FASTRAX RUNNING

Made a welcome return to the Fewston/ Swinsty rerservoirs today; the first time since November 8th due to road closure and the recent snow and ice.  I suspected that some of the trail would still be ice packed and that proved the case. In fact whilst last weekend's thaw saw most of the area free of snow, parts of the reservoirs still contain large sheets of ice.   I started  with the Swinsty loop which wasn't too bad, but  anyone planning to run  around the Fewston trail within the next few days will still have to exercise caution. The 2 res. figure of 8 gave me the planned 7 for the day.   Another feature of the revised routine for the year.

 There's been quite a lot in the athletics press lately about "number swapping" for races.  I think the term "number transfer"......whether done officially or illegally.....is a more correct term.  I know some can't see what the problem is; including one Paolo Natali who having won the Norwich Half marathon using someone else's number and then was correctly disqualified then wrote to Athletics weekly to defend himself instead of maintaining a low profile and hope that he wasn't banned.  I won't repeat everything the race director states in his letter against Natali.....except...
"He (Natali) thus cheated the legitimate winner out of his right to cross the line first, receive the plaudits and press coverage, also cheated City Of Norwich
AC out of the true record of the silver jubilee race finish .  
              You will recall in a pre Christmas blog I pointed out ......"with raised eyebrows".......how a M65 had managed to improve his 10K time by over 20 minutes in a year.  Highly unlikely......but the race director in this case when I spoke to him didn't seem to be bothered.....but it was no doubt another case of  illegal "number transfer" which robbed a team mate of mine of the M65 prize. 
        So with so much written and spoken about how many problems illegal number transfer creates it is disappointing that the  highly sought after numbers for the BRASS MONKEY HALF MARATHON this Sunday WILL NOT be allowed to be transferred legally by the race organisers.  It's one of the first things they state  on the race information sheets.  I have absolutely no doubt that being told they can't transfer numbers legally several will just pass their numbers on anyway.   To be hoped the policy of the Knavesmire club does not backfire on them. 
       Doubtless more on the BRASS MONKEY to follow....................