Hyde` ParK: 10 miles with Beauty and the Beast

I know that sounds like I had company on my week's "long run" in London's Hyde Park, but actually the company was in my head thanks to reading the Sunday papers just before setting out.

In fact, the run was as lonely as usual in London, where (as I moaned before) very few runners say hi. But the Park itself was teeming with people enjoying some winter sunshine between the heavy showers of rain and hail. Speaker's Corner was in full swing - that's the corner of the Park where anyone is free to stand on a soapbox and harangue passers-by about anything that takes their fancy; msny, many free-form football (soccer) games were in progress; dogs being walked by the hundreds; endless streams of tourists taking "This is us in Hyde Park" pictures... and loads of runners, too.

I did a modified three-laps round the edge of the park, keeping on the grass, so the going was occasionally soft and often pretty tough going. I kept the effort level way way down, but even so kept sneaking glances at my Garmin expecting to see the "sea level advantage" -- ie a morale-boosting confirmation that I was doing 8-minute or faster miles with zero effort. No such luck, You know, I wonder about this altitude/sea level thing. Remember last year when I ran what I thought was a slow, crap race in this very park and ended up winning my age group? I'm starting to think that I have this weird physiology - I actually run faster at altitude, rather than at sea level, where I'm supposed to.

So Beauty and the Beast: the two dominant stories in GBR athletics right now occupied my thoughts on the way round. Beauty = Paula Radcliffe, who is out of the London Marathon with a toe injury. I figured this was a strategic withdrawal with maybe her fitness not being what it is. But today I check all the news reports and no, it seems genuine. Paula's toes, it has to be said, have been a worry in the past, and she had surgery on one them not too long ago.

"The 34-year-old sustained the injury to her right toe while altitude training at her base in Albuquerque, New Mexico and in mid-February returned to Europe for specialist treatment" reported the Daily Mail.

"In an attempt to find a cure, she had to make a whistle-stop trip to the Munich clinic of Dr Hans Mueller-Wolfhart, whose client list over the years has included many of the biggest names in sport. But the injury did not respond to treatment and after being sidelined for two weeks, Radcliffe chose to err on the side of caution", reported the Daily Telegraph.

Paula fans (me included, ahem) are celebrating the fact that she has the wisdom to take time out now to sustain her Beijing hopes. Also we're mindful that before winning New York she hadn't raced a marathon for two years.

The Beast... well that's former drug-user - and current top British sprinter -- Dwain Chambers. He did the crime, did the time and now wants back in, as the rules allow. But some of the authorities want to change the rules to exclude him for good and all. Public opinion is split almost right down the middle. Pictures of him during his latest races are not helping his case as the guy STILL looks steroid-pumped and ripped even though he is now being tested regularly and is clean. The bit I have a problem with is his comments about "owning up". The spin he's putting on it is that he got caught and took the opportunity to make a full confession as he'd felt so guilty. Hm. Well, kind of. What he didn't do, having made a conscious decision to use drugs, was break down on the finishing line of the European 100-metre championship and make a public statement about using drugs. We have to wonder whether he would have ever owned up IF he hadn't been caught.

What's in his favour is that before he started taking drugs he was super-fast, so it is highly likely that clean now he is still super-fast.