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That's not a gurn!
Do you think the rubber ring round his neck is central to the performance or merely incidental?!
Blimey, lots to catch up on. (Both on this thread and the Team GB thread which I hadn't manage to read for a few days - wow!)
I quite like University Challenge but don't seem to have time to watch it at the moment. Sure I read an article fairly recently about how Manchester University have been taking it very seriously in recent years and are now the 'team to beat'.
Photo is from World Gurning Championships that take place at Egremont Crab Fair annually in September. (Egremont is quite near Cockermouth just to further titillate those amused by a place being named after the River Cocker having a mouth).
Without reading the rules all the contestants have to do their gurn within the rubber thing - no idea why or what significance is but I'm sure 10 minutes dedicated to google at lunch would satisfy anyone of a curious nature.
Still a bit concerned that I could look so happy and fresh on that photo and yet feel so terrible - on that basis if I'd been Lit I would have drowned in the river.
I'm actually a bit jealous. Despite being (I like to think) reasonably presentable in real life, in all running photos - and I suspect at all times when running - my face somehow looks like a sweatier, more gormless version of Father Dougal.
PS: Bob, do you have the same t-shirt as Skinny but in a less fast colour?
And Tommy - I believe some universities have actual qualifying competitions to audition people for the team. Mine just had my friend Claire saying 'do you want to be on University Challenge? They want some postgrads'.
Never watched Father Ted - Is this one Father Dougal?
Am being busy and important right now. I might dredge up some photographic evidence when I take a break for lunch.
My race T was from Brampton to Carlisle 10 mile race a few years ago - doubt Bob did that race although the pre printed T may be the same - Bob's colour does look VERY slow though - I think you need to upgrade that to something a little faster.
Still think you're both missing an opportunity to shave off precious grams with those long shorts and big flappy sleeves. Maybe you should get the scissors out and hack a few inches off?
This is me before it all went horrible wrong. Note that I am clearly going faster than the man behind in big t-shirt & long shorts, even though he is wearing speedy yellow.
Found the article
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/how-did-manchester-get-so-good-at-university-challenge-fingers-on-the-buzzers-please-8583016.html
Lit - you're right, they have a 'rigorous selection procedure'.
So yellow is the fastest colour but is top trumped by white, if white is a vest and not a t-shirt. I wear a blue vest for races, maybe this is where I'm going wrong?
A yellow vest would probably trump everything. I was wearing yellow shoes though.
Is neon yellow faster than non-neon yellow?
Re grams - I decided to shave my hair just before race day - just its normal cut but it was due. Like a true saddo I wondered how many grammes I had saved so weighed the removed hair on the scales - 0 grammes was the answer
I also decided not to wear my usual race sunglasses (which I used to wear even if not sunny) on the grounds that they must weigh something and therefore would slow me down.
I think racing shoes, no underpants, racing top with no sleeves and micro shorts could probably see me go sub 1:20!
(that would only leave reducing the size of the safety pins and circumcision as the remaining weight savers!)
Tommy - blue - ugh, that is horribly slow
Someone on the P&D thread last year shaved his legs and his chest pre-race.
Pubes?
Did they get a PB?
He didn't mention pubes, and no, sadly he didn't get a PB.
Oh! Maybe that was why not!
Interesting turn of conversation.
All I can find on the rubber ring for gurning: http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-gur1.htm Though apparently it's actually a horse collar!
Lit - A photo of some poor bloke in a wheelchair desperately trying to get away from a thumbnail sized mad woman crazily weaving from side-to-side does nothing to prove your presentability or otherwise to the masses.
Race gear - I have both an orange and (Skinny-esque) yellow version of that particular t-shirt. Also have a less loud white with blue trimming version that I've since acquired, as well a couple of race participant technical t's I've picked up along the way, and, what I usually now race in, my club shirt. In attempt to prove to the world just how puny my 'guns' are, I have also had a club vest on order since July that I'm still waiting for too!
As for the shorts - they are my race shorts, I've a much baggier version than those that I sometimes wear in training. I wouldn't want to go much shorter...I also like to race sans underpants, and nobody wants to witness the emergence of 'the python'.
Oh, and re: shaving, I've also recently been running facially hirsute a la Steve Ovett's occasional (late 70s?) want. Perhaps this is costing me valuable seconds? Cannon Hill's back on for Saturday, so perhaps I should get the razor out...
Here's a pic of me looking fresh at the finish of Warwick HM earlier this year. Very slow club colours and even slower long sleeves.(Ignore the "Copyrighr" plastered across it. I'm sure that's not important.
Lit - re UC team. Clear case of 'its not what you know but who you know'.
Skinny - Disappointingly I'm unable to see the first MoBot picture. Second one is good though; you look like a proper athlete. btw That's Father Jack.
Shaving legs & chest (& no doubt pubes) is symptomatic of the pornification of running. Where will it end?
Also note the stopping of the stop watch well before the line. The girl behind (Lou's regular nemesis has noted this and is about to give him a good chicking).
Not a mistake any man should make:
Not the most flattering of me (classic finish line gurner) but I think I've made my point. By the way, there was no actual contact.
Lou - the only photos that work are the ones with Cumbrian Run logo on - so although there are 4 photos only two of them enlarge - one of each so you should be able to see Mobot.
Obviously your photo hasn't pasted properly and due to reference to sleeves it must be different to McF's.
McF - so that is a photo of you chicking MrD while he stops his watch on the line? Do you have that framed on your side of the bed?
Oh - sorry photo of Lou has appeared now and he looks very differnet to the other photo so that's obviously not him your passing.
You just mean two different men making same mistake.
I never make that mistake - that's why I never know what time I've run
Skinny - I think Mr D has more hair. Lou's photo is of him about to be chicked by some girl in pink, and McFlooze's photo is of her shoving some other unfortunate bloke out of the way on her finishing rampage. Is that right, McF?
I can see Lou's?
No, my picture is of me chicking someone else. There is only one recorded instance of me chicking Mr D in a race. And he was injured so doesn't count. Although I DID have Larygngitis
That's right, Lit. I DO like a fast finish. But I was just squeezing by in a lady-like fashion. I may even have squeaked, "Excuse me" as I chicked him. He did bark, "Where the f*** did you come from". It's the stealth finish line over-take manouevre that I seem to be developing a specialism in.
From the still frame there are two possibilities.
1) You are holding in your right side to squeeze past him.
2) You are drawing back your right side ready to push out at him with all your might and send him sprawling into the turf.
I suppose we will have to accept your version is the truth.
Right - work time.
Ha ha just remembered the interclub race. Good job I didn't submit my initial response - what with there being no edit facility and all.
Anyone thinking about stopping their watch before the line deserves (sorry Lou!) to be stomped past - good work, McFlooze. Comin' thruuuuuuuuuuuu.
Always run through the line before hitting watch buttons - often the lap button in my case as my brain's so scrambled from exhaustion that I forget which one to press!
Such as... http://connect.garmin.com/activity/371065566
I assume the brief further spike in pace after I'd finished the race was the pace at which I collapsed from upright to horizontal on to the grass verge by the side of the track...
P.S. Look at that daft pace the Garmin thinks I was doing as I hit the line...just need to extend the (supposed) pace of those final 2 seconds over another 3:40ish and Hicham El Gerrouj can eat my shorts.
Bob - was not proposing to prove the 'presentable' part, more the 'fat sweaty gormless running face' part. Though I don't think I have anything to rival McFlooze's finish line gurn.