Stormy times and running achievements.

March winds and April showers bring on May flowers. Thus goes the old saying. Well, it's very nearly May and I can't say I am impressed. 

After sitting outside eating fish and chips at lunchtime yesterday, truly the last thing I expected to see when I looked out of the window early this morning was snow on the roof of the shed. And yet there it was. After the sun came up properly the snow disappeared and I managed a run in the sunshine. But after that the day deteriorated rapidly into grey and gloomy. And cold!

Now, middle evening, there is a thunderstorm going on outside and the garden is white over again. Stormy times! 

Stormy times for the Labour party here as well with accusations of anti-Semitism and general racism flying around and members of the party suspended pending investigation into things they have said which have been perhaps misinterpreted - perhaps deliberately so. I am left wondering why the Left so often manages to tear itself apart publicly when troubles come along while the Right usually closes ranks and deals with its problems as far as possible in private. 

Onto happier matters. Last Sunday, when the sun managed to shine, we watched bits of the London Marathon, some of us on TV and others actually there, cheering on people they knew who were taking part. Those of us watching on TV gave up with the idea of actually seeing a friend or relation running and "followed" them on the website. How amazing to be able to feed in the name of a runner and see how quickly they had dealt with the first half, and then their final overall time. The people we knew in the race all did very well. It makes my little morning run seem very paltry! 

And then I read about a 12 year old girl in the USA. She was supposed to be running in a family 5 kilometre race which set off fifteen minutes after the New York half marathon and, the decisive factor, from the same bridge as the half marathon. She saw people lined up on the bridge and thought she had arrived late. So when they set off, she went with them. 

Somewhere round the course she realised she was in the wrong race but kept on going. Her parents were imaginably very upset when they didn't find her at the end of the five kilometre course and alerted the police and race officials. They discovered what had gone on and reassured the parents that all was well. So instead of running 3.1 miles, this young lady ran 13.1 miles. She completed the half-marathon in 2 hours, 43 minutes and 31 seconds and got a race-finishers medal for her troubles ... and possibly a place in the race annals. 

Pretty good going!