Of particular note was the effort of Ali Clack who admitted that until a few months ago he had done no running. Working in Portsmouth, he joined a local running group and they helped him both physically and mentally to be able to run over 26 miles. You will be able to read Ali's marathon story in the next edition of Hethersett Herald which will be published towards the end of this month.
It was great to hear about and see so many people running a marathon in and around Hethersett and I'm hoping this will become an annual event for those who either cannot or do not want to go to London.
On Tuesday, I went to the gym at Park Farm for the first time in over eight months. That doesn't mean I have ignored exercise during that time with regular walks and games of tennis.
When you watch the elite runners in a marathon they look to be jogging. "I could do that" is not an unnatural reaction to watching. But just look at the figures. These elite runners take around 2 hours and 10 minutes. That means they run just over 26 miles in around 130 minutes and that's a mile in around five minutes. I would guess that the number of people you know who could run a mile in five minutes is small and that's just one mile. These guys keep that pace up for 26 miles and that's 12 miles per hour.
So I took to the running machine again to see what it felt to go at those speeds. I did one minute at eight miles an hour and had to stop. It felt as if I was doing a flat out sprint - but these guys look like they are just jogging - amazing.
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I love quiz shows and am in awe at the knowledge of students on University Challenge. At the other end of the spectrum are shows like Tipping Point (which incidentally I watch every day) where the questions are scarcely more difficult than "who wrote Beethoven's fifth symphony?" I have set a number of quizzes over the years and for a bit of fun had an entire round once with questions of that calibre. One of them was "what year does the 1812 overture commemorate?" Would you believe one of the teams got it wrong?
I used to enjoy Mastermind but the questions seem to have got easier over the years.
A few years ago I was a contestant on The Weakest Link and found a new dimension to the programme - it was called fatigue.
To start with I had to attend an audition in Norwich where we had a written test where you had to answer as many questions as you could in a couple of minutes. Then there was a piece to camera which didn't phase me as I was used to doing that when with the police. Finally there was a simulated round of the quiz where they seemed surprised that I could answer a question about Eminem.
I was accepted onto the show and had to go down to Pinewood Studios (or was it Elstree) to film it. They did three in a day and I believe we were the second lot. First of all you met your fellow contestants in the green room over coffee and had a chat in a kind of "do I like this person or should I vote them off" kind of way.
Then the filming started. We saw Anne Robinson for the first time and off we went. Round one was a great problem. I believe there were eight of us and everyone got their questions right but you still had to vote somebody off and had no reason for picking anyone. So you just plucked a name out of thin air, feeling concerned that if the person you voted for didn't get voted off they could turn against you in subsequent rounds.
I promised myself that however far I got I would always be honest and vote for the person I genuinely felt to be the weakest link. But in the first round that was tough decision and I felt very sad for the lady voted off - she had answered her question correctly but still got voted off.
As the rounds progressed alliances sprung up because between rounds there was a break whilst they checked the film, powdered people who had turned a bit sweaty or any number of other reasons. That gave you the chance to chat with the people close to you. It all became very hot and very tiring but I managed to get through to the final three - just one round away from the head to head and the chance to win what turned out to be something over £3,000. It was me against two ladies and I thought they might gang up on me but I brought about my own downfall by giving my only incorrect answer of the entire quiz and I was very cross.
The question was something along the lines of "which character from the children's television programme Rainbow is also a word for messing something up." In the lights and the heat my brain turned to mush and went blank. The only character I could think of was Zippy but I knew that was wrong. Now when my boys were young we watched Rainbow a lot. Sitting here now I can recall all the names - there was George and Zippy and Geoffrey who was Geoffrey Hayes and the singing trio of Rod, Jane and Freddy and of course the answer to the question Bungle.
I wasn't the weakest link in that round but neither was I the strongest and, after the voting, all three of us had one vote each. Had I have got that question correct I would have been the strongest link and would have had the casting vote. As it was the lady who voted for me was the strongest link and decided not to change her vote. So I was off.
The deciding question in the final with the game tied at 4-4 was something along the lines of "which sports car manufacturer is based at Hethel in Norfolk and is named after a flower." I thought it ironic that I could have won the quiz on a factory just three miles from where we live!
There were no hard feelings between myself and the winner as we got the train back together and shared a MacDonalds on Liverpool Street Station. She got off in Colchester and I continued to Norwich left with thoughts of what might have been.
Somewhere I have a photograph of my appearance on that show. Must try and find it sometime.