Andrew

Queen Elizabeth Swimming Pool (Andrew)

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There are few sports where you can take part in the same venue as the professional sports people.

You can’t book Celtic Park for a game of football, nor Murrayfield for rugby. You can’t play cricket at the Oval or tennis at Wimbledon. You can run a marathon or cycle a sportive on the same roads as Mo Farah or Chris Froome but those roads are not a venue, they’re a street. I’m talking purpose built sports venues – not a venue you can share with  a bus, the bin lorry and an ice cream van.

Yet, when sports venues are built, many talk about sustainability and community involvement. A legacy.

For Glasgow that means we have a velodrome and Tollcross swimming pool as venues built for the Commonwealth Games and open to the public after the games ended.

I say open but, despite having two 50 metre pools (the only 50 metre pools in Glasgow), one remains permanently split into two 25 metre pools and the other only opens as a 50 metre pool when the moon is ascending in the ninth circle of the eastern cosmos and Jupitar is in alignment with Uranus. Or something close to that. It’s timetable has been so erratic over the last few years that you just turn up and hope. Even when it’s scheduled to open you can still find the staff saying “not today”. And that’s if the pool is even open. It’s been closed for repairs almost as many times as Donald Trump has sent a dodgy tweet. The only legacy the Commonwealth Games left Glasgow was regular work for builders.

The Velodrome on the other hand is fantastic. If you can get an introductory session booked. A process that involves getting up a 5am in the morning to try and a book a session one month ahead so that you beat those people who set their alarm clock for 6am to beat the people who set their alarm clock for 7am to be the first to book.

It’s popular. Very popular. And I think they’ve added more classes to address a booking system that favour insomniac cyclists so everything may be okay now. If not, good luck, and remember to set that alarm clock early!

In London there are two similar venues. In the Queen Elizabeth Olympics park you can now ride on the London Velodrome or swim in the Olympic swimming pool.

I was in London at the weekend and dropped in on Saturday night to try it out.

A few things you should know:

1.     It’s in the middle of nowhere. Or Stretford as it’s now called.

2.     You have to walk through a shopping centre to get there. Westfield.

3.     It’s in the middle of the park, behind a building site and a large well lit path between construction sites  far , far away from busy roads or other people that means London’s legacy is to provide better lighting to see your mugger.

4.     It’s almost empty!

5.     Which means ignore 1 to 3! It’s brilliant!

6.     There’s two pools. One a 50 metre which is actually open and you can, at least at 6pm on a Saturday night, get a whole lane to yourself.

I’d not swam since November so the only Olympian I resembled was Eric the Eel, it was cool to swim in the same venue as Michael Phelps and to know that we had shared the same water. Which was also cool until I remember he didn’t like to get out of the pool before going to the toilet…

I’d definitely recommend a trip to the pool if you’re in London and, even if you forget something, don’t worry, you can pick up everything you need from a…. vending machine. This one, filled with trunks and goggles.

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Iain

Try anything once – Mysore yoga (Iain)

A wise man once said: “You should try anything once.”

What a stupid saying! There’s loads of things I shouldn’t try – not even once.

Should I poke a sleeping lion in the stomach? No, I’ve been mauled by my cat for giving him a friendly tummy rub. Imagine what the king of the jungle would do if I poked him in the guts and called him a fattyfatty bum bum.

Should I paint my body blue, stick on a white beard and demand everyone call me Papa Smurf? No – I’d look look like a fat extra from Avatar.

Should I attempt one of the hardest extreme triathlons on the planet? DOH! I entered Norseman.

So, when given the opportunity to do Mysore yoga I asked will it kill me or open me to ridicule? Thankfully, the answers were “no” and “maybe.” I was worried about the maybe…

In a standard yoga class a teacher leads the students through a sequence of moves. In Mysore a student leads themselves through a sequence at their own pace. Everyone in the class follows the same sequence but the pace may be different.

The class started at 0630 but I could join anytime up till 0700. I need as much beauty sleep as I can get. I turned up at 0659. This meant everyone else had already started.

The Mysore sequence is like building IKEA furniture. If you don’t do it in the right order then a bit won’t fit where you want no matter how far you bend it.

