Good news last week as the UK Government announced that it had found a medicine which would help treat some of the most serious CoVid-19 cases. However, if they want to know what medicine will actually defeat it then I have the answer: a peloton.

Admittedly, this is based on my limited research carried out in the Aberfoyle car park but, given the number of cycling clubs meeting there who were all wearing their club jerseys and failing to socially distance, then a peloton is clearly been seen as an effective way to not catch the virus. Either that or the Octomum’s eight kids have all met in Aberfoyle as one household to climb the Duke’s Pass and pop over to the paddle steamer on Loch Katrine. But if it wasn’t one household then it may be that the cycle club’s are CovIdiots. Definitely one of these. Either way, it’s still better than Donald Trump’s favourite medicine: a spoonful of Domestos.

We didn’t stop at the Aberfoyle car park though and carried a couple more miles to Kinlochard, a small village at the western end of Loch Ard. Normally there’s a small car park open here beside the village hall. But, with parking restrictions in place, and signs asking visitors to not park on the road, we found a couple of open car parking spots on the northern bank instead.

There’s only a handful of parking spots right beside where we swam but there’s another larger spot two minutes walk along the road. Both are open and isolated from any houses.

What was the water like?

Nice and clear and the bay itself is only a few metres deep, if you follow the shore, and it’s sheltered from the wind. The western bank has a lot of geese so I’d stay away from that because it is… honking. <groan>. But normally I’d stay away from birds because (a) they might attack; and (b) they will almost certainly be doing to the water what bears do to the woods.

On Saturday the water was a very pleasant 20 degrees and I’m told (but haven’t confirmed as I’ve not swum here before) that the loch keeps it’s temperature well throughout the year. Hopefully, with Covid moving in the right direction, I’ll continue to get the chance to test that out.

Anything else to know? It’s a popular spot for fishermen, kayakers and other swimmers (we saw three while were there) so remember a tow float so that you’re visible when you’re in the water.

And, as always, don’t swim alone!

“Oops” said Mrs TwinBikeRun, which is not something I wanted to hear.

“Oops” is okay when coming from a clown pretending to throw a bucket of water over a crowd, or an insincere apology from someone who’s thrown you a surprise party when you told them you don’t want anything at all. Those are nice “oops”. What you don’t want is the kind of “oops” that follows your wife attacking your head with hair clippers as a large tuft of just shorn hair falls to the ground. Oops, indeed.

We’re in week 11 of lockdown and I need a haircut. I can tell I need a hair because it’s started to bounce when I run and I feel I need to shake my head like a horse to get my ‘mane’ out of my eyes. It was time to brave a ‘lockdown haircut’ and cut it myself.

I checked a few articles on the web and the overwhelming advice was to not to do it; but, if you had to do it, then make sure to get a decent clippers and pair of scissors. Normal scissors are for Sellotape, not hair. Hairdresser scissors are sharper and won’t make it look like you have the haircutting equivalent of Boxing Day parcels in the bin.

I checked Amazon and decided to follow the popular vote when buying the clippers and scissors – I’d pick the ones with the most four and five star reviews as that way it would at least show either they were genuinely popular and useful or that the manufacturer had at least made the effort to try and rig the reviews. Either way it had to better than taking a chance of cheap clippers from China on the Silk Road website that promised both a haircut and a bag of crack cocaine and a voucher to hire a hitman. 

Next I found a WikiHow article on hot to cut hair. I then read it and thought, “there’s no way I can do this myself as I’m left handed and I have the steady hand of a clown with a fake bucket of water instead I’ll ask Mrs TwinBikeRun to do it.”

Which was a good idea. She read the article. We got ready. I sat on the edge of the bath so the hair would fall into it and be easier to clean and she had the clippers in her hands when I had to ask “Do you not need the instructions with you?” 

“I can remember them”

“I’d rather you followed them!”

So, five minutes later, with the instructions before her, we started to work on a safety first principle. She’s start cutting with the longest settings so that I wouldn’t be going straight to join the marines.

“Son! Why do you want to join the marines?”

“I had my clippers on ‘scalp me’ setting and I don’t want to go out in public for the five years it will take to grow back.”

“An excellent reason. Join the hundred men over there who are joining for the same reason. By the time you all leave in five years time you’ll have a fine short back and sides!”

Mrs T started on the sides and I tried not to look at all the hair falling away. She then used the scissors for the top. Again cutting a wee bit and then slightly more so as not to make too drastic a cut. This was not an ‘austerity’ haircut.

And, apart from an “oops” when she tried to trim my sideburns and got half my head instead, and apart from the giggling, it was just a normal haircut. In fact, better than some other haircuts I’ve had including one disaster that led to me being asked by a shocked barber the next time I got my hair cut: “Did you cut it yourself?”. And it took all my willpower not to say “No, you f****r, you cut it!”.

What’s the longest ultra-marathon in the world? I’d imagine it would involve some form of country crossing or jogging from one continent to another. Something EPIC. Something LOOOONNNG but also something achievable. A continuous race would need competitors to sleep eventually so no more than a few days would be possible before the race must end. I’m thinking of the Ultra Marathon Mont Blanc.

And, if not continuous, if multi-stage, then bodies would eventually tire and runners would not be able to continue even with some rest. I’m thinking of the Marathon De Sable and five days across the Sahara desert.

But the actual longest ultra-marathon is none of these things. It doesn’t cross continents. It doesn’t cross countries. It doesn’t even cross the street. It’s entirely held around one New York city block. It’s the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race – and it takes place each June for around 50 days as runners run around the same block every day from 6am to midnight clocking up around 60 miles each day.

You can read more about here: Block Run

But even with it’s hyper-local setting and it’s easy to manage support it too has been cancelled by the coronavirus. There will be no race this June.

However, perhaps it does point to the future of racing? There has been a trend for further and more exotic events. The fun run in your local park has been replaced by a extreme triathlons in settings so far away you couldn’t pass on the coronavirus if you had a twenty foot pole.

Instead, could we reverse the trend? Make races smaller and more local? Instead of the London marathon crossing the Thames and running from one end of the city to another, could runners instead run back and forth in front of Buckingham Palace until they reach 26.2 miles?

Equally, what’s the point of most sprint stages at the Tour de France. It’s four hours of flat cycling followed by 20 minutes of excitement at the end as the sprint team battle it out. Just ditch the whole scenic tour of France and go straight to the dash through an industrial suburb of Marseille.

As for Everest? Get a helicopter to drop you at the Edmund Hillary Step and just climb the last 20 metres.

Easy.

So, while there may be no long distance ultra-marathon this year there’s nothing to stop there being the shortest ultra-marathon such as my challenge earlier this month to try and run around every street. See here.

How did I get on?

In May I ran 10 times on the challenge for a total of 66 miles and average of 12k a run and…

… look at the map! It’s barely filled a page yet I’ve been running further and longer than I ever would have run in a normal month.

So, I suppose the challenge has worked and I’ve managed to remain local and keep within the spirit of the lockdown guidance. 🙂

As lockdown continues for a few more week I’ve decided to carry on and see how much of the page I can fill before the next three week review of lockdown on Thursday 19th June. Well, it was either that or run round the block again and again and again and again and again and again….