Ian on the way up - dispensing with his training top
Today was the day of The Sheffield Half Marathon. Plenty of roads in our sector of the city were closed off to enable some 8,000 runners to stride out safely into the nearby countryside before swinging back to the finishing line in the city centre..
I stood in the middle of Ecclesall Road and watched them coming up the hill. Great waves of competitors and I was struck by the obvious realisation that each one of those runners was different from the next. Tall and short, fat and thin, male and female, black and white, young and old, dressed in running gear or dressed like bananas. On and on they came, their feet thundering on the tarmac.
Amongst them was our forty year old son, Ian. He had travelled up to Sheffield for his mother's birthday and decided to squeeze in this half marathon as extra preparation for The London Marathon at the end of next month. He is not a competitive runner but his training has been building well and he finished in the middle of the field today.
Sheffield is Great Britain's hilliest city whereas the London marathon route is as flat as a pancake. Getting up to "The Norfolk Arms" pub at Ringinglow will have been demanding for all of today's runners but at least the descent would have been a comfort. What goes up must come down.
There's Ian on the way back down waving at me.
I am very proud of our Ian's effort today but sorry that my photos of his participation were pretty poor. I just didn't see him coming. I am also pleased that I got to see 86 year old John Burkhill bringing up the rear - pushing his pram up Ecclesall Road. He has raised well over £1,000,000 for Macmillan cancer nurses in the last fifteen years. What a legend!
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/Upy5ZeA