Now imagine building a Kvlar wardrobe but only having the picture of a wardrobe as your guide. That’s Mysore.

I knew I needed to start by standing at the top of the mat. I also knew I had to finish by lying flat but I couldn’t remember the steps in between.

I looked around the class. One woman was bent over in a position her chiropractor would call “a broken spine”. Another girl was wrapped so tightly together only a can opener was going to get her unwrapped.

I decided to do neither of those moves. I attempted a bend from the hip. No one laughed so I thought I might be onto something. I do a few more bends to waste a few minutes. The teacher comes over “what are you doing?”

“Warming up?”

She says “Let me give you a guide”.

Great! That’ll help. She hands me some pics of people in positions that would be called pornographic if there was a partner involved. She says “Just do two of these and then three of these.”

I look at the diagram. It might as well be in Hindi as I don’t understand any of it. It turns out it is in Hindi.

I do a few more hip bends. I think I might be the best hip bender in the class. In fact, I think I might be the biggest bender here. Ummm that doesn’t sound right…

She come back over. “What are you doing?”

“Still warming up?” I reply.

“No your supposed to be doing this sequence.” She demonstrates it.

“Ahhh, it’s that sequence. I understand now.” I don’t.

She leaves. I bend my hips some more. I think if there was a hip bending competition in the Olympics I’d win a gold medal.Unless there was a Russian hip bender. He’d probably cheat and I’d get silver. I’d be gutted when I hear the Russian national anthem as we stand on the medal podium. Years later it would be discovered he was cheating! He’d get disqualified. I’d be the belated champion but it wouldn’t be the same. Instead of a podium I’d get my medal through the post. Damn you, Sergei!

She interrupts my daydream, “what are you doing?”

“I’ve warmed up!” I confidently state.

She takes pity on me. “Just lie down. Do you want a blanket to keep warm?”

“No thanks, I don’t like blankets of any size,shape or texture. You you might say I have a blanket ban…”

She doesn’t laugh. It’s probably too early in the morning for chuckles.

I give it five minutes and when she’s busy adjusting/torturing another Mysore student I sneak out.

The wise man was correct to say “do anything once” but he should also have said – don’t do it twice!

Andrew

(Jigsaw) Piece of cake (Andrew)

Are you a masochist or a sadist?

Most people would say they were neither as (a) they don’t like pain; and (b) really, who likes pain?!?

But, if you’re a runner, I bet that you’re secretly one or the other because anyone who runs either wants to beat other people and be first across the finish line or they want to beat themselves by running faster than they’re run before.

I’m a masochist. If I was a sadist, a genuine one, I’d be the one in the corner struggling and failing to untangle my whip (not an euphemism). Which I imagine is a bit of a genuine problem. Think about how hard it to keep a headphone cable untangled. If you’ve got a five metre long whip then you’re going to spend most of your time trying to untie the knot in the middle. Indiana Jones would be a very different film if, when he confronts the bad guy, he pulled out his whip and said “Damn, I only just put this away how can it have more knots than a speedboat?!?”

Anyways, I’m not a sadist. Not in the real world, not as an athlete. I don’t want to beat other people. I like running my own race and judging what I do against my own times. In that way, I’m a masochist except… when it comes to Iain.

Then I want to beat him.

It’s amazing how a little competition will make you achieve impossible feats. We only put a man on the moon because the US wanted to beat Russia. We only reached each pole because explorers challenged each other to be first. And I only completed a 1,000 piece jigsaw in 48 hours this Christmas because Iain challenged me that I wouldn’t be able to do it.

You will notice that all of these achievements are comparable. Neil Armstrong may have got to the moon – but, other than sitting down for three days and then taking a couple of steps, what did he actually do?!? And those Arctic explorers had huskies who did all the work. So, really, my achievement was greater than them.

By the way, why was ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, the second man on the moon, called Buzz? Easy, he was NASA’s plan B!

Did I mention I can also write Christmas cracker jokes?

Anyways, we were home for a few days and my mum had just completed a 1,000 piece jigsaw. It had taken her a month so I said “I bet I could do it in a day”, because, you know, I had no idea what I was talking about and had never completed a jigsaw so just said the first thing that came to my head.

Iain said “I bet you £40 you can’t complete it in even 48 hours?”

