was faster than my previous time of 1 hours 48 mins and shows that while lockdown may have lost two years, I’ve also gained five minutes. Result.

For six years I worked at the Western Isles Hospital as a porter. I would provide cover whenever I was home from university and I’d generally work full time most weeks on either morning, evening or night shift. 

Night shift was the best and worst. It was the best because I was paid time and half, and if it was the weekend I’d get another half for working a Saturday and another half again for working Sunday. (And if it was a public holiday like Christmas then it would double again – jackpot!).

But there was one night I hated working – the night the clocks went back an hour. At 2am, when the clocks changed, I’d walk round the hospital and move all the clock hands back by one hour to 1pm. And then I’d have to work that hour again… without pay. 

That might sound harsh but, when the clocks jumped forward and 2am became 3am, I would work one hour less and still get paid for an eight hour shift. So, I would try really hard to be available to work at the end of March but to be away at the end of October. 

For that reason, I’ve always like when the clocks go forward. It reminds me of getting paid for doing nothing.

This year, as I’ve worked more from the office than from home, it’s great to get the extra hour of light in the evening so I can run or cycle home without having to wear more lights than a Christmas tree. It’s good to feel the sun on my skin and to start to wear t-shirts rather than a running jacket, hat, gloves and, in Glasgow, oilskins for the days it’s really wet. 

I do however miss the pleasures of night-time running – which mostly involve people leaving their curtains open and getting a good gawk in their living room. But also, the pleasure of running and not seeing where you are going. Night-time running reduces distances as you tend to focus on the light pool around you rather than looking to the end of a street in daylight and seeing everything before you clearly.  (It’s for the same reason muggers hate the clocks going forward, people can now see them.)

The good thing about living in Glasgow though is that the clocks going forward is not a guarantee of daylight – in Scotland it can just as dark at 3pm as midnight when the rain clouds gather so while it’s good to see the change of the seasons, it’s also good to know that we don’t lose nighttime running even in June. 

Either you will instantly recognise the image above and be glad you don’t have the umbrella, or it will mean nothing at all. The only difference is whether you’ve watched Squid Game on Netflix. If you have, then you know exactly what happens when you have 10 minutes to to carve out the triangle with nothing but a needle – a challenge known as Dalgona in South Korea.

The triangle itself if made from melted sugar and baking soda. You melt the two together in a frying pan and then pour the mixture into small discs. You then press a cookie cutter lightly into the surface to create the shape to be cut out by the player.

The player’s challenge is to then cut it out without snapping the shape.

However, if you want a real challenge, don’t just try and cut the shape out of the cookie – you need to eat it too.

WOOOOOAHH!!!!

Sugar RUSH!!!!

I have never taken class A narcotics but I can’t imagine that crack cocaine could be as good as pure sugar mixed with baking powder. A combination that requires a dentist on hand before you even take a bite.

BLIMEY!

It tasted good.

If you want to try it yourself then I found this video really helpful with tips on how to make it.

And if you want to recreate Squid Game then I’m afraid you’re going to have to find your own guard with a gun to stand over you – sorry, I can’t help you with that one!

I can remember swimming, but I can’t remember learning to swim. Instead I remember trunks and towels. 

We would swim on holiday in the small Perthshire town of Aberfeldy. It has a sports centre with a 25 metre pool and every day on holiday we would go for a swim. We would get ready by grabbing our towel, folding it lengthwise in half and the rolling it up with our trunks inside. We’d then carry it under out arm up to the centre. We’d then unroll it, get changed and then repeat again on the way home – except this time our armpits would get wet because we’re carrying a soggy towel and trunks. 

We never thought to use a bag. There was no need, once a towel was rolled up with your trunks then you didn’t need anything else. Not even goggles because for some reason our Dad didn’t believe in goggles. “You don’t need them”, he’d say, “If you duck your head under the water, it’ll sting for a minute but you’ll soon adjust.”

Which was okay for him to say as he only had one good eye. His other eye was damaged due to an operation in his thirties to cure an aneurysm. It was an operation that was so medically advanced he spent the rest of his life with doctors saying “I’ve never seen that before!”

He would start swimming without google and then say “you’ll get used it!”

We didn’t.

I could never put my head under the water. I still struggle now when water gets into my goggles. I need to stop and clear it.

But I never got goggles. It never occurred to me. I was learning from my Dad so I just did what he did. Even if he was medical miracle who thought he was Aquaman and I was a boy scared of getting his head wet.

