I have less to tell you than normal this week in part because I have spent even more time than usual umming and erring. I have finally reached a decision though and am going to nip down to Zurich next Friday to take up my place in the 2013 Jungfrau Marathon.
You generous folk donated many thousands of pounds a couple of years ago when I first ran this ridiculous event and I had good charity close to my heart. This time its just me and the mountain. I vividly remember crossing the finishing line 5 hrs 24 mins after I’d started ( at a respectable canter I might add…http://www.migros.ch/generation-m/de/gesundheit/finisher-clip/finisher-clip-2011/jungfrau-marathon-2011.html?fcid=fc_1006_4664#fc_1006_4664
) and swearing I would never do it again but that wore off quite soon. Come to think of it I can probably find what I wrote back then. Yup…here it is:
It’s funny how quickly you forget all the horrors. I told my wife and daughter who were waiting for me that I would never, ever, do it again, but I find myself already planning another attempt to crack The Big 5-0 (5 hours) in a couple of years time, appropriately enough, sad though it is to confess, to coincide with a similarly coined anniversary in my life. Fear not....I can promise you faithfully I will not be banging on about this one! (Ooops…sorry about that!!) In a brief call home I mentioned my intentions to Sophie. One might describe the reception I got as slightly frosty.
I don’t think I have a chance in heck of completing the race in under 5 hours, but there are other reasons to head to Switzerland to run up a hill. If you havn’t been to Wengen you should. It is the most spectacular place nestled under the Jungfrau and the Eiger. What’s more there is the odd chance that I might bump into that attractive young American Indian called George who led Clint Eastwood a merry dance in The Eiger Sanction, one of the great films.
And I wonder why my children are all so strange. Talking of which having bemoaned last week their lack of application I was surprised to return home yesterday evening to find that Hen had had a busy day spent mostly creeping through undergrowth and avoiding gamekeepers. That sounded like something Bob would have been up to, but it transpires she had found a website dedicated to people who want to photograph derelict buildings many of which, including the one she visited on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds, are very much off-limits. Turned out this particular house was surrounded by a pheasant shoot and lots of signs warning trespassers away. Seemed a lot of effort simply to take a few photos of a dump, but each to their own.
Bit subdued today tbh….off to a Memorial Service this afternoon. 54 yr old.
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