I said “Deal!” and we shook on it.

Then the sadistic streak kicked in. I would beat him. And I would take his money. So, I got to work and –

– who knew jigsaws were so tough?!?!?!?

Why do they have pieces that are just one colour, and not just one piece but 100 pieces all coloured blue for the sea, and another 100 coloured grey for clouds?

And why won’t this one fit?

And I’ve tried all the pieces and there’s clearly one missing!???

And – oh, wait, now it fits. How many to go? 998.

Damn!!!

But, 36 hours later, having carefully and systematically tried to fit every piece to every other piece, this happened.

Jigsaw

And then this happened.

Paid

Which clearly makes Iain a masochist. He might have thought he was a sadist in setting the challenge but he made a fatal mistake. I said I could complete it in a day. He gave me two days. There was no way I could complete it in a day – I’d have lost. He’d have won. But, in giving me two days, it just showed he wasn’t trying to beat me at all but wanted to lose not only the challenge but his cash. What a masochist!

 

Iain

The fastest boy in school (Iain)

One of the signs I am getting old was seeing my Secondary School and thinking how much it had changed since I attended it. It was a very minor change – the Council had knocked it down and built a new one!

Previously, a road ran past the front of the school. The road has been replaced by a very large building. This is very annoying as the road was a shortcut from my home to the shops in town.

I did think about cutting through the school to save me a five minute detour but for some reason schools frown upon middle-aged men roaming the playgrounds.

That road has a special place in my sporting heart and history. It was where I became the fastest boy in school history. How I felt when I saw it was gone is how Andy Murray would feel if Wimbledon was knocked down and replaced by a Tesco Metro. He’d probably need a sit down – although that might be due to his dodgy hip.

It happened during my 5th year of secondary school. During PE lessons the class would take part in a 100m race. The  course was setup on the road outside the school.

The PE teacher picked one of the other boys to go out with a measuring wheel to mark the start and the end of the course. Once it was setup the class lined up at the start.

I don’t think I warmed up before the race. This was the 1990’s. Warming up hadn’t been invented yet.

We didn’t have blocks so it was a standing start. The gym teacher blew his whistle. I started running with all the forward momentum of a conservative MP stepping forward in support of Theresa May i.e. I dithered a bit and then when I noticed everyone else was doing it I stepped forward too.

I covered the first 50M swiftly and was soon near the front running alongside a boy wearing Joe Bloggs jeans. He’d forgotten his shorts but he didn’t care as he knew the Jeans made him the coolest guy in our year. I knew he’d slow down towards the end as he wouldn’t want to get the jeans sweaty.

In the last 10m I was Eric Carmen! No not the kid from South Park but the man who wrote and sang All By Myself. {NOTE: I thought the reference would be less obscure but as I’ve gone to the trouble of googling who sang All By Myself then I’m going to keep it in!]

And then I was over the line. I couldn’t believe it. I’d won. The teacher couldn’t believe it. My time was unbelievable!

I was so fast my name should really be UsIain Bolt Todd.

What neither I nor the teacher knew at the time was the boy who’d been sent out to mark the course didn’t know how to use a meter roller so he’d just taken a guess at how far 100m was. He’d actually created a course of 81m.

This was discovered when another PE teacher heard about the time and realised that a runner as slow as myself could not possibly have run the time claimed.

I was the fastest boy in the history of the school….for about ten minutes and then it was annulled.

Iain

King of the Crow 2018! (Iain)

My goal for 2018 is to be the fastest cyclist over the Crow Road. It’s a fairly long climb heading north, out of Lennoxtown. It’s a favourite route of central Scotland cyclists.

It was also a training route for Scottish professional cyclist Philippa York (previously known as Robert Millar) She would ride a dozen reps of it as preparation for the Tour de France.

I could spend months training hard to achieve my goal or I could cheat! As I don’t have any asthma spray and I don’t have Chris Froome’s mobile number to ask to borrow his, I used my wits.

The easiest way to be the fastest cyclist in 2018 is to be the first cyclist in 2018.

Yesterday, I got up early and made sure I was on the route as the sun came up. It was a beautiful morning, made even more beautiful when I got back to the house and checked Strava.

I’m King of the Crow 2018…as long as I don’t check the leader-board again till 2019.

