the royal victoria park 4 miles

i have just done this famous local race around the royal victoria park in bath near the world famous royal crescent, a 5 lap course around the park that is quite hilly and undulating. parts of it are reasonably steep to run up and no part of the course is flat, your always either on a up hill or a down hill. i spent most of the morning trying to find the registration tent warming up and trying desperately hard to go to the toilet so i didnt get caught short in the race. so thats three things i tried to do and i only succeeded in two of them. by the end of the second lap i was, shall we say close to "using the bushes" or "doing a paula", but hold on i did manage to do just about, but add about 400 yards to the race distance at the end for a quick go in the toilet. cue a time of 24:46 at the end which was quicker than i expected given the nature of the course but it was exactly 100 seconds outside my best from nigh on 2 years ago at clevedon on boxing day. i still feel though that come the may bank holiday next year i will be running a sub 3 hour marathon in edinburgh.

the situation at work has calmed down somewhat although we're a long long way from resolving the dispute, they now have a frame work for talks on the changes that we all agree are necessary to make royal mail a modern efficient and successful business, but both the local and national strike ballots are still in place but it is now agreed that all industrial action is now suspended until january. the union were caught between a rock and a hard place really because this could actuallly prolong the dispute more than is necessary if they don't come to some sort of agreement, but the impact to other people notably those whose businesses rely on the royal mail at this time of year for xmas presents etc would have been huge. the cost to my self may be greater in the long run, but i can afford to lose a days pay here and there, but preferably not over christmas, but the cost to customers could have sent them in to irreversible decline, so on balance probably the right decision. i've had a copy of the interim agreement emailed to me and really it's only a frame work for talks but at least brendan barber and the tuc have given them a frame work with which they can move forward in unison, but it will be interesting to see whether pigson, crony and mandy actually stick to their side of the agreements fully for once and not just when it suits them. the next two months will be both challenging and interesting for royal mail and the communications workers union