Today, I always wear goggles but I still keep my trunks in a rolled up towel.

It tricky to know what to do when you wake up in the morning in your flat, walk downstairs and find your ground floor neighbour has added a swastika to their front door. I can understand adding a nameplate or perhaps a seasonal wreath but a symbol of Nazi power is a different matter entirely. Of course, it could have been the Indian symbol of peace but, when confronted with a swastika, my first thought is not to think these people mean well. Especially not when it was drawn on the door in blood.

What was worse, being British, I would have just ignored it and hoped it would go away by the time I got home from work. However we had people coming later that day for a second viewing of our flat. The first people to do so in five years. We’d be trying to sell it through the post 2008 recession and had it on the market twice. This was the first couple who’d not dismissed it after one viewing. We could not have them see a swastika as soon as they walked in. 

“What’s that?” they’d say while pointing to it.

“Indian symbol of peace?” I’d suggest while they make their excuses and leave.

I needed to do something. But what? I thought of knocking on their door and asking if they would remove the swastika themselves. But then I thought what if it was a genuine Indian symbol of peace. Would this be like asking a Catholic to remove their cross? Perhaps I should check first: I could say, “Is this symbol more ethnic or ethnic cleansing? 

And what if they said it was ethnic? Could I then ask them to remove it? I’m not sure I could, it would be culturally insensitive. So, I did what anyone would do in the circumstance. I grabbed a paint pot, a brush and decided to paint their door. Luckily, their door was white and I had white paint as otherwise they would open it and say:

“Can’t wait to see the swastika we created last night! If we just open this door we’ll see – what a minute, where’s the swastika? Where’s my blood? Was it this door we used? Don’t tell me, we got the wrong door. Check the kitchen! And, wait, was our door white?!”

It only takes me a couple of minutes to paint the door. The whole time I’m doing it I’m worried they’ll open the door and I’ll have to explain why they’re interrupting me mid-stroke. A mid-stroke interruption only slightly less embarrassing by your mum catching you mid-horniness. 

“What are you doing?” They’d say.

And I then have to explain we had a flat viewer coming and I’ve already said how embarrassing that would be – having to talk to my neighbour. But now I’m doing so while carrying out some guerrilla DIY.

“Just giving the hall a lick of paint,” I’d say, and then I’d have to paint the whole hallway and every door to keep up the pretence that I wasn’t just trying to erase their swastika. 

“Also,” I’d add, “it’s because of the symbol.”

“The swastika?” They’d ask, because if you’re going to paint a swastika in blood on your own door then I imagine they’d be pretty up front about it. It’s not the move of someone who’s shy and quiet.

“Yes, the Indian peace symbol,” I’d suggest because I’d want to give them a way out of the conversation.

And they’d say “Heil, Hitler,” while saluting. 

And I’d say, “Heil, Hitler,” just to be polite. 

Then the two of us would probably paint another swastika because I’d be too afraid to mention the first one again. Except this time they use my blood because they still feel a bit faint from yesterday’s swastika.

That’s the thing about daubing hate graffiti onto porous surfaces, you need a lot of liquid to leave a mark, which is something they don’t teach you in the Hitler Youth camps, it’s all marching and saluting and very little about basic decorating.

Luckily, the door didn’t open and I was able to make it all white while trying not think of the irony of that while erasing a symbol of white power.

If I had been caught, I suspect that my neighbours would have not thought I was a mutual admirer of the Fuhrer. Instead they would probably have thought I was Jewish. Many do. It’s because I have a big nose. Which sounds racist. I’m saying that people think I’m Jewish because I have a big nose. Which suggests I think Jewish people have a big nose. But I’m not the one making the comparison. It’s the people thinking I’m Jewish because of the nose. They’re the racist ones. Especially the Jews. 

(I’d better explain that comment quickly!)

I was on holiday before lockdown when a group of Hassidic Jews approached me. We were queuing for a tourist attraction with Asian tourists in masks, a few black families and a number of Hassidic Jews. We thought nothing of them until they came over and said “Shalon, brother!” and then tried to talk to me as if I was part of their tour group. I wasn’t. But my nose made them think I was. Racists!

It wasn’t the first time either, at work, a senior partner would always ask me for directions to the Jewish cemetery or if I knew how to get to various synagogues. Again, I’m not Jewish, but my nose is or at least people think it is – and think I am! – until they catch me with a paint pot in front of a door with a recently daubed swastika.