Idle Tom readies himself for the race of his life …
A phone to Idle Tom the Publisher - just to check that he’s doing what he said he would.
"Flights booked for the weekend?"
"Flights booked where?" said Idle Tom.
"Edinburgh! I thought we’d got it all arranged. You said you’d be staying with your sister and that we’d do this Seven Hills Run together -"
"The Seven Hills Run? What’s that?"
"Well, believe it or not Tommy, it’s a run of Edinburgh’s Seven Hills. A great run. Six weeks ago you said you’d come up and do it. We’d have a bonding time of things -"
"Me? I’d never do anything like that! Apart from anything else, I’m not in training."
"That’s the whole point!" I said. Mildly peeved. "We’re not doing any training."
"No, really," he said. "I haven’t done any training at all."
"Me neither. And as for my brother - well he’s not only done no training, but he’s turned middle-aged all of a sudden."
Tom liked that. "So I won’t come last?"
"Not a chance! My brother tried to run four miles up a hill at the weekend, and he blew up five times. Used to be quite buffed. But I reckon if he has a proper go at the Seven Hills, it’ll kill him."
"My kind of guy," said Tommy. "Maybe we could get a taxi round together."
"That’s not really entering into the spirit of things."
"But I never do enter into the spirit of things …"
Meanwhile … for your delectation, a picture of me from a couple of weeks back. The Mull of Kintyre half-marathon. Not a training run; merely an exercise in pain:
