Gladstone

Excellent - Clachnaben sounds great. So - 13.6km - what time did you get to finish second last? I reckon on a fairly flat 13.6km I could race that in about an hour, maybe slightly quicker. Obviously, this is going to be brutal though and I'll be way way slower than that... I'll be beasting it up Mormond Hill quite a lot over the next couple of months. Everywhere I run has hills actually (not heather covered hills mind you). Will see how I get on. I'm not really that bothered about the time - it just sounds like fun and a good outing in advance of the HM the following month. Ooft - I see the course record is 1:02. That's fairly shifting it over such a brutal course. EDIT: You don't happen to have a profile of the course you could post as an image do you??

Forgot to say - Chris (and others) may be interested in some of these races (or may already know about them) that I'm in for this year: Clachnaben Hill Race - 12 April - Strachan (near Banchory) - 13.6km hill race - www.cosmics.org.uk Benromach 10k - 10 May - Forres - http://www.forresharriers.org.uk/races.htm Heart of the Park Challenge - 13 July - Braemar - 12km hill / multi-terrain race - https://www.facebook.com/HeartoftheParkChallenge I'm not doing either of these next two as I'll be away that weekend, but worth a look: BRG Challenge - 23 August - Fraserburgh - 17.5 mile coastal "challenge" - it's mostly on the road but it's very hilly! www.brgchallenge.co.uk Fare Challenge - 24 August - Raemoir - 5km / 10km / Half Marathon options - multi-terrain - http://thefarechallenge.co.uk/ [this is a new race - looks awesome!]

How's it all going? I'm on a bit of a running high at the moment - beasting the sessions every time... hopefully it continues and I can smash my 10k PB at the end of March. Since the last post, I've had a few easy runs (including an 11.5 mile cracker on Saturday round the woods at Strichen then up Mormond Hill. Very muddy and wet and hoorin' windy. Coming back down off the top of Mormond Hill it felt like I was running on the spot at one point! There was also some hail thrown into the mix just for fun...), nailed the 4 x 8 minutes @ threshold pace last week (with bastard wind to contend with again) and then had a brilliant session yesterday morning. I had to get into work early to do the session pre-work as I had a lunchtime meeting. So - on the streets of Westhill at about 6am, I knocked out 6 minutes @ threshold pace, 60s recovery, then reps of 6 x 1km (aiming for ~6:35 pace, came in 6:29, 6:33, 6:33, 6:35, 6:32, 6:33) with 90s recovery, then another 6 minutes @ threshold pace. Brute of a session but great to hit all the paces. Another easy 40 minutes today. Going for 3 x 10 minutes @ threshold pace tomorrow.

That Bergkamp video is brilliant. The finesse he possessed was unbelievable. It's weird but I don't really remember the "assists" part of his game - he "threads the needle" like no other I've seen for a long time in those clips though. I remember his goals though. Some of his lobs are just ridiculous. Not many smashes into the top corner - it's all about precision. Beautiful. As for the Scotland squad. I'd rather have Reynolds in my back four than Grant Hanley. On current form, Barry Robson could probably be in with a shout. We massively missed Scott Brown and Darren Fletcher in the middle of the park when they were both out. Robson could fill a Scott Brown shaped hole better than anyone else in the country right now I think. I know Scott Brown is in this squad, but there's nobody else really like him in the current set-up. We can sometimes get over-run in midfield without him in there. Really good to see D. Fletcher back in a Scotland squad - I hope he can get back to his best or at least something close to it. He's barely played this season though has he? EDIT: I've been hugely unimpressed with James Forrest for about two years now too. I can't remember the last time I saw him do much of anything. And he's got no neck. Barry Bannan's another one - the early potential he showed was great, but he seems to have fallen away somewhat.

Jesus - I AGREE. It just seemed odd at the time. When he was at Liverpool he really just seemed like a little thug who liked to break up the play etc. Not the kind of player that Barca would seek out and sign. It's turned out well - and probably a stroke of relative genius by Pep in the end. I really don't remember him being a good ball player at Liverpool - in fact, in his early days at Barca I was often wondering what he was doing on the pitch as he was the only player in the team who ever gave the ball away and then had to follow it up with a two-footed lunge to win it back.

