Don’t you just hate it when dates clash? Having hunted around for races to enter in my local area and found nothing, 2 pop up at the same time as the half marathon. The first I can still fit in as it’s the week before and can be used as my final warm up. The second race however is the day after and I am not sure how fluid my movements will be then. Its extra annoying seeing as it could have been my first triathlon. Being a weakly little nerd type being able to say well actually I’m an Iron man is quite tempting. My chances at making that statement are few and far between, mainly due the organiser’s instance at including a swimming section in the race.

At school I was what was referred to as a slapper capper. When the class had their weekly swimming lesson, I together with the rest of the outcasts had to don bright yellow swimming caps. The stated purpose of this was to make it easier to spot the weaker swimmers and make it easier to rescue them. As if the arms flawing around slapping the water and shouts of “I cant fucking Swim” were not enough. Though on second thoughts maybe the caps were a good idea as they would have probably thought that a lecture on the evils of swearing was more important than rescuing a drowning rat.

Never allowed out of the few meters of swallow water at one end of the pool, we could only watch as the chosen ones leaped through hoops, collected items from the bottom of the pool and generally did the things we couldn’t. I’m sure we musty have been given tasks to do but the only one I can remember is standing around feeling freezing in water you would never choose to go near.

In truth I could have probably passed the test which would have liberated me from the repression of the yellow cap. But then I would have had to go in the deep end, and maybe even have got in trouble. What really would have been dangerous, how could anyone have saved me without the protection of my yellow cap?

I dont know how true this sites claims but if it works then its a great idea. How many times have you hheard a song but cant work out or remember what it is. These chaps claim that if you ring there service on your mobile hold it to the music for 30 seconds and they will text you back with the artists name and song title. Now all I need is someone to invent a service that you can ring up, re inact a segment from an old television advert and they will text you back and explain what they were trying to flog. For example if i were to say in a squeaky childlike voice "Everyones a fluffy one" the people at the other end of the phone would text back.......

If anyone knows, for the sake of the sanity of everyone else my mum meets this weeks please leave the answer in my comments box.

I have been asked what time I would be hoping for when I run the half marathon at the start of September. It’s a question that generally I have been avoiding answering. When I first came up with the idea to run the 3 races some time last year I would have been happy with anything around the 2 hour mark for a half marathon. At that time it looked like it would be a reasonable challenge while still being in the vicinity of the possible. Having not run the distance before I wasn’t really sure what to expect but looking at my times for shorter distances I thought I would be happy with a time around 2 hours.

Needless to say after training more I now have a better understanding of how fast I could complete the course. I still wont answer the question however, well maybe in a vague sort of way. Anything over 2 hours will be disappointing, 1 hour 55mins I would consider a bronze medal, 1hour 50mins is worth a silver and sub 1hour 45 is a gold. My real target is 1 second quicker than Chris’ personal best but I think I can trust him to keep that time quiet for a month or two

There are times when it is hard to understand people. Having avoided traffic jams like the plague for the other 364 days of the year for one night they actually volunteer to sit in grid locked streets. For over 5 hours they sit inspecting the rear bumper of the car in front. For some reason happy that that they are going nowhere fast and even when they do move they only end up going around and around in circles. And these are the sane ones! The real nutters are the crowds of people that turn up to watch those that have volunteered to sit in the traffic mayhem.

Wednesday night was crusing night in town. The American cars are positioned up, the hair is slicked back and the Swedes forget that as a race they are not supposed to enjoy drawing attention upon themselves. And boy do they love it, it doesn’t seem to matter that their car is to put it nicely a lump of trash or the best looking set of wheels on the block, they are all there lapping it up. If the cars not so good turn the music up. If that still doesn’t help, earn some bonus points by wearing some silly hats, and if your car really is a bit of heap dont worry you can always push it around.

A quick update on this weeks running. The weather here at the moment is still making running uncomfortable during the day at a pace anything over a slow plod. Seeing as I am working the nightshift this week I have taken to running the 8km to work in the cooler night skies. Of coures this leave me knackered in the wee hours of the morning but at least I am able to keep my distance run total ticking over. I have also planned to have a long run of somewhere between 17 and 20 kms which would bring my total to the week to around the 40 km mark. So rest assured I may have been quiet on this weeks progress but I havent been slacking.

We have been spending the evening watching the local cruising event in town. Petty of cars to watch people pose in, some with good reason to pose, others with big heads for no reason. Will post a full report tommorrow, but for now heres a little taster.

Everyone’s like to have a moan about the weather. Even if it were just how we say we would like it to be people would probably complain that they couldn’t moan about the weather. Working in what is basically a tin hot doesn’t really bode well for a comfortable time at work. You know from the start its just going to keep getting warmer and warmer as the shift goes on. Luckily we have a large air conditioning unit sitting on the roof that keeps the slave drivers, sorry I mean employers cool so they can continue to demand a higher output.

Being a perceptive chappy I could sense something wasn’t quite right. The air conditioning unit was still there, the four 4 fans were still in place slowly rotating, everything appeared to be in place so what could it be? Maybe the fact that it was “parked” in the centre of the car park. Some big wig had decided that now, during the middle of a heat wave was the best time to recondition our one source of cool comfort. The few weeks of the year when the unit is actually needed and they start to repair it now! Expect to here some woeful story soon about how the parts needed have to be ordered from New Zealand in the near future.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom however. Towards the end of our shift a beautiful mint green butterfly flutter serenely around the factory floor. For a moment it didn’t matter about the discomfort we were having to work in. This small creature had flown in and for a while its beauty in what must have been a totally alien environment for the insect was able to help us forget about the temperature. Calmly flying around our heads it was a pleasure to watch before it too decided too it was really just too hot and flew between the printing rollers.

If anyone buys a Swedish book containing a pressed butterfly maybe you too can share in its beauty

47 days to go. The first race of my 3-race charity challenge is suddenly looming. On Saturday the 6th of September I will be lining up with god knows how many other nutters to run the Stockholm half marathon. Hopefully I should be able to finish in a good time just as long as the current heat wave has well and truly passed by the date of the race. If it stays like it is at the moment I will be requiring volunteers to scoop me up of the tarmac.

Over the next 47 days I promise to keep you fully up to date with how my preparations are coming along. Any days I miss a post I pledge to donation 5 pounds to my fundraising cause, the charity Concern. The second race will be the London Marathon on the 18th of April 2004, with the final event being the Stockholm marathon in July 2004.

Pick yourself up a share of £100 and a large portion of smuggness in one go...

Do you consider yourself a clever clog? Are you sure you’re not all mouth and no brains? Well I have a chance for you to prove it. I have put together a prize quiz to raise funds for the above event. It’s a simply concept 100 questions spilt in 10 categories, the person that answers the most questions currently walks away with the prize money. The closing date is the 10th of April 2004 so you have plenty of time to ponder any questions that may stump you at first. You don’t even have to answer all the questions correctly to be in with a chance to win.

...Make James look a fool in front of a live crowd and tv audience...

The following statement I feel I may live to regret but anyway. If 300 copies of the quiz are sold I will run the London marathon in fancy dress. If the total sales exceed 500 copies I will let readers of this blog choose what costume I should have. Entries cost a “suggested donation” of 2 pounds, which can be made via my page on justgiving.com. A copy of the quiz will then be sent to you either in the post or via email.

and gloat over your superior intelligence over other bloggers

If enough blog owners are interest I might even put up a league table of bloggers scores, so come on give it a go, it’s a case of bloggers pride!

Note to self : Not everybody thinks about running 24/7 it is probablly best to remember this in future when considering stating that you "got a long hard one in at the weekend" to avoid futher misunderstandings.

It was my dads birthday last week. Buying presents for people while I am in Sweden can be troublesome. Finding something people might like isn’t the problem, its finding something that wont cost more to post than the gift itself that causes the headaches.

Online shops can provide some of the answers and they have come to my rescue a few times but whatever some people might claim the virtual high street is still no match for the real thing. Well maybe for the shopping experience in the small town were I live, but that’s a different whinge. After online shopping there’s the last resort of a gift voucher option. One that truly winds me up. A gift that says “Well I didn’t really know what to give you, but I didn’t want to just give you cash, so I choose something just like cash but with a lot less options”

Shamefully I have to admit the best I could come up with for my dad this time was the offer of cash and make sure you choose something nice for yourself. I did however manage to pull of with a save with a little extra I made myself. Before you start rolling your eyes, no this wasn’t another pen and desk organiser made out of old toilet rolls in true Blue Peter style, but a quiz cd.

One of my dads interests is games. Admittedly his habit of taking any mainstream board game and then changing all the rules could get a bit irritating at times but it kept him out of mischief. His latest hobby project is recording sections from songs and then having the clip stop just before the part everyone recognises the song and then drives his guest up the wall trying to work out what song it was. The trouble is seeing as he makes the tapes himself he can’t play along, as he already knows all the answers. Admittedly his is probably part of his pleasure in a smug I know something you don’t know way, but I also think he would like to take part some times as well.

With this in mind, and quite possibly the help of an online music-downloading programme I put together a similar quiz cd. Rather than just picking songs at random I decided on including the songs that were number one in the uk charts on each of his birthdays. Unfortunately I don’t think I will get to play the roll of the smug-git-that-knows-all-the-answers with my family as I expect they will use it before we are over again. I do however you lot, the rabble that find your way onto here.

So if you want to play along here are the clips.

1970 to 1974 clips
1975 to 1979 clips
1980 to 1984 clips
1985 to 1989 clips
1990 to 1994 clips
1995 to 1999 clips

Extra credit will be given to those who can work out what my dads birthday is. Good Luck

Well it has been a while, it feels like ages but I am back blogging once again. It would be great if I could give a deep and meaning reason or an interesting event for my lack of posting but its just a case of the old chestnut of not having enough time. Or more to the point having the time but not the energy or vice versa. Work has been eating up most of my time with most of the rest being spent with Maria while she is on holiday. Not a holiday in the style that I was used to back in England, one much more in the Swedish style. Three weeks taken out on block. And this is considered to be a short holiday! Many people it seems take out the whole 5 week entitlement in one swoop. It’s all right for some I guess.

A portion of this free time has been spent at a few auctions in the area. Having watched bargain hunt on BBC prime a few times we were bitten by the bug and wanted to have a go for ourselves. Nothing as fancy as on that TV show, much of it I would describe as old tat, but that just shows what I know. What I would consider as a piece of junk seemed to be the lots which go for a higher price than those I consider interesting. Part of the fun has to be people watching, including the fella who started throwing all his toys out of his pram as people were not bidding high enough. He starting berated the assembled motley crew for bidding 5 times as much for a small table than for a large bookcase with display cabinet. It was scandalous apparently, maybe so but that’s the way of auctions just remember to put a reserve price on it next time dear fella.

Other people, and I don’t think I have to mention any names for you to work out who I mean, don’t have any holiday entitlement at all. No we just have to slave away and make the most of the days where no work is forthcoming towards the end of winter. Holidays in the sun, or with the dregs of snow that refuse to go away.... oh no im not bitter.