The 2012 Tour

I’ve only caught bits and pieces of the Olympics on the telly over the past few days as I’ve been too busy enjoying a much more important event on the Milne’s sporting calendar; The Tour of Fife 2012! OK, so it might sound a bit daft that a wee running event is more important than the Olympic Games but, ocht, it’s all relative! As I explained in a fairly lengthy blog post last year, the Tour is unique and this year we, once again, thoroughly enjoyed everything that it had to offer. There are actually many similarities between the Tour and the Olympics: it’s a gathering of fantastic athletes in an atmosphere of mutual respect; team spirit; friendly camaraderie; and gutsy determination to win a med... I mean, a mug. Yup, the Tour definitely has much of all the good stuff that the Olympics has to offer (with none of the nonsense that’s made me feel a bit let down by London 2012; ridiculously inflated ticket prices, a disgraceful number of empty seats, Gary Linekar’s hapless commentating skills, the commercialism, the politics etc etc...), albeit on a much smaller – but no less emotive – scale. Having said all of that, I've just watched the GB men's gymnastic team win a Bronze medal and was in tears! Gymnastics was very much my sport, as a youngster, and our coaches used to tell us that gymnasts from the UK would never reach the Olympics as the Brits simply couldn't compete with the likes of the Eastern Europeans. Just goes to show, you should never say never.....

Yup, definitely stick to running dear......

Anyway, back to the Tour! Just like last year, Alex and Ross competed and I clapped and cheered (it’s an important job you know!) Just like last year, the Tour consisted of 5 gruelling races on 5 consecutive days around the beautiful Fife countryside and coast line. Just like last year, the sun shone! Hooray! And, just like last year, Alex and I made the most of it and camped up in Gemma’s student digs in St Andrews, combining the Tour with a short break from work. Lovely! (And, just like last year, poor old Ross couldn’t get time off from his summer job and had to drive up and down for most of the Tour. He did, however, manage to stay up over the final couple of days over the weekend.) 


Ross running up Hell...

The weather was perfect for all five of the Tour races. Well, maybe not perfect for the Up Hell Time Trial as the wind pushing against them made the final stretch up the hill extremely tough for the runners. Brian, the Tour organiser, scooshing them with a super soaker while dressed as a devil (after completing the run himself..) added to their misery – but both the wind and the devil were gloriously defeated to see every one of the starters complete the race. (From a lowly spectator’s perspective; it was absolutely baltic up there! What an eejit I was to wear my flip-flops. Don’t think my wee toes have ever been so cold...but, it was all worth it to be one of the many supporters cheering the runners on as they battled against the gradient and the wind to complete the Blue Riband event of the Tour!) 

The chat and banter between the runners and the supporters – not only at each race, but also on various blogs – was brilliant. Aw man, I laughed out loud when I read this wee snippet – written by one of the runners - after the first event: “The warm evening had me sweating buckets and when an older looking guy (my age group?) from Central edged by, I couldn't keep up with him..” The blog’s writer was last year’s M45 age group winner, Peter Buchanan from Portobello Running Club and that “older looking guy” he referred to was Alex - who was indeed in the same age group! Now, Alex has always looked older than his age (ever since he was the first in our year at school to start shaving...), but I think in recent years everyone else has caught up! Alex has looked over 40 since he was about 25, but I happen to think my old man’s wearing pretty well! Anyway, it gave rise to a great deal of ribbing from me and Ross and some good competition between Alex and Peter as the Tour progressed.

Portobello Pete being chased by my old man....

Alex managed to hold Peter off to win the sprightly young age category of V45! (And I do mean sprightly young age; there were runners taking part in age categories right up to V70. I salute them all!) Ross isn’t as fit as he was during the Tour last year, but he still enjoyed the event. It was the founder of the modern Olympic movement that said: “it’s not the winning, it’s the taking part that counts...The important thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.” Wise words, but not always ones that young athletes want to hear or understand. I’m delighted that my kids have inherited their Dad’s attitude to his sport: don’t make up silly excuses if you don’t do well (the old, “I was wearing the wrong shoes” doesn’t go down well in our house..); don’t give up on something you enjoy doing just because you’re not the best at it; just because you’re not the best doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try your best – then, who knows, one day you just might be the best...; treat your fellow competitors the way you’d like to be treated yourself; be a good representative of your club and wear your club colours with pride (even if your vest’s a bit washed out and looks like an old yellow duster...); and, the one learned from his old coach - the legend that was Shettletston Harrier’s Alex Naylor - and the one that’s not so easy to stick to, ‘run fast, get to the front and don’t let anyone pass you’...Yup, simple really... Anyway, it was great, as ever, to see Alex and Ross competing together alongside members of many other great Scottish athletics clubs. All (well, most of them anyway) wearing their club vests with pride, but supporting and encouraging their rivals regardless of club, age, gender or how far ahead or behind they were in the Tour rankings! 

The organising club, Fife AC, put so much effort in to making this such a great event (with the best post-race spread of cakes I think I’ve ever seen!) and I’m already looking forward to cheering on Alex, Ross and all the other Tourists next July. I can't run anymore, but I still love being part of the running fraternity. And the Tour of Fife is a perfect example of why that's so.

(p.s. Many thanks to Fife AC for some fantastic photos - and reminding me of the quote by de Coubertin!)