• Tagging is easy. Just copy the following onto your post.
• The rules of the game are posted at the start of your blog post.
• In this case, I'm asking you five questions about running.
• Each player answers the five questions on their own blog.
• At the end of your post you tag five other people and post their names.
• Go to their blogs and leave a comment on their blogs telling them they've been tagged and to look at your blog for details.
• When they've answered the questions on their own blog, they come back to yours

1. How would you describe your running 10 years ago?

Sporadic. I was a good runner in my youth but discovered Smirnoff (and any other brand of alcohol) and went from a skinny wee boy to a fat rugby playing beer swilling physical mess. Still fit for rugby and my work but not a happy bunny. I ran the three races of the Polaroid series in 1996 with one of my probationers from work (I was then a police sergeant) We ran about 52 mins at helensburgh, 49 at Dumbarton and after 10 days hard drinking had a nightmare at the Vale. No Clydebank race in those days. The next target was to have been the Glasgow 1/2 marathon but I ended up in hospital with a very swollen knee due to overtraining and hat was the end of my running career for a few years. It got going again when my 12 year old joined West Dunbartonshire and I started coaching, officiating, and training to keep up with the kids. then JogScotland got started and the rest as they say....... My son is now 22 and no longer an athlete. He is running again but won't go out with me until he can keep up!



2. What is your best and worst run/race experience?
Best was this years London Marathon, my first 26 miler but definitely not my last. Tough but the atmosphere, organisation and sense of achievement were immense.
Worst? Any run where I'm not in the mood. I especially hate the Clydebank leg of the Polaroid 10k series. The course is so small I feel I'm going round in circles. I've DNF'd twice on it. The good news is that when the Riverside project is finished Davie Kennedy plans on moving it over there. Hurry up and finish it!


3. Why do you run?
It was my sport as a kid. I ran about 2.03 for 800m (or was it 880 yards!) but as I said earlier bright lights, big city (small town) etc ended any prospect of my being Olympic Champ.
I always turned to running when a) I needed to lose weight or b) I was struggling to climb stairs. I then started to train and race in order to maintain some level of credibility with the athletes I was coaching at West Dunbartonshire, and then to keep up with some of the ladies at the jogging group. Now I'm obsessed with the sport, but I could do with some motivation as, since London I've found it hard to get to a level of fitness I think is appropriate. Maybe a lay off will help.
4.What is the best or worst piece of advice you've been given about running?

Worst: It's all about hard work. It isn't. There must be recovery time as it's not the training that gets you fit, it's the process whereby the body breaks down under the stress of training and then recovers to a point where it gets stronger. The best running I've done is since I stopped racing younger athletes and started training with slower athletes as well as some who can push me slightly harder, without pushing too hard.
Best advice: Don't look at the top of the hill!


5. Tell us something surprising about yourself that not many people would know.
I don't drink! Not for a long time, although I lapsed last year for a couple of days.
I was once a DJ and was the first in Scotland to play Una Paloma Blanco, after my sister brought it home from Benidorm.
I have the Chief Constables High Commendation for stupidly tackling a mentally ill man armed with a knife. (He tried to stab me and I wasn't having that!)


So that is that. I don't know many people who Blog so I'm tagging Steph