Like everyone else, The Chain Gang gets a few nutters along on our trips. One of the nicest and most interesting nutters is Tim Ockwell – I’ll tell you why he’s a nutter in a minute.
His key saving grace is that he’s usually in the company of two delightful ladies, his wife Glenys and their friend Annette. But Tim is seriously into his fitness.
Last year in Semur-en-Auxois in Burgundy, we were all posing under the start line flags of the Tour de France – Semur was one of the start towns in 2007.
French towns make a huge thing out of this and pay large sums to be a start or finish town. We arrived 2 months after the end of the Tour de France, but all the flags and bunting were still out.
The correct etiquette is to pose under the ‘Start’ flags pretending that the peleton of the Tour de France in 2007 included a rider of about 100 Kg, well into his 40s, in shorts and a T-shirt riding a hybrid bike, along with 2 pals one of whom celebrated his 60th birthday in 2004 as I recall.
Either this was some sort of ‘Legends’ event, or me, Gary and Steve messing about. But not Tim. Although he was on holiday, he had to keep up his training for a triathlon he was entered in, so as soon he got to the hotel, he was off running as part of his training.
Anyway, the point of this posting is to congratulate Tim on completing the London Marathon earlier this month in an admirable three and a half hours.
He has an extraordinary dog as well that runs with him – dogs aren’t allowed in the marathon itself, but two weeks prior to the race, on a 22 mile training run, Tim’s dog ran along quite happily.
Is it possible that there could be dog marathon event? I’ve been to the greyhound racing, which is great fun, but what about dog marathon running?
Tim & Glenys’ dog could easily do it. Anyway, well done Tim, I think that’s amazing.
In the photo you can see that Glenys and Annette have a much clearer understanding of what you’re meant to do on a Chain Gang holiday.