Don't get me wrong - I totally get what he does at Barca and it's an important job and he does it well. I just still find it weird that a club with Barca's ethos ever signed him. I think it was actually a good signing - just a weird one. (If that makes sense)

I still struggle to understand how Mascherano got signed by Barca. I understand the job he does and it's something no other Barca player really wants to do, but it always seems like a weird fit. His tackle for the booking was pretty ridiculous and unnecessary. Joleon Lescott is another of the Micah Richards mould - he was supposed to be a great future star for England etc. He's turned pretty shit really. He was lucky he was alongside Kompany last night.

I'd forgotten about that. Nutcase.

I actually thought City did well after they were down to 10 men and were a bit unlucky to lose the second goal. That said, the goal that was chalked off shouldn't have been. Fabregas was onside when he received the pass. I think that it doesn't matter that the guy who scored was in an offside position when Fabregas got the pass but it is quite difficult to follow the intricacies of the offside rule these days... I noticed Micah Richards was on the bench. I forgot he existed. Does he ever get a game these days? He was to to be the next big thing a few years ago but he's barely ever played for England.

Lawyers cover our backs all the time. That little caveat makes it clear that I don't have the full information...EDIT: posting on a forum isn't my job so I'm not required to have looked at the details! I am a details kind of guy at work.

How does that work? I haven't looked at the details but does it need good wifi signal? I ask because my broadband/wifi is quite slow. It sometimes feels like I live in the third world with my shit broadband and no 3G signal.

I'm on Vodafone - shit 3G in Aberdeen City centre or out in the sticks where I live. My brother is on EE and he gets 3G signal in fucking New Deer and Maud. They must be doing it right.

I find that I get better 3G in places like bloody Inverurie and Westhill than in Aberdeen. My phone signal is shit out at home so if it wasn't for wifi I would get no data. I'm always surprised when I try to look at stuff on my phone in Aberdeen and there isn't a 3G signal in loads of places in the city centre.

The keeper's reaction to Balotelli's goal is amazing.

I thought Aidan Moffat had been taken hostage judging by the thread title. Turns out not.

So, Derek Riordan has signed for Alloa. What a fucking waste of talent he's turned into.

Don't know if it's still there - but at the end of that road (at the entrance side of the one way street) there was a bit of dead ground I left my car on a couple of times when I worked at Golden Square. I also parked in Captain Tom's a couple of times when I had band practice after work. Felt too cheeky to do it if I didn't have band practice though.

What's that got to do with Poland? /standardab-musicjoke

I'm like this too. I was very close to tears when Andy Murray won Wimbledon. Here's another totally ridiculous / embarrassing one... Karate Kid. Not the classic one either. The one with Will Smith's son. Holy shit. I watched that on a plane home from Dubai a couple of years ago and felt a bit emotional at the end. Jesus. No tears were shed (thank fuck or I might have jumped out of the plane).

You need to get in tow with the Golden Square mafia. There's an old mannie that patrols the spaces in the centre of Golden Square - I never quite worked out who was allowed to park there during the day. You maybe have to give the old mannie a bottle of whiskey every month or something...

Quick Question: Where do you get the affinity with an NHL team from to the point that you call them "we"? (Genuinely interested - American sports have largely passed me by)

I don't think I've ever cried at a movie or TV or whatever. I'm not an overly emotional guy. Close relatives dying and that sort of thing does get me (so I'm not totally void of emotion...). I think I'm becoming more emotional though - more "watery eye" moments than I used to. This is something that did totally make me cry though. The back story may be necessary to fully understand... Some of you may be aware of the charity Kayleigh's Wee Stars. It's a charity that was set up by the parents of a little girl Kayleigh who died of a brain tumour when she was just 2. I sort of knew Kayleigh's mum through school. Her parents are two of the most inspiring people ever. If you get a chance to check out the charity and the story, please do. What they've done since finding out their daughter was going to die is absolutely incredible and completely selfless. Anyway, it may be because I'm sort of "connected" to this that this song totally gets me but I think it's probably more to do with the fact that the photos of Kayleigh remind me of my own little girl and the lyrics in this song written and performed by Kayleigh's dad just hit a nerve with me because I can relate to every single one of them. Anyway, here's the song - which the charity released as a single on iTunes last year and at one point it was in the top 50 on iTunes, which was pretty cool:

Luckily for you, that's not a crime.

I just looked it up! Fuck! I didn't notice your striker comment. To be fair Mair probably scored more goals than Tommy Wright.