Mr Blue Sky

Sun is shinin’ in the sky,
There ain’t a cloud in sight,
It’s stopped rainin’,
Everybody’s in a play,
And don’t you know,
It’s a beautiful new day, hey, hey

Hey there Mr Blue,
We’re so pleased to be with you,
Look around, see what you do,
Everybody smiles at you

Lyrics sung by Jeff Lynne of pop band ELO circa 1977 in the Number One song Mr Blue Sky. This past week has been filled with Mr Blue Sky during my annual trip away with the little Colin’s to Portugal’s Algarve where the sun beat down on us everyday with 30+ temperatures.

I was a big fan of ELO in my pre-teenage years, although I was alone with this fascination whilst the rest of my friends were jamming to the Jam and blocking to the Blockheads. Nonetheless, my love of Messrs Lynne, Bevan et. al. always reminds me of my early years.

Another early childhood memory was my frequent visits to the Kingsbury Lido in North London during the Summer months where, together with my brother Graeme, we would visit my grandparents each year. I have since retained a (some might call) nerdy passion for Lido’s (an Italian term, originating from Venice, pronounced ‘Leedo’, not ‘Lydo’), using them for both social and training purposes.

Lido’s are open-air pools, built predominantly in the 1930’s of magnificent architecture and design, but which have since gone into mass decline due to the costs of their upkeep and the low demand in the UK for open-air swimming. The Kingsbury pool has, alas, been one of those casualties, having been demolished and grassed over in 1994.

Over the summer I have been taking the kids to a local lido in Eversholt, the location of a sprint triathlon in which I participated, organised by Big Cow back in 2005, ironically before my most recent interest in all-things-Lido had re-ignited. The lido is a favourite of mine because it is in a beautiful location overlooking the village green. When the kids are mucking around in the water I can chill in the heat (an anomaly in itself) with a beer and picnic on the grass.

I have also been visiting the ponds at Hampstead Heath which, believe it or not, are also considered to be Lidos amongst the Lido fraternity. The Heath is such a wonderfully idyllic place, particularly on the grass by the ‘mixed’ pond, and it is great just to sit there and people-watch.

Very nearby the ponds is the Parliament Hill Lido. This is a 70-or-so metre pool at which I, along with my mates Simon and Alex, undertook a 5 ½ kilometre Swimathon a couple of years ago. The Swimathon was part of our training for the 2006 Ironman Austria. Shortly before this, we had cycled up to Cambridge to the magnificent 100-yard Jesus Green Lido as part of another training session.

And so all this brings me back to the beginning of the week where I raced the fourth and final Thames Turbo sprint triathlon. Location? The Hampton Lido. A lido built in 1922 and heated to a whopping 28 degrees - see picture below. The Thames Turbo sprint series is a 4-race series raced annually over the Summer bank holidays and the final event was the bank holiday Monday just passed. Competing with Dan (a friend from my tri club), we had a tenner stake on who would win out of the two of us. As it happened, I got a DQ (my first ever) – for apparently jumping a red light (don't ask!) – and Dan did a DNF because he was still carrying a cold caught earlier in the week – a fact of which I am grateful because I was odds on for losing my stake money – and so we are arranging a re-match sometime soon. Despite the DQ, a highly recommended series of races, and great for comparing your times over the season and gauging your improvements (or not) in speed over the same course.



My sun-kissed training over the week looked like this (in Portugal from Tuesday):-

Monday – race - Thames Turbo sprint race 4 - 1:10:00 - DQ - position not recorded
Tuesday – rest day
Wednesday – rest day
Thursday – run - 5 mile tempo run
Friday – run - 5 miles hill and sprint repeats
Saturday – rest
Sunday - run - 5 miles fast pace and 5 miles interval

Next week (actually, this week - I am writing this blog on Wednesday evening), I am tapering for the Virtuvian (Middle Distance), so am scaling down my training.

So, having returned to good old Blighty and its wonderful Autumn weather – you know, strong wind, grey skies, cold temperatures – I look up to the sky, wish I was back in the Algarve, and humm the words not from Mr Blue Sky, but from Why Does It Always Rain on Me, by Travis.

Ahh, roll on next Summer, but until then here's a few giant-sized piccies of our Summer holiday to the sunny Algarve.......

First up, the kids enjoying a giant-sized Pepsi - from left to right there's Emily, Joe and Adam....



Next, some waterslide racing - there's Emily splashing home in first place (left), Joe second (middle) and Adam third (right)....



And, finally, Adam (or, rather, the top of his head) doing some star gazing...



Bye for now.

C