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Andrew

‘Tis But A Flesh Wound (Andrew)

Running with an injury should just be called ‘running’. Runners are always injured.

Ask any runner and they can talk for hours about their creaky knees, dodgy ankles and wonky hips. “But it’s always been like that!” They’ll add, forgetting that it wasn’t like that before they started running.

Runners are basically the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Despite how many limbs are chopped off the knight still cries ’tis but a flesh wound!’ and battles on.

That’s why there are certain stages that runners go through when they run with injuries… sorry… when they run normally.

It Doesn’t Get Any Worse When I Run

At the moment I have a pain in my left foot. It falls into the category that I call “It Doesn’t Get Any Worse When I Run”.

This is an injury that’s just as sore when you walk as when you run. That mean, and this is logical, I can run because running doesn’t make it any worse! (Don’t think about the logic, just trust me!)

These types of injury also tend to fall into the related category of…

It Doesn’t Get Any Worse If I Run On Alternative Days

Again the logic here is sound. If the injury doesn’t get any worse because you only ran on a Monday and Wednesday then clearly you can’t be injured at all. An injury would hurt all the time so, if it only hurts on alternate days then it can’t be an injury at all. Simple.

After Five Minutes It Doesn’t Hurt When I Run

This is a tricky injury because it does hurt when you run. Usually quite painfully and in a way which suggest amputation may be in your future. However, after five minutes, all the pain goes away! (Though it does tend to return an hour after you stop – and ten times worse than it was before).

I’ve had this injury. I hurt my knee and every time I tried to run it would be very painful to put any weight on my leg for the first five minutes then everything was okay until I stopped and had to cry with the pain of it all.

However, as it wasn’t sore when I ran, or at least most of the time, it wasn’t an injury at all!

It Hurts When I Lie Down

Wimp! If it only hurts when you lie down then you know what to do – go for a run!

It Hurts All The Time

Okay, a runner may admit this may be an injury and will book an appointment to see a physio in three weeks time. In the meantime: keep running! You never know, it might heal on it’s own!

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Training on Christmas Day (Andrew)

If you’re buying a Christmas present then people say it’s the thought that counts. Which is true,  unless that thought is “this’ll do!” – then you need to think again.

A couple of years ago, at the office Christmas party I was given a book called “Hitler: His Rise To Power” as a Secret Santa present. Given I had neither expressed any previous interest in history, World War 2 or proclaimed to my colleagues that I was going to extend my desk by annexing a break out room I could only think this was some kind of message.

I started wondering if I’d displayed any Hitler like tendencies in the office and I had to admit that after some considerable soul searching and reflection of my despotic moments  I WAS NOTHING LIKE HITLER!!!! 🙂

It was only later I found out the book had come from someone who’d heard I liked reading and they had a book on their bookshelf they’d never read because THEY DIDN’T LIKE HITLER TOO!

Top tip for Christmas – if giving Hitler as a gift please make sure the recipient really, really likes Hitler first. You might be surprised at how many people don’t want Hitler as a Christmas present. (Most of them).

But Christmas isn’t just about presents. It’s also about training because nothing says “I’m a serious athlete” than training on Christmas Day! And nothing says I’m not a serious athlete than eating your weight in chocolate because “I’ve been for a run, you know!”.

Going for a run on Christmas Day is the worst day for going for a run. The 200 calories are then quashed by the 20000 calories consumed as eating’s not cheating when you’ve been sprinting!

Despite it’s lack of any physical benefits, the Christmas Day run is a good mental boost. For the last 15 years I’ve been running on Christmas Day because I remembered a quote from Daley Thomson, the Olympic gold medal winning decathlete. He said he would always train on Christmas Day because he knew his main rivals would all take the day off. He was one day better than anyone else.

So, I’d run on Christmas Day and would then be one day better than everyone else.

But, in researching this post (yes, there’s research!), I found the actual quote from Daley Thomson and it turns out I’ve been doing it all wrong. He actually said:

“Train twice on Christmas Day. Your competitors may only train once…!

Nooooooo!!!!!

Not only  have I not been better than any competitor I’ve been worse because I had two boxes of Quality Street too!

Nooooooo!!!!

No wonder I’ve never the Olympics!

