I Was Always Kind Of Crap At Geography Anyway

SO...........I never made it to Lyon for Worlds......it's a long story but the jist of it is.....
I was unaware that French Immigration Law required a three month visa{although they seem pretty crap and keeping  immigrants out of the Channel Tunnel these days.....but I digress!}and my passport expires the day after I return to America,they weren't gonna "turn a blind eye" for little old me for 5 days and while I initially rejected the suggestion of the check in staff at British Airways to visit the US Embassy I took it under advisment from someone near and dear to me to put the crap of Monday behind me and get my act together,get my papers in order and  fly out a day late.......then at 5 am my mother comes into the bedroom to inform me she'd called an ambulance to take her to the hospital........
Really,I was going to say "ok well hope it works out well,phone my sister in Lyon and let me know how you make out,bye"!!!!!!!!!!!

Obviously running muchless going to Worlds was secondary at that moment in time,YEAH it sucks I've worked my butt off for the pass 13 months,made personal and fiscal sacrifices all for naught but could I have truly gotten my paperwork in order and then boarded a plane to France muchless compete at Worlds w/ my mothers health up in the air,I joke about being a Born Again Black Hearted Celtic Pagan but I'm NOT heartless,so I waited till my mother returned home a few hours later,thankfully it doesn't appear to be anything major or serious but given this time last year we though she may have bowel cancer and she was now complaing about her lower back bothering her could I be blamed for 86ing Worlds????

On Monday evening I took a reverse run down memory lane circa 1984-87 I would do a 6 mile run from where I lived along Lewisham High St,up Belmont Hill,through Blackheath Village,across Blackheath,around the Royal Standard pub and back.....the irony of ironies is my mother now lives a stones throw from the Royal Standard so I ran in the oposite direction,over the heath,through the village,down Belmont Hill and along Lewisham High St to Roxley Rd to the enterence to my old flat/appartment and then back
reached the turn a round in 20.18 and although I now had to circumnavigate Belmont Hill uphill on the inbound leg I still managed a negative split of 19.23 for a semi respectable 39.41 a far cry from the 31.49 I ran in 1987.....but I was 23 NOT 51 back then!!!!!

Today even though I should've been on the track in Lyon in the 1,500m I went out for an easy hour long/6 mile run using the old 10 minutes equals a mile template,I ran over Blackheath,down South Row,swung around back onto Shooters Hill Road and then back across Blackheath,took another road I'd never ran along all those years I lived here which brought me out atop Blackheath Village,down a quarter of Belmont Hill to a footpath I knew would bring me out on the far side of Blackheath{Blackheath it's self is HUGE and covers several acers of land}over to Greenwich Park and then down the road that runs to the left hand side of the park and past Our Lady Star Of The Sea.......the church I was baptised and christened in way back when,cut through Greenwich Park and up the steep mother of a hill on the Maize Hill side of the park,out through the gate and across the heath to where my mother now resides,all in all not a bad run if I saw so myself.

Hopfully I can squeeze in one more six miler Friday to round out at 18 miles,Worlds may not've happened but there's still the GPTC Track Pentathlon in 2 weeks time followed by 5th Avenue Mile 2 weeks later to shoot for