I (almost) promise that this will be the last time I write about this, but in truth I cannot be entirely sure.
In any event Hayley’s made me do this (when I asked her for some blog topics she wanted me to write about the Outlaw and as she has taken over running the blog as Marie is about to go off and have her twins I had to do as I was told). So the photo attached was taken at 5pm on the 23rd July. On the left is Doug, he teaches my children how to swim and who was a friend of Tim’s and a friend of Louis’. Then there is me, holding the beer, next is Mike, a runner and my friend who is a Cardiologist and whose wife works with us running our Research Department at the practice, and far right is Louis, 14 years old.
We started at 6am, I had been up since 3:15am. The alarm went off and Doug swam the 2.4 miles up and down the boating lake in Nottingham in an amazing time of 70 minutes. He promised me he would be at least an hour and half so 2 minutes before he arrived out the water I was in the portaloo thinking I had 20 minutes left to wait before he got there and I would have to get on my bike. I exited the temporary thunder box only to see Doug running towards the barrier for the relay exchange with me then shouting and swearing at him grabbing hold of the timing chip to strap to my left ankle.
I set out on the bike at 7:13am and at around 11:30am, 4 hours and 15 minutes into the bike (or about 93 miles) it was exactly a year ago since we last saw Tim , as we had watched the start of the Outlaw together and he cycled away from where we had breakfast.
I kicked the backside out of that bike as hard as I could and in the end got exactly what I deserved, nothing more and nothing less, which is exactly right for an event like this. My bike time was 5:21 (21mph average) and 120 seconds outside my personal best of 2013.
It was one of the best bike rides and it’s the busiest I have ever seen the Outlaw course. So many people giving so much support, it actually makes it feel like you are someone. I passed over to Mike who ran his first marathon in 4 hours and 4 minutes and the last 9km with Louis Dunne. We ran down the finishing chute together, quickly got our t-shirts and medals and then the photographed attached to this blog.
It’s over then, the 12months since I stopped running and I lost Tim. A year ago I had taken the medals off the shelf in my office and put them in a box thinking I was done with that stuff and ready to fall into fat mid life crisis. 12 months on I have achieved (in truth not very much but…) more than I could of possibly imaged at that time. My 5,000 miles are in the bag, I’ve rode the biggest ride I have ever done in the La Marmotte, I was a Domestique as Louis Dunne won the Nottingham 75 miler and I almost, very very almost, rode the best Outlaw bike I have ever done in the 8 attempts at those races.
And so, what is next, if in fact there is anything next at all? Some would say a good time to hang up my bike shoes and to quit while I am ahead, saving the memories that I have created over the past 10 years.
It turned out that in the dark days of 12 months ago the people closest to me at the practice couldn’t understand why the medals went away and so when I returned back to work at the start of February this year they had brought a special hanger which hangs on my wall with the words ‘Always earned, never given’. I never asked them to do that, I asked them to tidy my office.
The hanger is now full and there hangs the significant (to me) medals that I have collected since 2011. Big bike rides, Ironman, 24 hour bike rides, La Marmotte etc. it’s full. Sunday’s medal filled it and it will take no more. Time to buy another hanger.
Blog Post Number: 1354
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