 

Iain

Top of the Pops (Iain)

There are three types of twin – identical, fraternal and Jedward.

Identical twins are… identical (no surprise there,  the clue’s in the name). Fraternal twins are brother and sister. Jedward twins are f&%ing mental! Two untalented brothers who hang out together, have the same hobbies and laugh at each others jokes.

Andrew and I are identical twins!

Ignore anyone who says: “are you sure you aren’t Jedward twins?” We are identical but there is one thing we differ on – music.

I read with interest his top 10 of the year. I’m not sure he was entirely honest with the readers of this blog.

Andrew has a giant picture of Justin Bieber on his bedroom wall. He’s a member of the Belieber fan club. He took Spanish lessons just to understand what JB was singing in Despacito.

What I’m saying is that it was surprising that JB’s no 1 fan, Andrew, had a lack of Bieber action in his top 10.

Andrew, it’s okay! You’re amongst friends. You don’t have to pretend you like cool London bands like The Horrors. Embrace your inner Justin and scream “baby, baby, baby, ooooooooooh”

So, instead of his list, here’s my selection. Which I have not filtered to be cool!

Arcade Fire – Everything Now

I don’t normally like Arcade Fire. I saw them play Glasgow University on there first ever visit to the UK. The drummer had a wee bird flapping about inside his drum kit. I couldn’t enjoy the gig because I kept wondering:

A) Did he put it there? If so, that seems very cruel.

B) If he didn’t put it there, should I have told him there was a bird trapped in his drum?

This though is a great upbeat song with hints of ABBA. Pity, the rest of the album was rubbish.

Bon Appetit – Katy Perry

This song follows the great American song writing tradition of writing about sex whilst pretending to be about something else. It goes back to Chuck Berry singing about his ding a ling, 50 Cent discussing his lollipop and just about every song on an R Kelly album.

This song is not cool or clever but it does have great production and it always makes me laugh because like all the other songs its pretty blatant what its actually about.

Richard Ashcroft – Hold On

Back in the 90’s I loved britpop.  I grew my hair to look like Liam Gallacher. Thankfully only one photo existed of this. I look like a twat. I destroyed the photo.

This was a great return to form for Richard Ashcroft. Who’s mostly stayed out of the limelight since the end of Britpop. He can still write a great tune.

Plan B – Hearbeat

Plan B wrote the greatest song of the last ten years – Ill Manors. An angry punk/rap song that was a retort to David Cameron. It’s accompanied by a self written/self directed film of the same name which showed exactly what its like to grow up in London of ‘Broken Britain’. It’s not an easy watch but check it out if you can.

He’s also been out of the limelight for a few years but this showcases his talent: great vocals and great tune.

Galway Girl – Ed Sheeran 

Is this the worst song ever made?

It certainly elicited the best review of the year (in The Guardian)

“The people of Galway must be hoping a nuclear bomb goes off in their county to save them the embarrassment of having to say – yes that Ed Sheeran song is about us.”

It’s a song so awful even his record company begged him to not include it on his album.

But my song of the year is Galway Girl because I admire a man who released a song even though he knew everyone would hate him. That’s more punk than any punk song. Just don’t make me listen to it!

PS Normal sporty related blogs will resume in the New Year. Over Christmas it’s just blogs about films/music and any other nonsense 🙂

Andrew

Favourite Songs 2017 (Andrew)

The people of North Korea cannot own a radio. They don’t have access to the internet. They must watch TV programmes produced by and for the Government. Everything they hear and see and do is monitored by the state.

They have no human rights. They run out of food. If they say the wrong thing they could be jailed or worse. They are completely and utterly isolated.

But, on the other hand…

… they’ve never heard ‘Perfect Symphony’ by Ed Sheeran and Andrea Bocelli so life’s not at all bad in Pyongyang.

Here’s some better songs.

St Vincent ‘New York’
Ryan Gosling ‘City of Stars’
Lorde ‘Green Light’
Sufjan Stevens – EVERYTHING!!!
Tom McRae ‘It Doesn’t Really Matter’
Perfume Genius ‘Choir’
Zayn “I Don’t Want To Live Forever’
Thrice ‘Black Honey’
Four Tet ‘Planet’
And number one: