The world is definately a different place since I was last on here.  Apparently the Japanese earthquake and tsunami  affected the earth's rotation and knocked a fraction of a second of the length of a day.  In a sport obsessed by time and having had that nasty asian flu' recently, I am just happy to be out there.

Last night was a tricky wee 5.5 mile trail race in Castlewellan Forest Park which is about 30 miles South of Belfast and 5 miles West of Newcastle, County Down.  The highest ascent was on a par with my friend Arthur in Edinburgh.  I took it on after the first mile at the bottom of the hill and got to the top first, but my legs were not really at the party.  I am rubbish at descending and was able to see the chasers on the switch backs which gave me a bit of motivation to relax and try to let gravity assist me instead of working against it.  When it flattened out, instead of a nice flat finish around the lake, they took us back up again on a hill that seemed never ending.  I stitched up with about a mile to go and they were coming at me big time but I managed to hold on to the finish on another uphill just before the castle. Certainly more hills than dales but a good pint of the black stuff helped with the recovery.

Good luck to all club members in London on Sunday

David