it’s a tough course
jane’s instruction book for the marathon warned that people often drop dead on marathons, which was quite encouraging. and so was this sign.
sport
jane’s windsor half marathon victory
jane ran her first half marathon yesterday. rather than doing a standard one, she chose the hilliest one possible – The Windsor Half Marathon
jane thinking about the run ahead of her
the start of the half-marathon involves a mile long run up a long straight hill (to the copper horse, if you are interested)
jane just over 1 hour in
the windsor half marathon runs a very pretty course through Windsor Park. plenty of trees to sit under for spectators
jane half way through (already declaring a victory)
a deer which ran across the marathon route
the official winner (1 mile in)
Our winner – half a marathon over
update: i forgot to mention that she did her half marathon in 2hrs 20mins !
me shooting
my first two ever shots hit the clay and it went rapidly down hill from there. some of my colleagues were really caught by the shooting bug, but in the flea or flight stakes, i’m definately an insect.
jane running a short race
jane did the windsor race for life yesterday which was jolly good. fanastic weather too.
it was everywhere
i’m not a sports fan (other than the bingo, which isn’t really a spectator sport). yesterday there was no escape from football which seemed to be playing on tellies in every cafe and bar in town. to escape the misery i took kezia on a tour of electronic shops, but it was no good as banks of televisions were tuned to the same channel and people (mostly male shopping-widows) were stood watching.
rabbit
this is the ‘rabbit’ that the greyhounds were chasing at the dog racing. it’s most peculiar (click on the picture to inspect)
funkypancake goes to the dogs
jane and i went to dog racing on Saturday night. it was very good.
it was just like the blur album parklife
each race started with some laboratory technicians (in their best lab coats) walking the dogs up and down the track
the dogs seemed to enjoy this bit
then they were set lose and off they ran
and here are some people placing bets
me skiiing
this is a self portrait i took whilst sliding along. the camera was upsway down, rather than me (at this time)
the only sport i do is walking. and that’s not particularly sporty. but when i was off at the winter olympics i got to have a go at skiing
look how relaxed and natural i looked whilst moving slowly on two pointy flat sticks
here is the steepest incline i went down. i nearly dissappeared off down that dip to the right at one point, but managed to catch hold of the rope to stop myself.
i had a great time though and would consider going on a ski holiday. so there.
cool ice skating
we went ice skating yesterday. there was much talk amongst the children of obtaining ‘the balance’ like it was some skating-zen nirvana.
kezia suddenly announced she could skate on her own (after being dragged round by the grown ups for nearly 2 hours) and we didn’t believe her until off she went ! she had obtained ‘the balance’ and all was well.
here are esther and i doing not quite as well
ski slope outside the tate modern
there’s ice-skating rinks popping up all over london so it was only a matter of time before we got a ski slope too.
here’s one outside the tate modern. hoorah.
where to go curling
the place we went curling was Fenton’s Rink and it was most excellent. you must go with a group of friends and have a go.
i’ve put a few more photos here
an actual olympic gold medal
i’m unlikely to ever own one of these:
primarily because it was won at an event in the past and was awarded for the women’s curling. an event i didn’t take part in:
Debbie Knox won it instead:
cleaning and curling
curling is a funkypancake sport. not because i’m good at it though, because i’m not.
look at his utility bin.
beyond brushes, which are an essential part of the game, you also get to wear the most fantastic shoes.
initially they looked like normal trainers:
but you can pull the rubber bottom off (called a ‘kipper’) and reveal a super-slippy teflon sole, enabling you to whizz about on the ice like a mad thing
and look at all the other gadgets and gizmos you can get:
