The Olympic torch is coming to Guildford in 2012 as its last stop before London.
The grass running track in Stoke Park was laid out again recently. It’s from here in Guildford that the Olympic torch will begin the the final leg of its journey into London for the 2012 games.
There’ll be an evening celebration in Stoke Park on Friday, 20th July next year.
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Posted in 2011, Guildford, summer, Surrey and Sussex, the marathon journey
1. London is Olympic – 21.04.2006
The London 2012 film and music were playing at the Expo last night, reminding me that Sunday will see the first marathon in this newly Olympic city of ours.
And inspiration for the marathon start line just doesn’t get any better than this.
I look into the window of my mind
Reflections of the fears I know I’ve left behind
I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending
I’m on my way
Can’t stop me now
And you can do the same
Heather Small – May 2000
Posted in 2006, London, music, racing, the marathon journey
My winter’s journey of 18 weeks and 499 miles is over. Only four more days and 26 miles to go.
From the bleak beginnings of a frozen, snowy Christmastime in Scotland, through fifty Crawley lunchtimes and Guildford nightfalls I’ve wandered.
Along pretty Surrey towpaths and under pitch-black Houston skies, I waved those winter months goodbye.
I’ve seen the North Downs slopes from every side, gasped breathless in the Alps, and loped lazily down last weekend’s Warwickshire lanes and the Avon riverbank, too.
It’s been a long way, this year.
I’ve felt no real promise, honest aspiration, or even false pretence of quicker feet or swifter legs, this time.
Just run through winter, until you reach the spring, I said.
So I just got through it. And now I’m here.
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(… continued)
As I turn left off the main A25, uncharted territory lies ahead. The narrow lane rises in front of me, and I neither walk, nor confidently run, but somehow cobble together an unheroic if effective mix of both until the gradient flattens.
The ancient pasture land of Abinger Roughs lies to my left, that name describing quite well my personal symptoms of oxygen deficit and lingering virus.
It’ll only get harder from here, and so it’s just the ideal time to spy a couple of puzzled walkers standing by the roadside with their map.
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Posted in 2006, history, Surrey and Sussex, the marathon journey
A drizzly morning, the last Sunday in March. And so, it’s come to this.
All those freezing January lunchtimes, seemingly endless February slogs into that slowly lengthening winter dusk, and forays into the primaeval darkness in the rain.
Looking back, it was nothing more than preparation for what lies ahead today.
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Posted in 2006, history, Surrey and Sussex, the marathon journey
The glass of the second bottle felt moist and cool in my hand. Inviting.
5.30 pm at an exhibition in Earl’s Court, London’s very own suburb of Melbourne. It wasn’t an Australian beer in my hand, this time, even if three of those had slipped down effortlessly the evening before.
One more had disappeared just a moment ago, subsumed in seconds and without a thought. As they always are, at the witching hour which closes any trade show.
It was hard to believe my eyes, really, but it was happening. The bottle, so helpfully handed to me just a moment before, was moving back towards the table. My papers were gathering themselves into my bag.
Time for a decision. I collected my coat, mumbled a few feeble farewells, and headed out into the dusk and the rain, raising my collar and shuffling forwards along the wet pavement towards the tube station.
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Posted in 2006, the marathon journey, training, winter
